Easier Said than Done (c)

Jesus loved individually

Yes, He loved the world. Yes, He cried over Israel’s rejection of Him. And yes, He shed His precious blood for both Jew and Gentile. But He also exhibited these attributes of love individually. His relationship to Peter was different than His relationship to John or Thomas. His rapport was as unique with Mary as it was to Martha. As the Creator, He knew each one of His sheep (followers) intimately, individually, and completely. His love for each one was the same, but His demonstration of love and His methodology of love were expressed individually and specifically.

John

Most commentators believe John was the youngest disciple. He was the younger brother of James and he did outlive the others. More important than his age was his deep love for Jesus and his own expression of that love. What is even more important than this was Jesus’ love for John and His desire for John to express that love back to Him.

The apostle John and I are alike in one way. We like hugs! I need to have my quota of hugs every day or I get grouchy. Certainly, I am not saying John was prone to grouchiness! But it is apparent that he expressed his love with physical touch, not in the perverted way some have twisted the relationship of Jesus with His disciples, but in a most wonderful, manly, culturally acceptable and godly way.

We do not know what physical expressions of love the other disciples experienced with Jesus. Did they hug? Did they give a strong, hardy handshake or clasped arms? Or did they give the traditional greeting of a kiss? We know Judas used this as the sign of his betrayal. What we do know is that physical touch was important enough to John for him to mention it in his gospel several times. And we know Jesus allowed John to love him in his own God-given way.

There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. John 13:23

Do we allow people to express their love to us in their own way?

I like to give hugs and I like to receive hugs. Just give me lots of hugs and let me give you a great big bear hug and I’m good to go! But my husband is not that way at all. He likes to give gifts while at the same time; he likes to receive words of affirmation.

For years, we struggled to clearly and honestly express our love to each other. What we finally figured out is that, once again, it isn’t about either/or…it is about both/and. I need to love my man with hugs and with words of affirmation. And I need to let him love me with hugs and with gifts. For too long, I placed a higher value on the hugs which made him feel rebuffed and inadequate. Jesus valued John’s expression of love. I should do the same.

Discussion

Love Individually

Do another, but different love inventory. (I know this is getting too personal. For me too!) This time think about how you love the one anothers around you? Do you love them all the same way without any thought about how they receive that love? Do you love them with a “one size fits all” approach? Do you value and respect their way of loving, though different from yours.

Is it uncomfortable to think of loving someone so that it is meaningful to them? Is it awkward to receive their love when it is different from your own comfortable expression? How can you change that?

Seek out opportunities to love differently, intentionally, individually.
Give a hug. You won’t break and neither will they.
Say those three little words: “I love you.” Come on! You can do it!
Help your child with her homework. You’ll remember 2 +2 =4 when you need to.
Jump a generation or two and love someone older or younger than you.
Keep your word and hold your tongue. Both shout, “I love you.”
Accept others’ godly love, even if it isn’t your way of loving or doesn’t completely meet your love need. Jesus knows that and He will fill any void.

Easier Said than Done (b)

As His children, though, we cannot merely mimic His love. In fact, doing so breeds a toxic hypocrisy to those around us and to ourselves. We think we have a form of godliness because we mimic so well. However, if that is all we are doing, then we fall into the trap of having a form of love without really loving as Christ loved, and all the while thinking we are just fine.

Even as we are commanded to love as Jesus loved and even as we are commanded to follow His example, we must do these in the power and regeneration of His Spirit or the results will be a forest full of lollipop trees with measles instead of a life filled with the fruit of His Spirit. Even now, I hesitate to lay out a list of how Jesus loved for fear we might drill this love thing down to checking off the completion of each task on said list. I fear we will simply try to duplicate and copy rather than experience and live out the unfathomable love of Christ.

So I commit these examples from our Savior, Jesus the Christ, back to Him and trust that the Holy Spirit will work in and through each of us for the Father’s eternal purposes and for His everlasting glory. These are but a few of the ways Jesus demonstrated His love to His closest followers. I pray these will challenge and encourage us to love one another as He loves us. You can find many more ways God demonstrates His love to us throughout the pages of the Bible.

Jesus invited love

What we describe as the call of the disciples was really Christ’s invitation to have a relationship with Him…to know Him…to experience His love. He didn’t just invite the loveable. In fact, He didn’t invite any lovable ones. All His disciples were stinky, unclean, and scratchy sandpaper human beings. What a motley crew these twelve were, just as we are!

None of the twelve were worthy of His love. None of these men could ever measure up to His standards or meet His expectations. They failed Him time and again. They disappointed. They disputed. They deserted. They denied. And the one not truly His own, Judas, betrayed Him. But Jesus invited even him to His love relationship. It was Judas’ choice to reject that invitation.

I would never think of inviting a bunch of uneducated, smelly fishermen into a love relationship with me, nor would I invite a deceitful, low-life tax collector. And I certainly would not invite the very person who would betray me to my death to love me. That, my dear friend, is the crux of my problem. I would dare say it could be your problem as well.

We only invite people to love us who look like us, talk like us, act like us, and believe like us. Once selected, the lucky ones we bestow our love upon must now meet our expectations and standards and fulfill our desires. If not, well, we just un-invite them by withholding our love. Praise God, He does not operate that way and neither does His Son!

Matthew

In the days of Jesus, there wasn’t a more hated Jew than the tax collector. These men were considered cohorts of Rome and traitors of Israel. Jesus’ choice of Levi, also known as Matthew, set the standard for His followers and for His detractors, the religious leaders of that day. For His followers, they learned all were welcomed into His loving arms no matter their past and shortcomings. For His detractors, they knew they could never accept an invitation of love that included those most unlike themselves. How sad.

After that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.” And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him. And Levi gave a big reception for Him in his house; and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them. Luke 5:27-29

I wonder how much we miss and what blessings pass us by because we only want to love people most like ourselves. Tragically, our shortsightedness not only robs us, it robs others of ever knowing the Jesus we claim to love and serve.

Discussion

Do a love inventory. Who is in your love circle? Does everyone look like you? Talk like you? Act like you? Vote like you? Shop where you shop? Eat where you eat? Is there anything different about them? Is there any variety in the circle of those you love?

Look for someone totally opposite of you. A person who is a one another, but not someone you naturally gravitate to or always feel comfortable around. Start a conversation with them. Use discernment to discover a need and then meet it. Maybe it’s a ride to the doctor or helping paint a room or babysitting.

Look for the unlovable and love them. You may find them at church, work, school, or among your neighbors. Just because someone is unlovable in your eyes doesn’t mean they have not had their heart pierced by Jesus and thereby are a one another. Remember, as much as this is hard for us to comprehend, we are unlovable to at least one someone else. Gasp!

Pray for this unlovable, sandpapery one another. Pray that God will open your heart to look past the unlovable stuff and see why He loves her. Pray that God will help you realize that no one is lovable enough to be loved by God. No one deserves the price that Jesus paid on the cross. We were all filthy when He claimed us and we all still stink, at least a little. So hold your nose and love.

Credits & Dedication

Easier Said than Done (a)

I remember it like yesterday. However, I can’t tell you what songs were sung in church that day or what the preacher’s sermon was about. The man of God gave an invitation. It was good of him to do that, but I don’t remember his words either. I do remember the song God put in my heart!

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD. Psalm 40:3

I do remember God’s words speaking directly to me!

The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple. Psalm 119:130

I do remember God’s invitation to come!

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

And I do remember God’s love piercing my heart!

But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7

There was no doubt, no fear, and no hesitation. It was just God and me. He called out to me. I ran into His loving arms. He has never let go! I was nearly six years old. It was the closing ceremony of a two-week vacation Bible school I was invited to by my neighbors, the Arnolds. I was sitting at the end of the pew with my class. That was a good thing since I literally ran down the aisle before the pastor could finish his invitation. Mrs. Arnold followed close behind. I’ve often wondered if she realized what was happening or if she thought I was going to make a scene. Either way she quickly caught on to God’s divine intervention, knelt down beside me, and listened to a little child come unto Jesus. I have never been the same!

For God so loved (agapaō) the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

We love (agapaō) because He first loved (agapaō) us. I John 4:19

For the Father Himself loves (phileō) you, because you have loved (phileō) Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. John 16:27

We cannot love, phileō or agapaō, without God!

Our sinful, deceitful, desperately wicked heart does not have the capacity to love. In ourselves, we do not have the patience, kindness, goodness, grace, mercy, faith, hope, or any other pure virtue required for love to grow and flourish. We cannot save ourselves and we cannot love from within ourselves. Only in Christ can we love, and only through His Spirit can we give and receive love.

Our Master Teacher, Jesus, told his original eleven students “love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). It should be easy enough: follow His example. I mean, you and I have had similar instruction from various human teachers. Follow this method, this outline, this strategy, and you will have success. Sounds doable, doesn’t it? Well…sometimes!

I’ve never been good at drawing. As a small child, my horses and dogs looked exactly the same and neither looked like a horse or a dog. They resembled more of bloated rats with pointy ears and twisted snouts. My houses and trees and cars didn’t fare much better. Consequently, when I was in junior high and art class was a requirement, I waited until the last possible semester to include that course in my schedule. I wish I could remember the teacher’s name because she deserves a medal of valor in her attempt to teach me how to draw, to paint…anything! She knew I was special when my first assignment, an apple tree, looked like a lollipop with measles.

This dear teacher had the patience of Job! She gave me example after example. She demonstrated the various positions of the pencil or charcoal and she exaggerated the motions for shading and outlining. More than once, she literally guided my hand with her own in hopes of developing some muscle memory for the art of drawing. I wanted to learn to draw, to paint, to do anything artsy. I just couldn’t get the techniques at all. I desperately tried to mimic her examples and duplicate her guiding hand, but without any success. My horses still looked like dogs which looked like bloated rats, and my trees still looked like lollipops with measles.

The result? Let’s just say abstract art was and is my only hope. I passed that class with a “C” which stood for “Can’t be helped!” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be helped. I loved art! I so wanted to draw the weathered seaman that the boy next to me did in charcoal. I wanted desperately to paint the mountain landscape the star pupil effortlessly created in what seemed like just minutes. All I had to do was a pencil drawing of a sea shell. It looked like a squashed cabbage leaf. All my efforts to mimic and reproduce could not overcome the simple fact that I had no, I mean zero, natural ability as an artist.

The same is true for all of us when it comes to love. In and of ourselves, we can spend a lifetime attempting to reproduce Christ’s example. We can exert a lot of energy trying to duplicate His acts of love, but we will fall woefully short every time because we do not have a natural ability to either phileō or agapaō. It is only when we come to our knees, cry out to Jesus for His salvation, and experience His love pierce our hearts that we can we even begin to truly love.

Discussion

Read John 21. Remembering that both phileō and agapaō loves are important to God, answer the following questions:
- If you were one of the disciples on that beach, what would you think of this encounter?
- How would you describe Jesus’ love for Peter?
- How would you describe Peter’s love for Jesus?
- What would you think Jesus was trying to accomplish?
- What would you think Peter learned from this encounter?

Easier Said than Done

Easier Said Than Done

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, EVEN AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34 & 35

Love – agapaō (verb) (G25)

of persons
1. to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly
of things
1. to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing

Seeking Abigail

Scene Five

…and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Tabitha used to make while she was with them. Acts 9:39b

Chloe stood next to Adina who stood next to Esther who stood next to Hannah who stood next to Miriam. She couldn’t see beyond Miriam in the crowded room, but in her heart, Chloe knew most of the women Tabitha had ever touched with her work and with her heart were hovering in this hot, stuffy room waiting for some word. Well, not all of them.

Mariah had to go and prepare for the Sabbath for all her family. There was no one else to do so and not all yet believed. And some of the other women also could not stay or they would bring shame to their unbelieving husbands who expected a hardy meal before Sabbath began. Was this the reason Abigail would not come? Was she being a good and dutiful daughter or was she just avoiding them? She told Judah to make it clear that the girl would be home in time and would not defile the Sabbath. Chloe would never cause another to…she let out a big sigh.

“My feelings exactly.” Judah’s voice preceded his descending the stairs.

Several heavy sets of steps joined his until the men reached the bottom and could move no further in the packed room. He leaned heavy onto the banister near Chloe’s shoulder and sighed.

She teased. “He would not let you stay either?”

He said nothing but she felt his head move back and forth.

“Do you think he can do it?” She needed this leader’s assurance. Such a miracle would surely convince the doubters of Jesus as Messiah.

Judah lightened his voice. “I do not think he would have come if he could not.”

Several of the widows began to cry again at the sight of the men being evacuated from the upstairs. Chloe tried to shush them with a finger to her lips.

“It is okay, Chloe. Soon their weeping will be turned joy.” Judah gently hugged her shoulders. “I am sure of it.”

Adina chimed in. “True. True.” She was clinging to the bright blue tunic Tabitha had made for her daughter just two weeks past. “This will not be the last garment our friend makes.” She held it up. “No?”

Chloe and the other widows answered in unison, “No!”

From the top of the stairs Levi half whispered half hollered, “Shush! Listen…listen.”

The whole room held its collective breath as the strong deep voice of a man in prayer drifted through house. Chloe’s heart sang in silent prayer with him.