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Love Is Kind

Love Is Action, Not Abstraction

SYNOPSIS: More than anything else right now, this world needs to be infused with massive doses of kindness, and no other group of people is more equipped to lead the way in flooding Planet Earth with kindness than Christ’s followers. In fact, just about the only currency the Christian community has these days to impact culture is acts of compassion wrapped in genuine kindness. Transforming our culture will not happen by Christians gaining political power or imposing their collective will; neither by cursing the darkness nor by leveraging enormous resources, but by modeling love dressed as simple acts of kindness in the common spaces of life—offering an encouraging word to a friend, humbly serving the poor, giving undivided attention to the marginalized, and last but certainly not least, unconditionally forgiving those who have offended. If we started a revolution of kindness we could change the world!

Making Love Work // 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Among the many expressions the Apostle Paul uses to describe and define agape—that is, the kind of love that characterizes God himself—one of the most profound of his descriptions is that love is kind. I will say it again: love is kind.

Think for a moment where kindness begins: God’s loving-kindness to you. And that is precisely where your kindness toward others is rooted—in God’s kindness. Romans 3:23-24 tells us,

All of us have sinned…yet now God declares us ‘not guilty’ of offending Him if we trust in Jesus Christ, who in His kindness freely takes away all our sins. (LB)

Simply because He is kind, God has wiped clean your record. There’s no condemnation if you put your faith in Christ. That is good news! Consider this: Even before you were born, God already knew every evil, mean and nasty thing you would say and do. Yet He still made you and He still loves you, and He still sent Jesus to die in your place.

That is the kindness of God, and that is precisely why Paul said in Ephesians 4:32,

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

You can take a giant step toward a harvest of the kindness fruit in your life (after all, kindness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit) by forgiving people who have offended you. And that is precisely your assignment today—mine, too: Go down the list of offended, estranged, or strained relationships, and simply, unconditionally, fully and personally forgive them—even if they don’t deserve it! Jesus said in Luke 6:35,

Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

There is simply no more compelling witness than God’s kindness on display through you. Romans 2:4 asks, “Can’t you see that God’s kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” God’s kindness toward you, even though you have sinned against Him, draws you back to Him. And so it is that the kindness you demonstrate by forgiving those who have sinned against you will be the very thing that draws them back into a restored relationship with you—and perhaps even God if they have wandered from Him.

Love is the most powerful force for good in the universe. When you are kind, you transform love the noun into a verb—love becomes an action, not an abstraction. Arguably, love clothed as kindness is the most powerful force on earth, precisely because most people know very little about genuine kindness.

More than anything else right now, our world needs massive doses of kindness, and Christ-followers ought to lead the way modeling it. We have the power to change a life, a community, a nation—not by gaining political power, not by imposing our will, not by cursing the darkness, not by giving away enormous resources—but by love dressed as simple acts of kindness, again, not the least of which is through forgiveness.

Let’s start a revolution of kindness—let’s change the world!

Take A Moment: With whom do you need to demonstrate kindness today? And what expression of kindness will be most meaningful to them—forgiveness, an encouraging word, an act of service, giving them your undivided attention? Give them a gift of kindness and so show yourself to be a true child of your infinitely kind Father in Heaven.

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Of Filthy Rags, Transformed Hearts, and God’s Stunning Grace

My Hope is Built on Nothing Less than Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness

SYNOPSIS: Do you worry a little—or a lot—about being righteous and morally perfect before God? Well, relax! First off, you can’t, and second, Jesus did it for you. You can’t gain what you’ve already been given. God accepts Christ’s efforts on your behalf as good enough, so you don’t have to be good enough. All you have to do is accept it, believe it, and conform your life to it! In other words, live the rest of your life as one unrepayable debt of gratitude to God for His grace. Now that we’ve settled that, remember that it is not only by grace that we are saved, it is also by grace that we can live the saved life! So, go live like it!

Moments With God // Claim: Romans 10:9-10

That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

You cannot be saved by your good works. Period! No matter how hard you try, your “good” is not good enough for the perfectly holy and completely righteous God. Nor can you be saved through an alternative, less stringent means, for only through God is eternal salvation possible.

Moreover, you cannot be saved by your moral perfection—no matter how moral you are or how close to moral you get. As the Old Testament prophet Isaiah pointed out, your righteousness is about as good as a “snot rag”. (Isaiah 64:6). I have actually cleaned that up a bit, because the Hebrew words for filthy rags, ukabeged ehdim, according to some scholars, literally means, “like as rags of menstruation.”

Sorry if that disgusts you, but it’s Scripture—so blame Isaiah. The point is, both our acts of righteousness and the quality of righteousness that we hope they produce, are disgusting to God. So if you are disgusted by Isaiah’s language, think of how God is repulsed by our efforts to get him to save us.

So what hope is there for our salvation? Well, no hope resides within us. None whatsoever. Ephesians 2:1 says, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” All a dead person can do is lay there and be dead, let alone try to be righteous before God.

No, our righteousness—and let’s be clear, we do have to be righteous to be acceptable to God—comes from Christ alone. You see, God sent his Son to die on the cross—hanging there as our sin—in order to pay the just punishment for sin that we deserved. That is our only hope, that Jesus became sin—our sin—and in so doing, he likewise became our righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says it well,

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

How dishonoring to God’s grace and Christ’s atonement when we, therefore, try to save ourselves by our acts of righteousness and our efforts at moral perfection. The sooner we realize that the sooner we will discover salvation by grace alone through faith, as Paul spoke about in Philippians 3:8-9,

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them [our best efforts] rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

It is only through the power of Christ’s resurrection and our death to self (“becoming like him in his death…” Phil 3:10-11) that our heart—the core of who we are, that which represents every fiber of our existence—will get transformed. And it is out of a transformed heart, and only that, that our tongue can confess Jesus is Lord.

Then, and only then, are we saved.

As the hymn writer said so simply yet so beautifully, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” So relax about trying to be righteous and morally perfect! Jesus did it for you. God accepts Christ’s efforts on your behalf as good enough, so you don’t have to be good enough. All you have to do is accept it, believe it, and conform your life to it!

Now, in light of what God has done, go live the rest of your life as one unrepayable debt of gratitude to God for His grace.

Take A Moment: Try memorizing and meditating on Romans 10:9-10 each day this week: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.”

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Love Is Patient

Patience Takes The Courage Not To Be Disappointed

SYNOPSIS: In a season filled with division, anger, loss, confusion, and sadness, take a moment to reflect on John 3:16. This single verse reveals the whole Bible; a simple reminder that God transforming love is available to you through Jesus Christ: “God so loved the world” — God so loves you! Today, let God’s love lift you out of your sadness, flood your soul with inexhaustible joy, and set you on a path to the most amazing experience of life possible, which is being an uninterrupted, inextinguishable conduit of God’s love through you to those around you.

Love is patient

Making Love Work // John 3:16-17

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave[a] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Someone has rightly said that love is the most powerful force for good in the universe. Since that is the case, shouldn’t there be a lot more of it floating around these days? Sadly, that is not the case. Oh, there is evidence of love here and there, but much of the world is not saturated in it. And frankly, that can be quite discouraging.

For that reason, I would encourage you to take some time this week to reflect on the highest, most dynamic force of love in existence: God’s love. In this season filled with division, anger, loss, confusion, and sadness, take a moment to reflect on the greatest proclamation of God’s love ever made—John 3:16-17,

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. (The Message)

This single verse reveals the whole Bible; a simple reminder that God transforming love is available to you through Jesus Christ: “God so loved the world” — God so loves you!

Today, let God’s love lift you out of your sadness, flood your soul with inexhaustible joy, and set you on a path to the most amazing experience of life possible, which is being an uninterrupted and inextinguishable conduit of God’s love through you to those around you.

But let’s take it a step further and describe what the Bible says God’s love flowing through you to others ought to look like. Nowhere is there a clearer, more compelling description of what God expects His love to look like as it is translated through your life than in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7,

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Once a week over the next several weeks, I want to break Paul’s description of love down word-by-word, beginning with this: Love is patience.

Have you lost patience with difficult people in your life lately? Are you fed up with what’s become of your church in these exhausting days of Covid-19 regulations? Are you discouraged by godless and incompetent leaders ruining your nation? If you are, then join the very large and growing company of the impatient.

But listen, God’s plans for the people in your life, His purposes for your church, and His timing for dealing with this evil world are in His control—not yours. If for no other reason, that’s why you need to practice patience. It’s really a matter of your trust and obedience to God. Paulo Coelho notes, “The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” Yes indeed—trust and obedience is the secret sauce to gaining and maintaining patience. Said another way, Luc de Clapiers observes,

Patience is the art of hoping.

So put your hope in God (Psalm 42:5) by making the deliberate choice to be a continual conduit or His patient love.

That will not be an easy assignment, but the God of love is counting on you to be patient love’s exemplar.

Take A Moment: With whom has your love grown impatient? You can begin to reclaim patience in that relationship by praying for them more than you gripe about them, and by specifically lifting up offerings of gratitude for them.

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My Days Are Numbered

God Is In Charge Of Me!

SYNOPSIS: How many days do I have left on Planet Earth? I don’t know. No one does, except God. He knows the exact number of years, days, hours, and seconds that I will occupy my address in this world; the exact moment that my death will occur. But here’s what I do know: God planned me, built me, watches over me, can steer me back on track when I wander, will keep me safe until the Divinely allotted numbers of days ordained for me are up, and then take me to the next life He has prepared for me. My life will be over when He says it’s over — and I’m okay with that!

Moments With God // Claim: Psalm 139:16

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Will you live a long and healthy life? How many days do you have left? How will it end for you? You don’t know. No one does, except God. He knows the exact number of years, days, hours, and seconds that you will occupy your address on Planet Earth; the exact moment that death will come for you.

Now that may not seem like a cheery thought to you, and in fact, most people would find that sobering, at best, and frightening, at worst. Not me. I find great comfort and security in knowing that God has my life so ordered that I will neither die a day sooner nor live a day longer than what has already been recorded in His book. You see, matters of life and death are far above my pay grade, so I will happily let Father God take care of that department, thank you very much.

When I truly and correctly understand this profound truth, then I will be set free from the fear of death to fully live the life that God has planned for me. I can enjoy an intimate walk with the One

• Who was intimately involved in each minor detail of my day (Psalm 139:1-4)
• Who never lets me out of His sight (Psalm 139:5-8)
• Who guides my every move with His Fatherly hand (Psalm 139:9-10)
• Who is not limited by my circumstances (Psalm 139:11-12).

In fact, God is so involved in my life that He was even there at the moment my mother and father conceived me in love, and He superintended even the most infinitesimal details of my physiological and temperamental formation.

God knows me! He knows everything about me. He planned me, built me, watches over me, can steer me back on track when I wander from His purpose (Psalm 139:23-24), can be completely trusted to keep me safe until the Divinely allotted numbers of days ordained for me are up, and then take me to the next life that He has prepared for me.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand” (Psalm 139:6, NLT), but it won’t keep me from enjoying this day and praising the One who is in charge of it!

Take A Moment: Throughout the day, declare, “God is in charge of me!” Then live like it’s true—because it is!

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Every Breath You Take

Each One Is A Gift From God

SYNOPSIS: I take 23,040 breaths each day and will breathe in and breathe out the breath of life 8,409,600 this coming year. God willing, that will be over 8 million gifts of life from my Creator in 2022, who will have graciously and mercifully supplied every single one. If I have no other cause to offer thanks to God this year, I will still have at least 8,409,600 reasons. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

New Beginnings // Claim: Genesis 2:7

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

If you have begun a “Through the Bible in One Year” program, you likely started in Genesis 1. And in the midst of many extraordinary aspects of the creation account, as you come into chapter 2, you find this amazing verse in Genesis 2:7,

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.

Interestingly, the phrase “breath of life” is used twenty-four times in the Old Testament and it not found in other ancient literary creation accounts. In the Book of Job, this phrase is plainly connected to the Spirit of God:

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4)

Into every human being, God deposits something of Himself. While all living creatures have breath, which gives them life, they do not have the living Spirit of God as do humans. Among other things, this makes human life sacred above all the different life forms. What a special gift: God has implanted His very breath, His Spirit, in you and me.

Now I don’t know how you react to that, but for me, it causes gratitude for the Creator’s gift of life to well up and overflow from within me. God didn’t have to form man out of the dust of the ground as the highest, most treasured work of creation, but He did. O, how he must love us! And again, I am simply undone with thanks for the amazing gift of life.

Fundamental to a life of gratitude is the recognition that even my very breath is a gift from my Creator.

I take 23,040 breaths each day and will breathe in and breathe out the breath of life 8,409,600 this coming year. If I live to be 80 years of age, I will have taken about 672,768,000 gifts of life from God, who has graciously, mercifully supplied every single one.

If I had no other cause to offer thanks to God today, I would still have 23,040 reasons. Tomorrow is a whole different matter!

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Of course, authentic gratitude requires that I demonstrate it in how I live. It is not truly thanksgiving unless it becomes “thanksliving.” I love how Philip James Bailey puts it:

Let each man think himself an act of God,
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God;
And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds,
To show the most of Heaven he hath in him.

That is my glad assignment for this day through every 23,040 breaths that I will take: to show the most of Heaven that I have in me.

I hope you will join me.

Take A Moment: 23,040 breaths today—23,040 reasons for gratitude. How many offerings of praise can you offer up to the Breath of Life over the next twenty-four hours?

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God Has Befriended You

SYNOPSIS: As you celebrate New Year’s Day—and the new opportunities lie ahead—take a moment to envision what it means to have God as your friend in 2022. Since he has graciously befriended you, what difference does that—should that—make in how you approach your work, how you make your plans, how you handle your fears, how you manage your emotions, and in an all-inclusive sense, how you do life? Obviously, it should make all the difference! My friend, since God is for you, who or what can be against you!

Moments With God // Claim: Romans 8:31-32

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

One of my favorite hymns—yeah, I still love them—was written by the German composer, Joachim Neander in the 1600s. It still resonates with worshipers of all ages some 400 years later. I particularly relish this line in the fourth verse,

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do, if with His love He befriends thee.

Think about that for a moment—it will change your day, not to mention the New Year ahead. As a matter of fact, it will change the trajectory of the rest of your life. The only thing I would change in this otherwise magnificent hymn is the one little word in the second line, “if.” For me, and anyone else who has been redeemed by God’s marvelous grace, that word rather should be, “since”! “If” speaks of possibility, “since” reflects reality!

God has indeed befriended us, amazing as that sounds. If you are having trouble grasping that, go back and read the entirety of Romans 8. What you will find there are some jaw-dropping realities of what God has already done for you through Christ Jesus. Not the least of which is simply yet powerfully this: God has clearly and deliberately stated that he is for you! And, as Paul logically concludes, since that is true, nothing and no one can be against you.

Does that sound like someone has overpromised you something? If it were simply another human being making that claim, I would be suspicious of their ability to deliver on that pledge. But keep in mind the One declaring this vow to you is God himself! And here is the Almighty’s certification: He offered Jesus, literally, through his virgin birth, sinless life and sacrificial death, as the guarantee that his promise is 100% good.

Now since it is firmly established that you and I are friends of the Almighty, the realities of blessing, protection, provision, success, and satisfaction in the days, months, and year to come, along with eternity for that matter, are unlimited—limited only by our unbelief.

So, indeed, take a moment to ponder anew what it means to walk in moment-by-moment friendship with your Almighty Father. I guarantee this: it will make all your future moments a whole lot brighter.

Praise to the Lord,
The Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him,
For He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord,
Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings,
Yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen
How all your longings have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness
And mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord,
O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen
Sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Yes, for gladly we adore Him. How could we not!

Take A Moment: As you celebrate New Year’s Day—and the new opportunities lie ahead—take a moment to envision what it means to have God as your friend. Since he has graciously befriended you, what difference does that—should that—make in how you approach your work, how you make your plans, how you handle your fears, how you manage your emotions and in an all-inclusive sense, how you do life? Obviously, it should make all the difference! As a reminder, write on a 3×5 card: God is my friend! Now for the next week, tape that card to your mirror so that you see every morning before you leave for the day and every evening before you go to sleep that God is for you.

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The Place of Testing – The Place for Trusting

God May Break You Down To Build You Up

Testing—the place in your life where every supporting prop gets kicked out from beneath you. It is where you end up when you thought you were going to do great things for God, or have a great family, or have a successful career, and it becomes clear that things are not working out the way you’d dreamed. It will likely be the most frustrating period in your life—but in hindsight, it will turn out to be the most fruitful. That’s because the place of testing and tearing down is also the place of forging and rebuilding. As an unknown poet said, it is the place where you are, “pressed into knowing no helper but God.” And there is no better place.

The Journey // Focus: 1 Samuel 21:10-15, 2:1

David escaped from Saul and went to King Achish of Gath. But the officers of Achish were unhappy about his being there. “Isn’t this David, the king of the land?” they asked. “Isn’t he the one the people honor with dances, singing, ‘Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” David heard these comments and was very afraid of what King Achish of Gath might do to him. So he pretended to be insane, scratching on doors and drooling down his beard. Finally, King Achish said to his men, “Must you bring me a madman? We already have enough of them around here! Why should I let someone like this be my guest?” So David fled to the cave of Adullam.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) That is the fun part of being a Christ-follower.

Jesus also said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) That is the not-so-fun part of being a Christ-follower. Yet ultimately, it is the most rewarding part of walking with Jesus.

Before the Son of David revealed those paradoxical views of life in his kingdom, David experienced a long, painful, even brutal season in the cross-bearing mode that Jesus described. God, in preparing David to one day lead Israel as king, was stripping him of every human dependency until David had no other reliance than God himself. You and I will have a season like that, too. And like David, that season will find Jesus breaking us down so he can build us up into the kind of people he desires us to be. Going through that process means he will strip us of every misplaced dependency.

You see, the good things in life can be a barrier to the great things that God has for us. So God removes them. Deuteronomy 8:3 goes on to say, “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from God’s mouth.”

In David’s case, it took ten years of tearing down as one-by-one, all of the good things he’d once relied on got stripped away. Over the course of several chapters in 1 Samuel, God stripped David’s of just about everything:

  • David lost his position. Overnight David went from Israel most popular figure to national pariah.
  • David lost his wife. He had married King Saul’s daughter, Michal, but when David fled, Saul married her off to another man.
  • David lost his mentor. About the time all of this upheaval took place, Samuel died. So David lost his job, his family, and now he loses his spiritual mentor—the one who’d anointed and prepared him to one day be Israel’s king.
  • David lost his best friend. If losing his job, wife, and mentor wasn’t enough, he lost Jonathan. He was the one who had stood up to his own father, King Saul, risking his life to protect David. He warned David to flee, but since Jonathan was bound by loyalty to his troubled father, he could no longer see David. So these spiritual soul-mates parted ways, never to see each other again in life.
  • David lost his country. At the end of 1 Samuel 21, David is so desperate, with nowhere to hide, that he flees to Gath, the capital city of Israel’s arch-enemy, the Philistines, and home to the now-dead Philistine hero, Goliath. That’s how bad it got — David’s now seeking refuge in Gath among Goliath’s people.
  • David lost his dignity. Finally, there in Gath, he reached the bottom: “When David realized that he had been recognized, he panicked, fearing the worst from King Achish.” (1 Samuel 21:13)

So right there, while the Philistine officers were looking at David, he pretended to go crazy, pounding his head on the city gate and foaming at the mouth, spit dripping from his beard. Achish took one look at him and said to his servants, “Can’t you see he’s crazy? Why’d you let him in here? Don’t you think I have enough crazy people to put up with as it is without adding another? Get him out of here!” (1 Samuel 21:14-15)

David, expecting to be king with a kingdom, ends up on the lamb with no position, no people, no pastor, no partner, no pride—and no prospect that it would ever be different—stripped of every dependency.

Testing—the place in your life where every supporting prop gets kicked right out from beneath you. It is where you end up when you thought you were going to do great things for God, or have a great family, or have a successful career, and it becomes clear that things are not working out the way you had dreamed.

For David, it was the most frustrating period in his life—but in hindsight, it turned out to be the most fruitful. That is because the place of testing and tearing down is also the place of forging and rebuilding. As an unknown poet said that it is the place where you are, “pressed into knowing no helper but God.”

Pressed into knowing no helper but God—that’s what happened to David. Through the discipline of that difficult season in his life, God was convincing David that God was his true source, and that was the one thing David would need to be a great king.

God is teaching you how to “king it” too! It is no fun at all, but it is the only way to become incredibly fruitful. And though we wouldn’t choose it for ourselves, thank God that he chooses to tear us down to build us up!

Going Deeper: Are you going through a season of stripping? This may be a good time to simply say “thank you” as an act of trust and faith.