Hope for Life Blog

I discovered this the day I tried to print a document that had all the titles in a gray border.  I tried three times, and every time I got all the black and white but none of the gray.  I know that by now some of you have figured out that my color cartridge was out.  Correct, though I still cannot figure out why you need a color cartridge for gray.  This experience also reminded me that this is how some people think Christianity is.

They believe that we live our lives by some ironclad list of do’s and don’ts.  There are people who think that is what the Bible is – a list of rules, everything being black and white.  This leads to some wrong assumptions about Christianity.  There are those who think they could never follow such a list so why try.  Others think the Bible is not relevant because it does not have a black and white list for every situation in today’s world.  Then there are those who try living Christianity by a set of rules and just get frustrated because they cannot find the rules or cannot follow the ones they do think they have found.

This is not Christianity.  The Bible is not a list of rules.  We are not expected to memorize hundreds of rules so we will know what to do in every situation.  That would not require any emotion, just a photographic mind and strong willpower.  Christianity is a matter of the heart.  Yes, Jesus does ask us to live a lifestyle different than the world around us, and he gives us guidelines to know how to do that.  Let me share the three most important.

1.  Love God with everything you have.  Jesus said this was the greatest command.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus said this was the second greatest command.
3. Follow the steps of Jesus.  The Bible says Jesus left us an example so we could follow in his steps.

These principles will help you decide what to do in any situation you encounter as a Christian.  And these principles are about love.

Blessings,

steve

My wife and I were watching television the other night and the show was set in a hospital.  It had a strong storyline; the doctors were all very caring and even good looking.  But something just did not seem real to me.  It wasn’t that I have never been in a hospital.  I have had lots of family and friends who have been in the hospital and the sets looked real enough.  It was not that I do not know caring Doctors.  I do.  I know lots of them in fact.  I even know some good looking Doctors, though not as many as the show had.

I watched the television doctors speak to the lonely family member sitting by themselves in the waiting room.  I saw them be the one their patient turned to when they were scared and emotionally vulnerable.  I even watched while these actors sit in the room with a patient because they had no one else.  And that’s when it hit me.  That was what seemed so unreal to me.  I did not relate to the loneliness or the pain of having no one with you in a time of crisis.

My experience has always been one of waiting rooms full of family and friends; of visitor sign-in sheets full of names, and lots of support.  I see many people asking what they can do, baby sitting children, bringing food when people are released, crying together, holding hands, praying together.  But I know there are people who are alone in those times.  They do not have the support groups I am used to seeing.  So I began to wonder why.

It is not that I or my friends are nicer or more popular than other people.  It is that I am part of a community of faith that believes we are family.  So we show up for each other.  We help each other.  We care for each other.  I am there for them.  And they are there for me.

So it leads to the question:  who will be at the hospital with you? 

Blessings,

steve

He knew the answer before he asked the question. He was one of the outstanding Hebrew scholars of his time, noted author, recognized speaker, leader, prisoner and eventually martyr for a religious cause.

His treatise is a letter he sent to Christians in the city of Rome and it is in the eighth chapter that he poses the question and notes that no external influence can cause separation.

Yet Paul, the Apostle, knew the whole answer which began in Moses’ book of Genesis, in Chapter 3 when God asks of His creation “where are you?”, Adam was afraid for he had disobeyed the Lord God and hid himself. The answer was finalized by the visionary prophet Isaiah when God used his pen say:

“Your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” Isa 59:2

The question remains, who can separate us from the love of God? And the answer is—we can when we choose not to follow his ways. We can when we disobey his rules for living. We can when we hide behind our habitual sin. We can when we decide to be unholy and unworthy.
But, if we choose to allow Jesus to redeem us, save us, make us Holy, affirm that we are worthy—Then NOTHING can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Sooooo.. Are you separated from God?

Why have you chosen to be so distant from Him?

Are you like Adam, having disobeyed God that you have hidden yourself from him?

Several years ago I started swimming at the YMCA because I was out of shape. A few weeks later, I stopped swimming at the YMCA. For the same reason.

As I churned my way from one side of the pool to the other, I was keenly aware of the other swimmers. As I reached the edge of the pool, I would latch onto the side, fighting to catch my breath. They reached the edge, performed picture-perfect flip turns and continued their swim. Lap after lap. My workouts were painful to perform and even more painful to watch. The others seemed to glide through the water with no effort, their trained bodies moving gracefully from one end to the other. In other words, I was embarrassed. To be honest, none of them cared what I was doing. But I was shamed into retreating to the safety of the treadmills and recumbent bicycles. “Once I get into shape,” I told myself, “I’ll return to the pool.”

Many of us feel like that when we go to church or when we think about going to church. Everyone else seems to be so perfect while we’re painfully aware of our inadequacies. Some don’t even want to think about God for the same reason. We want to somehow get our lives together, and then we’ll go to Him. If you’ve felt that way, you need to realize that church is a place where people go to straighten out their lives. At the time of Jesus, many said, “Become worthy, then come to God.” Jesus’ message was just the opposite: “Come to God, and He will make you worthy.” God is in the business of fixing broken lives. Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” He’s looking for the people that need help spiritually, not the people whose lives are already perfect.

If you don’t feel “good enough” to swim in God’s pool, let me invite you to get back in the water. God wants to help me get into shape spiritually, and He wants to do the same for you.

In the New Testament, we read about a church that was very hard-working and careful to defend all the correct teachings. They were quick to expose those that tried to teach mistruths. They had maintained their faith during difficult times. They had done all of these things … yet Jesus told them that if they didn’t change, they could no longer be counted as one of his churches!

Jesus said this to the church in Ephesus: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love” (Revelation 2:4). Just as married couples can lose the romance from their relationship, churches can lose their love. They begin to focus on ritual perfection and doctrinal hairsplitting, and they forget their reason for existence. They lose their first love. Instead of being an organism, Christ’s body, they become an organization. Rules, regulations, and rituals replace relationships. What gets lost along the way is the loving spirit Christians should have.

Jesus rejects empty rules and hollow rituals. That’s not how he envisioned the church, nor what he will allow his churches to be. The church must be a community of love, characterized by a fervent love of God and of fellow man. It is to be an accepting place, not accepting intentional error, but accepting imperfect people.

If you haven’t found the church to be this way, don’t give up! There are churches out there who remember their first love and continue to live it. There are Christians who work every day at becoming more like Jesus.

If you are a Christian but have forgotten what you are supposed to be about, it’s not too late. Jesus said to these Christians in Revelation 2: “Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:5). We can go back to our first love, living out that love in our daily lives. We can replace empty ritual with a fulfilling life of love. We can return to being the body of Christ.

The church is an organism, not an organization. It is fueled by love, following the God that is love. We must never forget.