He Did it First

I have been often struck how it seems that anything God asks of us He first Himself did for us. He says to love others, but frequently reminds us that we were first loved by Him. He tells us to forgive others, and we are reminded He first forgave us. He tells us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, and we remember that He first presented Himself as a sacrifice. He tells us to invest eternally, and then we remember that He invested in us for eternity, and anything we have to invest is something He's first given us. He calls us to humble ourselves and lay down our rights and to serve others; and we read how He humbled Himself and didn't hold to His rights as God, how He loved the unlovable and touched the rejected and washed the filthy feet.

Last night I was studying the word "peace" in my ongoing study/teaching on different words God uses that often don't have the same meaning we might take on the surface. I was looking at how we were, as sinners, not just cut off from God but God says we were hostile to Him and enemies of Him. This passage really struck me:

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.    Romans 5:10–11 (ESV)

I think the reason that it struck me so is that I had done a word search for "enemies" and it came after multiple verses saying to love our enemies. Suddenly I thought, "I have gotten used to the word 'sinner' to describe my state before Christ, but it wasn't just 'sin'—in my sin He says I was an enemy of God. And He says to love our enemies. And He loved me first when I was His enemy."

It was just another moment when I realized how everything God asks of me He did first for me. Wow. We truly have an amazing God that He would love us that much, and humble Himself that much! What an example He has given us that the Creator of the universe would first do for me what He would then ask me to do for Him and others. A love like that is incomprehensible.

May you have a wonderful, joyous, God-filled Thanksgiving reflecting on all He has done for you and given you. Thanks for sharing in my life as well.   —Erick

Knee Jerk Sin

I was reading in 1 Samuel this morning and I was struck by some of the final words of Samuel to the people. He is really angry at them because they sought a human king instead of God as their king. He said, "Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king" (1 Samuel 12:17). He does what he threatens, but then a few lines later he says, despite his anger at them, "Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way" (1 Samuel 12:23).

Here's a guy really steamed at the people (righteously so, they have rejected God) but he doesn't have a knee jerk reaction to their sin that causes him to sin. I am reminded of David after he took care of Nabal's men and sheep in the wilderness and then Nabal mocks him and blows him off and doesn't give anything back to him (1 Samuel 25). David is angry (again, righteously so) and arms up his men and sets off to kill every male of Nabal's household, saying, "Surely in vain have I guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him, and he has returned me evil for good" (1 Samuel 25:21).

Hearing David and his men are coming, Nabal's beautiful wife Abigail meets him and stops him, imploring for his mercy and saying, ". . . my lord [David] shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord taking vengeance himself . . ." (1 Samuel 25:31). David sees that she is speaking truth and turns aside, saying to her, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me! Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodguilt and from avenging myself with my own hand! For as surely as the Lord the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male" (1 Sam 25:32-34).

David was hours away from knee jerk sin—from going from being right to being wrong—from letting another person's sin pull him into sin.This, and many other instances in the Bible and in my life and the news around us make me wonder, "How many times do we, starting out right, become wrong because we react to another's sin with our own sin?"

It is so easy to start out right and to become in sin ourselves because we react to another's sin. My question for your reflection this morning is, "Are you in any way being pulled in to sin (in your thoughts, actions, lack of love, lack of prayer, the way you treat another) because, though you were right, you are now starting to be wrong in reaction to their wrong?" If you are then that person is controlling you—you are allowing them to make you wrong.

Samuel wouldn't let their sin or his anger stop him from praying for them and instructing them. David wouldn't let Nabal's arrogance and ingratitude and lack of returning David's kindness cause him to take vengeance into his own hands (interestingly, Nabal fell dead a short time later and David married the beautiful and wise Abigail!).

It is a good question to ask the Holy Spirit to help reveal in us, "Where am I in danger of sinning because, though I am right, I am starting to react wrongly to another's sin?" God bless you all, and thanks for reading and being a part of my life.   —Erick

It's Not about Them and Me . . .

Over the last few months I have been studying and teaching on Jesus' commands to love our neighbors as ourselves—and, as He says in another verse, to love others as He has loved us. As I have studied this I am more and more coming to realize that my loving someone else is not about me and them, but about me and God. This is hard because (especially when someone has hurt me) I want to justify my love or response or action (or lack of any of these) toward them by their action toward me. But God doesn't give me that room. . .

The more I read through the New Testament the more I see the solitary nature of this love and how verse after verse basically says that if I love God, I will love them. I want to cry out to Him, "But God, don't you see how they are acting, or how they don't even admit their wrong, or how they will take it for granted, or . . .?" It is like He says, "Yes. I do. Now, do you love me?" When I answer, "Yes, I do," He says, "Then love them."

"But . . . , but . . ." to which I again hear, "Do you love me?" to which I answer, "Yes," and to which He then, again, says, "Then love them."

This is both freeing and constraining at the same time. Freeing in that I can love someone who is very unlovable because I am loving them for Him, not them. Constraining in that I can't use their actions to justify not loving them—I can't give myself that way out.

The more I spend time on this, the more I realize that it can't be any other way. When I love another the way He calls me to it is costly, sacrificial, not about my rights, not about their action, not about their response . . . and that is exactly how He has loved every one of us. He FIRST loved us. He loved us when we were still His ENEMIES. He forgave us when we were unrepentant. His love cost Him everything. He laid down His rights to love us. He humbled Himself to love us. He has met our needs at every level—spiritual, emotional, and physical—He didn't just "pray for us" and wish us well.

When we look at the costly love He calls us to love others with, and when we read about the love the early church had for one another in Acts and the Epistles, we realize that this amazing level of love is simply a love He has already loved us with. He is simply calling us to love others the way He loved (and loves) us. So, it really has to be that way if we want to be the image and fragrance of Christ. Everything He did for us—salvation, healing, deliverance—all came from, first, love . . . and He reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13 that we can have all the spiritual gifts and Christian charity, but if we don't have love we have nothing. But, when we operate in love toward friends, and enemies, we truly take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him. We truly become His fragrance and I believe that He comes in all over that and loves hanging out in the presence of love.

I understand, and need to state, that a persons response to our love may dictate and affect our physical expression of that love—and that situations may require withdrawing from an environment that is, say, abusive—but the heart side of love is not about them, it is about us and God. He reminds us that even the lost love their friends . . . it is the fragrance and presence of Christ to love an enemy and it is that type of love the world desperately needs to see if it is going to recognize Jesus. The world has enough of itself—it needs something out of this world—and the love of Christ, through us, that is radically contrary to its ways and values, is where it all begins.