The nature of love

Today, my church conducted a poignant and deeply contemporary Good Friday service. It was the kind of hip, emotional programme that really affected me as a teenager - complete with moody lighting, heartfelt music, and dramatic art. It was incredibly well done. Interspersed between each section were short, pointed messages by each of my church's English pastors.

JOHN 3:16 (KJV)

16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The service provided plenty of time for prayer and reflection, and sharply reminded me of God's love for us. In the final moments, our head pastor imparted four key responses: Accept God's love. Guard that love. Feed off of that love. Share that love.

This simple message struck a powerful chord with me. As school and life have swirled around me, I have predominantly allowed my walk of faith to coast upon that which I had already established. No longer did I have time for quiet times and scripture readings. I believe in God, and I accept his love, but I simply didn't have time to grow.

God's love is immense, so much so that he took on flesh and died for the forgiveness of our sins in accordance with scripture. How should we respond to this love? We should return it. Reciprocate it. Our love, like God's love, should be an active love - a growing love.

I need to return to a life of devotion and faithfulness, to rekindle the light of joy and love in my own heart. If you happen to find yourself in my shoes today, I hope you will too.

...

Postscript: I recognize too that after walking out of an emotionally charged event or service, it is easy for each of us to have an emotional response. The challenge for us then is to examine that response, and if it is valid, to translate it to more than just a tugging on our emotional heartstrings but a commitment by our soul.

God of our understanding

As part of my community health course at school, I've been spending quite a bit of time attending sessions at or related to Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is a pretty unique program geared toward helping alcoholics overcome their addiction. It's laid out as a twelve-step process, supported by other alcoholics. Abstinence to AA is a lifelong and life-changing road. Recipients of the fruits of the program in turn give back what they have gained through sponsorship of other alcoholics, their time, and their commitment.

To AA, recovery is a spiritual process requiring a "psychic change" or radical shift in the way an alcoholic perceives the world (a Christian might call their initial state a "hardened heart"). It requires that they accept that they alone are not in control of their addiction and require a power outside themselves. The often controversial third step of the twelve step program is as follows...

[We made] a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

The words "as we understood him" are key to modern AA practice. While AA claims to be a spiritual organization, it does not purport to be a religious one. Today, the "God of our understanding" signifies a power beyond ourselves. Some people understand this to be the God of a particular religion, others a general energy force guiding the universe, and still others attribute this to be the power of the group itself.

This raises a number of interesting issues. Firstly, despite its non-religious underpinnings, AA feels familiarly church-like. Meetings generally begin with a prayer (the Serenity Prayer) and key doctrinal readings to AA (the Twelve Traditions and Twelve Steps). These are followed by announcements and then by a speaker. The meeting welcomes newcomers and then closes with a prayer (often the Lord's Prayer).

THE SERENITY PRAYER

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Despite the recognizable structure (akin to opening prayer, scripture reading, announcements, sermon, welcome and introductions, and closing prayer) and even the recital of Jesus' own prayer, AA is a non-religious entity and will remain so.

Speaking to a fellow believer about the church-like feel of AA meetings, they commented, "It feels kind of incomplete to be approaching so close to the truth, yet to shy away from it."

I understood the sentiment. Alcoholics Anonymous had formed under the auspices of the Christian faith, recognizing the effectiveness of that faith yet with the laser-like focus of attacking alcoholism. But the purpose of AA is to treat alcoholism, not to proselytize for Christ or any particular religion. If faith in one particular God is a barrier to helping others overcome alcoholism, then it cannot be integral to AA. It is our job as the church to spread the good news of Christ.

MATTHEW 28 (NLT)

¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

An interesting dialogue arose during the sharing of an alcoholic at one of the AA sessions I attended. The alcoholic in question was of the impression that God did indeed exist, and he made the following statement:

Religion is man-made.
Spirituality is God-given.

I found this to be an understandable statement, though I disagreed with it. Religion as an institution is man-made, yet the foundation of religion are claims of truth brought to man through revelation. If spirituality is God-given, that is if God exists to share of himself and his nature with us, then it makes sense that God would reveal to us things spiritual. That is what religion is: knowledge about God, and life, and goodness revealed to man through a spiritual interaction with God himself.

JOHN 16 (ESV)

¹² "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵ All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Perplexing, though, was that the same man then followed up with this anecdote:

One day we were going over the third step, and my sponsor said, "Oh, you think I'm going to give my life over to just any God? No, I don't think so. I'm going to write the job description for God. And my God is going to be better than any of your gods. He's going to be omnipotent, omniscient, he's going to have a sense of humour..."

And I thought to myself, that's a great idea. So I took that God as my God. Then I added the most important characteristic of my God: That he loves me and wants nothing bad for me.

Two reactions hit me at the same time. Firstly, this description of the ideal God fit the God of Christianity to a tee. He is omnipotent, omniscient, creative... and he is love!

1 JOHN 4 (NLT)

⁷ Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. ⁸ But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Secondly, by setting out the job description for God, you are setting limits on a being that you already believe exists. That is man-made. If God exists and is empowering you, then imagining your own set of characters for God to possess if futile. God is who God is. I am reminded of the song Who? by the Newsboys:

How we gonna work this out?
To fabricate a God like this no doubt
We'd end up worshipping a Christ of our own design
But Jesus doesn't fit that profile
His ways aren't mine

I'm not following a God that's imagined
Can't invent This deity
That's why Jesus is the final answer
To who I want my God to be
He's who I want my God to be

Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!
God is beyond our understanding or our imagination. Were it not so, how could he be God?

EPHESIANS 3 (NLT)

²⁰ Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. ²¹ Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

I'd like to share one last anecdote. When asked what kind of experiences led him to believe in God, the speaker shared a story of how he had been drunkenly driving one night, speeding toward a motel to get laid. Losing control of the car, he swerved into the opposing lane. If there had been any traffic in the other lane he would have been dead on impact, but luckily he had caught the opposing lane on a red light. This was not the only instance where such an incident occurred. He expressed an inability to explain these blessings without a greater power looking after him.

During the break, when the speaker had exited the room, two of my colleagues began discussing the experience. One began:

Red light? He had a 50/50 chance. What about that 50% that didn't survive to tell the story. God? Come on!

I found this attitude somewhat disconcerting. Sure, there were certain odds at work. (The fact that this had occurred on more than one occasion probably means the he beat the odds by quite a bit!) Certainly, survival does not and cannot prove the hand of God. True, people die everyday. But what this man believed - that he had survived by the grace of God and that he had been in that positive 50% because of the hand of God - true or not, is not ridiculous. It is not impossible. It is not absurd.

ROMANS 8

²⁸And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

God exists. He is unchanging and beyond our capacity for invention. He calls to you and to I. He loves us, and desires to do good to us and through us.

Calling you

I woke up this morning at 10:15 AM. I thought it was strange. On Saturday, I woke up at 1 PM. I'd stayed up late on Friday and Saturday night watching Korean drama online. I had considered skipping church this morning... I was tired, I had studying to do, and church would take a chunk out of my day. But wasn't it strange, waking up so early, without any kind of alarm, after going to bed so late the night before?

If I got up, I should be able to make it to the 11 AM service at my church. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought to myself, Maybe God woke me up at this time. Maybe he's saying, "There, you're up. No excuses." After all, I had burned 14 hours over the past few days watching Korean television. When was the last time I had been riveted for 14 hours by God?

MATTHEW 22 (ESV)

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸This is the great and first commandment."

MATTHEW 6 (ESV)

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

I made it out the door to some of the worst driving conditions this year. I was 30 minutes late for service. I half expected to receive some epiphany - for the sermon to penetrate to my heart. There was no such revelation. But what I did receive, sitting in the same pews that I had sat in for years, was a reminder. A reminder of how little time I spend in prayer with God, reading his Word, and growing closer to him these days. I like to think of myself as having a relatively solid basis for my faith, and yet I had allowed myself to stop dead in my tracks - stalled in my walk.

1 PETER 2 (ESV)

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

It was like a veil had lifted, and I could see again that I was not growing. I was not caring. That I had put my petty day to day life miles ahead of my spiritual walk. It made me feel rather empty. It's not easy to put aside our worldy desires and ambitions and to seek God. A God that we cannot see nor touch. Yet part of us yearns to do so.

It takes work to maintain a daily walk with the Lord, and certainly it is something I continually struggle with. But it is comforting to know that God loves us and is waiting for us, and that he is more than willing to let bygones be bygones when we are ready to resume the trek.

MALACHI 3 (ESV)

^7bReturn to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.

Be strong and courageous

Before Christmas, my school fellowship put together a set of care packages for the needy. They consisted of a Tupperware box, dental floss, a granola bar, socks, and one-size-fits-all gloves. We were supposed to hand them out one weekend, but for one reason or another, the plans did not go through. It was then planned to hand out the boxes over lunch this afternoon during our fellowship meeting - a meeting that I did not make it to. Shortly after lunch, I ran into a couple of the fellowship leaders in the hallway and asked them how the care package delivery went (I noticed they were still holding a few bags of them). They told me that the packages had not actually been delivered and that people were going to deliver them on the way home. Then they asked me if I wanted some.

I was a bit concerned, fearful even. It was one thing to deliver care packages as a group, hiding out at the back and smiling. It was an entirely different matter to deliver them one on one.

"Um..." I hesitated.

"Well, do you ever run into people that ask you for money on the street?" a leader prompted.

"Yes... sometimes," I replied.

"Just give them one of these," they said.

Through a nervous grin I responded, "I don't know if I can handle this responsibility..."

"Here, just take one then," the leader smiled, handing me a package.

I generally tend to think of my gifts as being intellectual, and I enjoy thoughtful discussions about my beliefs with believers and nonbelievers alike. Yet, to approach a needy stranger - it really is a truly Christian act, but one that I found truly frightening.

On my way home, in the subway station, I ran into a homeless person sitting on the ground, hands outstretched. I walked by, then paused and turned back. For a moment, I locked up, and deferred to my natural instinct: I reached into my pocket to fish for coins. I stopped, leaned over, and said, "Actually, my school prepared these care packages with like a scarf and gloves in it... would you like one?"

"Suuuuuure...!" was the woman's enthusiastic reply.

I opened my bag and found the care package, delivering it to her hands. She eyed it with what seemed may have been some disappointment, but then turned back to me with a slight smile, "Thank you."

Locked in nervousness, I thought to myself, If I was fishing in my pocket for coins before... maybe I should better still give her something. So I reached into my pocket, and took out a dollar coin, placing it carefully into her hand. She gave the coin a peculiar look, then thanked me again. I nodded and made some sound of acknowledgement before walking off and resuming my afternoon commute.

Thoughts raced through my head. Should I have stopped and talked longer? What about the coin... did giving the coin cheapen the gift of the care package? Did I offend her? Oh boy, did I say scarf and gloves... it's socks and gloves... what if she is really disappointed by the package because I misinformed her?

Somehow, even though I had performed an act of kindness, I felt like I had performed it with such brevity and awkwardness that I had somehow done the lady a disservice. I pictured all my peers and their warm outreaching attitudes. Still, the lady had accepted, and had appreciated the gift. That was already more positive than some of the stories I had heard about homeless persons accepting gifts. The entire incident had left me with more than a little bit of concern over the preparedness of my heart and body to act as God's hands and feet.

JOSHUA 1 (ESV)

⁹Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

ROMANS 8 (ESV)

³¹What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

God has commanded us to be bold. He has told us not to be afraid. He is with us; he is enabling us. Yet it is such a challenge to step out there and be courageous for God. But this is a command. Trusting in God is a command, and being willing to step beyond our comfort in order to serve God (not merely making ourselves uncomfortable for discomfort's sake) is a matter of obedience.

1 JOHN 3 (NLT)

¹⁷ If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. ¹⁹ Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.

MATTHEW 25 (ESV)

⁴¹"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴²For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

God demands that we love one another, and care for the needy. Our Lord himself identifies with the poor and judges actions accordingly. It can be difficult to know how to help - offering a coin, a listening ear, volunteering... And it is hard to act. But can fear really be an excuse?

This is the question with which I am challenged today.

Politics of Love

Every Sunday, my church prays for a particular country of the world. I think this is a great idea because I believe in the power of prayer, and I like that our church has chosen to pay attention to the world beyond our own borders.

After weeks of praying for countries in Africa and the Middle East, this week's prayer was for the United States of America, and in particular for the upcoming election. It was a delicate prayer asking that God would provide the people of America the wisdom to weigh the issues at hand and also to seek God first. However, the prayer also asked that Americans would pay special attention to issues regarding the "sanctity of human life", the "institution of traditional marriage", and "the cause of religious liberty". This concerned me, but let me explain why.

As a Christian, I know where the Bible stands on issues of marriage and abortion, and I understand that these are relevant issues. God is the author of both marriage and life, and we ought not to damage either.

PSALM 139 (ESV)

¹³For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶Your eyes saw my unformed substance;in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

EPHESIANS 5 (ESV)

³¹"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

But however relevant these issues are, they are not the key issues. Too often, Christians confuse their Christian values with their cultural values. They believe that because conservative politicians are the only ones who land on their side of issues like marriage and abortion, that these politicians represent them (and are the only ones who can represent them). This is false.

Christian values are not conservative values. Jesus tells us that above all, we must love one another. Conservative values are capitalistic, keep-what-you-earn, every-man-for-himself values. Christian values are gentle, giving values of social fairness.

While the Christian concept of marriage cannot and should not change, we must understand that there there exists marriage as a religious institution and also marriage as a social, legal, and secular institution. It does not promote the Good News to antagonize our neighbours over the use of a word.

2 TIMOTHY 2 (NLT)

²³ Again I say, don’t get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights. ²⁴ A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. ²⁵ Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people’s hearts, and they will learn the truth. ²⁶ Then they will come to their senses and escape from the devil’s trap. For they have been held captive by him to do whatever he wants.

Furthermore, governments deal with issues on a national or even global scale. Certainly issues of abortion are relevant, and Christians ought not to participate in having one. But even more important are issues of war, disease,and poverty - being diplomatic and generous in our policy. Indeed, I do believe it is more important to elect a government who will work tirelessly to save the lives of those already grown than one who will outlaw abortion but damn innumerable others to conflict and strife or that will leave the poor and starving to suffer their own fate (as conservatives are often keen to do).

It is of my personal opinion that often conservative politicians do not represent the political policy that Christians should endorse. Like the Pharisees, they make mountains over issues of tradition and rules while ignoring the principles of love and responsibility on which those traditions were first established.

MATTHEW 23 (NLT)

²³ “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. ²⁴ Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!

GALATIANS 5 (NLT)

⁵ But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. ⁶ For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

Do not make politics a single-issue race or assume that conservative means that a candidate will represent Christian values best. Instead, test each politician and their policies with the character of God - justice, mercy, and faith.