Author: oneanotherliving

When she isn't writing, speaking or reading Elaine enjoys golf, tennis, hiking, and vacations to the mountains or the ocean. She enjoys football, watching not playing, and the occasional TV mini-series. A night of games and cards with family and friends is a great delight.

Take This Personally (c)

One of the best known stories is the adulterous woman found in John 8:1-11. This woman was a Jew and obviously living in sin. It is not a stretch to guess adultery was her pattern of life, making it easy for the religious leaders to set her up. It is also not a stretch to guess this moment was the lowest low point of her life and she had every reason to believe her life would end that day. Often in sermons and Bible studies, a great deal of emphasis is given to the hypocrisy of the religious leaders (vs. 6-8) in stark contrast to the grace of Jesus (v. 11), and so it should be. But we must not forget Jesus’ comments to this woman because the whole statement is vital.

Here are the parameters: “I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more.” The first parameter is for us. We are not to condemn the one who is sinning. We are not the Judge. We must use discernment. We must place parameters. But we cannot condemn. We cannot give up. The second parameter is for our difficult one another and for us. I say it is for both because we most likely will be setting the practical parameters for our one another to be able to stop sinning. Believe me, this will not be easy. 

Are we so naïve to think this woman who lived a life of sinful adultery just slipped back into acceptable Jewish behavior and godly living without any setbacks, confrontations, or consequences? Jesus told her she was not condemned. He didn’t tell her there would be no costs. How many Jewish wives do you think trusted her to get within ten feet of their husbands? Do you think she was all of a sudden welcomed at the early morning water gathering group? Or would she still have to come alone to the well in the heat of the day like the Samaritan woman? 

Do we think she was never lonely or longed for a man’s embrace, any man? Was she married? How would her marriage ever heal after this public humiliation even though she was intimately touched by Jesus and His grace? Was there anyone who helped her with the practical side of “sin no more”?

Are we ready and able to set parameters for the one another we love so much? Are we ready to come alongside, whatever that might look like, when she does repent and wants to make things right? Are we ready to allow her to earn our trust again or will we withhold that no matter what she does or says? Do we really want her to live not condemned and sin no more?

We may have to get rid of cable TV and computers to help our spouse combat the power of lust. We may need to drive our child to the Christian rehabilitation farm and walk away as he screams curses at us. We may have to visit our child every Sunday afternoon in the jail visiting room. We may have to change locks or leave the presence of our abuser. 

We may have to limit the time and place we are willing to be in contact with these very difficult one anothers. It will not feel like love and it may not look like it, but it may be the most loving thing we can do for them. Can we do that?

How many times do we have to forgive? You know the answer. We forgive an infinite amount of times. Not because they deserve it, but because they don’t deserve it. We forgive because we know we don’t deserve forgiveness either. We are not condoning their sin when we forgive. We are not forgetting. That is impossible for us. We are not stuffing our pain or minimalizing our suffering. We are simply not condemning. This is how Jesus loves even though He has the right to condemn because He is the righteous Judge. 

This is so excruciatingly hard! We must remember the true battle. The one against our sworn enemy, Satan, can only be won on our knees. He wants your loved one. You must determine that by God’s grace and His almighty power, Satan can’t have them!

 Pray right now for the sinful one another in your life. Pray he or she will come to love God more than they love their sin. Pray for yourself that God will use you and that He will show you when to step out of the way. Then praise His name for what He has already done and for what He will do. Stay on your knees. Do not hurry away. Linger in your Father’s embrace.

Psalm 23: Thriving Sheep

You have anointed my head with oil. 

Psalm 23:5b

Anointing the head with oil is taken seriously in the Bible. It is for specific purposes and administered by specific offices. And those who hold such an official duty must be qualified in their own lives (See James 5:14) to perform this sacred ceremony. It is not something we should participate in flippantly or for show or out of superstition. Anointing the head with oil is an extension of prayer and fasting; it is not a magic trick or bartering with God. It is a sign of God’s extravagant protection, provision and eternal prosperity for His anointed.

David, knew all about having the head anointed with oil. When his own head was anointed by the prophet Samuel, David, the shepherd, knew firsthand the symbolism of such a ceremony. David would have anointed his father’s sheep regularly to ward off insects and disease which could have quickly and painfully disseminated an entire herd. This anointing was not just a “little dab will do ya” either! Oil was poured and rubbed in all over the sheep’s head for its protection and the prosperity of the herd.

As oil dripped down his own face, David would realize the divine protection and authority and comfort covering him not only for his eventual kingship but for the days, which turned into years, leading to his coronation. Surely the myriad of moments in which God protected David and orchestrated his life were on the Psalmist’s mind when he wrote; “You anoint my head with oil.” This reflection of God’s anointing is not just about Samuel’s physical anointing of David, the shepherd. It is a reflection by David, the King of Israel, praising God for His continual anointing…of pouring the oil: protection, provision and prosperity. A little dab was not enough for David!

Anointing is seeking God’s blessing, His protection and guidance, His healing. Ultimately it is seeking His will and asking for our faith and trust to be increased to be able to thrive in God’s will, whatever it may be. And if that is true, and it is, I don’t think “a little dab will do ya” is what God had in mind. At least it was never just a dab in our biblical examples. The oil was always poured.

When Mary administered a costly perfume on Jesus’ feet, she poured it…all of it…all over Jesus’ feet! Let’s not forget that a certain disciple (Judas) was incensed over this “waste” of resources. One (Mary) wanted God’s extravagance above all else. The other (Judas) wanted all the world could give him and nothing else, not even God.

Which do I want? Which do you want?

Take This Personally (b)

The Sinful One Another

Of course we all sin. Here I am talking about the believer who is living in sin and is seemingly unrepentant. We recognize this because she keeps doing the same sin over and over. Often these one anothers are very close to us and that is why it is so hard to love them day in and day out. Let me say up front, that if you are being abused by anyone, believer or not, remove yourself and those under your care immediately! You’re not loving them by staying in harm’s way. You will see what I mean shortly. Right now, get out and get help!

Along with abuse, there are many other painful, complicated, and damaging sinful behaviors that Satan wants to use to take everyone involved to a breaking point. At this breaking point, we not only stop loving one another, we stop loving and trusting God. This is Satan’s ultimate prize. We cannot let him have it!

This sinful one another may be your husband who continues to view pornography though he always vows to stop. It may be your child who continues to steal from you to support his drug and/or alcohol habit. It may be your daughter who is on live-in boyfriend number four. It may be your teenager who has decided it is easier to cheat to make it through school than it is to do the homework. It may be a sibling’s angry outbursts whenever you dare to disagree with her. Or it may be____________ you fill in the blank.

Whatever the sin, whoever the one another, however long it’s been going on, all you know is that you don’t know how to love them anymore. These are real, serious, and complicated one another living situations and I would not be so arrogant to think I could solve them in just a few pages. In fact, if I wrote a thousand volumes I would not be able to solve them. But I am confident Jesus can not only solve them but redeem them. My goal is to point you to His Words and solutions. He will help you with the day to day and moment by moment thoughts, decisions, and actions you need to make.

The first thing I believe we have to do for these habitual sinful one anothers is to pray for them and maybe not in the way you first think. Of course we want the sin to stop. Of course we want them to turn their lives around. But first and foremost, we must pray for them to want God more than their sin. This relieves us from the burden of figuring out if they are truly born-again or not. In this prayer, the question of salvation rests squarely with God where it belongs. 

If they are believers, then God will deal with them as His children and do all that is necessary to bring them back in fellowship with Him. If they are not truly saved, then God will continue to call them to Himself. Neither of these processes will be easy on you, but your heavenly Father will sustain and empower you. That leads to the second prayer.

This prayer is for you personally and asks God to use you as He sees fit and to keep you out of the way as needed. We are usually more than willing for the “use me” part, but the “keep me out of the way part”…not so much. It is hard for us to fathom that God will have victory in the life of our one another without us, especially if that one another is our child. But for the eternal sake of our one another and for the sake of God’s glory, we must be willing to be used or to get step out of the way.

I believe most often these two prayers are answered with parameters for us and for our sinful one another. We must remember that Jesus didn’t just go around spreading a hippy kind of “all you need is love” gospel, giving license for people to do whatever they wanted. Jesus consistently taught about his parameters, not to earn our salvation, but to live out our salvation. 

Take This Personally (a)

Don’t you just love it when someone opens a conversation with, “Now, don’t take this personally?” Of course there is little chance you will take what they say any other way. Not only that, now all sorts of sirens, red flags, and fireworks are going off in your heart and mind. Whatever this person is about to say is going to be exaggerated within your psyche and a perfectly good day is about to be ruined. We humans like to play these mind games, don’t we?

Thank God, He does not play games at all, mind or any other kind. He always speaks truth. He always loves holy and wholly.

And He always deals with us personally. He is not some distant god or force that checks in on earth’s inhabitants every couple centuries or so. Neither is He a galactic Santa Clause just waiting to give us everything we want once He checks whether we’ve been naughty or nice. He’s not my dad who said one thing, but modeled something else. He’s not your dad who abandoned the family or wished he could abandon you. He is Jehovah!

God does not fit in our myriad of boxes we try to cram Him in. The whole universe cannot contain Him! And yet, He personally lives within each of his children (Holy Spirit) in rich and deep fellowship. How sad He must be when we glibly pass over His Love Letter to us and refuse to apply His infinite wisdom to our lives.

He doesn’t want us to face sin’s consequences. He doesn’t want us to live in hate and bitterness. He doesn’t want us to live in disunity. He doesn’t want anyone to perish. However, He will not force us to love Him or each other.

Recently I read a plaque which stated, “The only book where the author shows up every time you read it. The Bible.” I think another plaque could read, “The only book where the readers don’t always show up even when they read the words. The Bible.” 

God wants us to know Him personally (salvation), He wants us to fellowship with Him personally (justification), and he wants us to obey Him personally (sanctification). God wants us to take Him at His Word and take His Word personally.

John 13:34-35 is not just for our pastor and his wife. It is not just for the deacons and elders in our church. It is not just for the cantankerous old man who snores two pews behind us. And it is not just for our spouse and kids. It is a personal commandment for us. It is a personal way of life for us. It is a personal ability for us. It is a personal result for us. God is talking to you and me.

We must take this personally, and that is exactly what we are going to do.

We are going to peer into the lives of two of the most difficult one anothers we are commanded to love. You know the ones I mean…those brothers and sisters in Christ who just drive us crazy or bring tears to our eyes more often than laughter to our soul. It is hard to love fellow believers who frustrate us at every church meeting or block every ministry we try to initiate or hurt our best friend one too many times.

We all have difficult one anothers, and if we are honest, we will admit we can be one of the difficult one anothers at least now and then. So as we pull back the curtain on these difficult one anothers, let’s look at ourselves first and take care of our log before we focus on the twig of someone else. Only then can we learn how to love in spite of all the difficult ones.

Psalm 23: Protected Sheep

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5a

Who wouldn’t want to have Psalm 23:5 happen to them? I mean, you have The Shepherd preparing a feast for you and anointing your head with oil and filling your cup to overflowing with God’s own specialty beverage, which has to be amazingly delicious.

And the idea here is not just a one-time feast or a one-time anointing or just one cup overflowing, but rather a continuous lavishing of The Shepherd on you…on me…His stubborn self-absorbed sheep!

Sounds great, right?

Until maybe we catch the phrase, “in the presence of my enemies.” We may not be real comfortable with that idea. We like our enemies at a distance; out of sight and out of mind. We don’t want enemies lurking about or invading too close to our personal space. We avoid contact with enemies at all costs. We may even be tempted to tell God to get those enemies out of our banquet hall or we won’t be able to enjoy any of the feast or specialty drinks He has prepared.

But, as is always the case with God, The Shepherd knows what He is doing and the enemies will stay “in presence”. To help us understand, the why of our enemies being present at our feast; lets expose just who are the enemies. Some of these categories are obvious, but some may surprise us.

First, let’s expose the category of a true mortal enemy; the bad guy or bad girl (don’t want to exclude the females here.) This is a person who has actually done us or someone we love physical harm, maybe even caused the death of someone we love. This person may or may not have been convicted of their crime, but the guilt of what they have done is not disputed. They did physical harm. Interestingly, whether they have been convicted or not, the trauma of being such a victim and its effect on our daily lives is always with us. Even if we never speak with them or communicate with them in any way, this enemy is with us. How much influence and power we allow this person to have on us solely depends on how much we believe Psalm 23:5.

Second, the next enemy category is that of a social enemy. This person, again, male or female, has harmed us, but not physically. But, by a host of means, this person has harmed us materially, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually or any combination of these. This enemy can be very sly and deceptive and in one simple Tweet can transform a comfortable and full life into a disheveled heap of disaster and pain.

This category differs from physical harm in several ways.

A: There is often less legal recourse to the victim. Or, as can be the case, the justification for legal action to take place just isn’t there.

B: There may be no way to “prove” that harm has been done though with so much of this type of harm invading social media in our modern culture, the proof seems always to be “out there”.

C: It is often harder for us to separate ourselves from these enemies.

D: We must admit that sometimes, these enemies are only in our own minds. Or, at the very least, the extent of their harm to us is only in our minds.

But, whether with concrete evidence or with our own conjecture, the social enemy ends up being in our presence 24/7 and 365 days a year…year after year, after year. They seem to always be in our head and, if we are honest, we let this enemy camp out there…in our head. We deny this vehemently to anyone and everyone who will listen, but our social enemies are ever present with us at the table feast.

Third, and sadly, the next category of enemy is the mob enemy. Social media has exasperated a hundred-fold the power of the mob. These enemies use the power of the “crazed mob effect” to perpetrate their truly evil terror on an innocent soul or on a whole populace. From the online girl bullies perpetrating lies about the person who doesn’t fit in at their school to radical beheading haters who laugh at their own vile videotaped executions; the mob feeds on its own mentality. The mob relies on the fact that a single person would never treat another human being with the planned cruelty, but the promise of anonymity allows the mob group to do just about anything to others and even enjoy being as cruel an enemy as possible.

Side Note: These true mob groups escalate the plight of false enemy groups. In most cultures, these people groups are considered enemies simply because of the color of their skin or their religious beliefs. For them, simply existing is tantamount to treason in their culture. The largest percentage of Christians around the world live as such enemies in their countries though they do not commit any criminal offense save for the one of loving Jesus. In the good ‘ole USA it is hard for us to imagine such a daily existence though we may not be far from joining our brothers and sisters around the world who truly sit in the presence of their enemies every day.

Fourth, the enemy we face here is much harder for us to admit and face because the fourth enemy is ourselves! This enemy goes with us everywhere we go. Sits everywhere we sit. Sleeps where we sleep. This enemy is relentless! We try to hush this enemy up with meager results. Maybe we exercise three hours a day or we eat three hours a day. We may drink or smoke or shoot up daily just to keep this enemy at bay for a little while. We buy clothes and toys and houses and pay for people to keep up all the barns we fill up just to quite the enemy.

But until we realize it is The Shepherd who sets our table called “life”, we will never win the victory over the enemy of ourselves.

Fifth, this enemy is the curse of this world which gives us all kinds of disease and sickness and pandemics. The curse also gives us man’s ill treatment against man and against the animal kingdom and against creation itself. The curse pits creation against creation and the powerful against the powerful leaving the weak in their destructive path.

Sixth, and our ultimate enemy is the Father of Lies, Satan! He sets in motion the hate groups, the bullies, the criminals, the mobs. He spreads the lies of prejudice and superiority. He glamorizes evil and calls evil good and good evil. He tries to exchange The Truth with his lies and he tries to sabotage The Shepherds table. Notice I say, he tries to. Ultimately, he cannot and never will. But he can keep us from the table that is set before us. That is the real battle and one we must win and one we can only win through Jesus Christ!

Stay at God’s table that is set before us!

At God’s table we are protected as we feast!

Until heaven, we will always have enemies around us, but if we stay seated at the table the Good Shepherd has set before us then we will feast heartily, we will be blessed (on God’s terms, not America’s terms) and our lives will overflow for God’s Glory!

All the days of the afflicted are bad, but a cheerful heart has a continual feast.

Proverbs 15:15