Part 1: God first loved us
Part 2: Drawn to the irresistible one
Part 3: Becoming friends with God
God first loved us (Part 1)
What an interesting question! Have you asked yourself where that question comes from? Have you asked yourself why you want to develop a love for God? Suppose a person had no interest in reading and yet had an intense desire to establish a love of reading. Wouldn't that be unusual since, if you have no interest in something, you normally have no interest in being interested in it?
I can start off by telling you that your desire to develop a love for God comes from God himself. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says; "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts…" God deeply desires relationship with us and placed a hollow spot inside us that can be filled only by his Spirit. We want him because he wants us.
One of the most beautiful love letters God wrote to each of us to demonstrate how intimately he knows and loves us is Psalm 139. The Message phrases verses 16 and 17 this way; "You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; you know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day."
Therefore, be of good cheer! You have already taken the first step in developing your love of God by asking your question. Behind your question is thirst. Thirst leads to seeking water. You are seeking "living" waters; purpose and meaning and life in abundance. God has those things in store for you through a personal relationship between you and him.
Next: How do you resist someone who is totally smitten with you?
Drawn to the irresistible one (Part 2)
It is very difficult to resist someone who is head over heels in love with you. I know a woman who visited a house where there was a litter of kittens. One kitten jumped on her lap, purred pleadingly and looking up into her eyes adoringly. When it was time to go, the kitten clung to her and would not be put down. This woman had absolutely no intention of acquiring a cat but she left with one; irresistibly drawn to the kitten who had chosen her.
Well, God has chosen YOU. When you understand how great is God's love for you and how much he wants to hang out with you and share your life, you will be hard pressed to resist loving him back. Examine your pre-conceived ideas about God and pitch out those which don't align themselves with the fact that God is crazy about you.
This may be a hard concept to accept. There is a lot of nonsense out there about a stern, unforgiving, capricious God with a stick in his hand, watching every minute to catch you doing something wrong. Then ZAP! That is not correct.
God's love, mercy, forgiveness and grace are revealed to us in his great love letter, the Bible. It is worth reading it over and over until his love shines through and you can receive it. Even without a Bible, every human being should be able to look at the universe and know that someone marvelous took exceeding care to design the world to be both beautiful and bountiful as a love gift for his creation.
Another thing to consider is that loving God evokes our emotions. Some people consider loving God a mental exercise, a philosophical or academic pursuit. Not so! That is not how he loves us. He loves us with passion, not emotional distance. God created us with great capacity to feel emotions deeply. The most satisfying expression of that is when passion erupts toward God, the lover of our soul.
Next: How to get to know him so you can love him?
Becoming friends with God (Part 3)
There are a few people in the Bible whom God called "friend" (Abraham and Moses for example), and I have noticed something about their relationship with God. Yes they had great respect and awe for God but they were also very real with him.
You know what it is like when you can be completely yourself with someone? No posturing or game playing; just honesty and depth. That's how we need to communicate with God and that's how we can develop a deep love for him. Friends talk things over. So talk everything over with God with no formality. Tell him how you really feel and all about your hopes and dreams and disappointments.
I remember the advice I received when I was making the decision to ask Jesus into my heart. "Sit down and tell him everything in your heart as if he is right there beside you listening to every word - because he is". I did that just the way he said and that was the beginning of a beautiful romance.
Let's recap. Remember that you are off to a great beginning because you have a desire to develop a love for God. That comes from him. Secondly, recognizing how deeply God loves you causes you to reciprocate that love and delve in deeper with him. You can't resist someone who loves you so passionately. Finally, treat God like your best friend. Share everything in your life with him until you realize that the two of you are inseparable. Loving God is very emotional so open up and surrender your emotions to him and be ready to "feel" love - both his and yours.
Here's my prayer for you: "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power… to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19)
I found this devotional and thought I would share it on my blog. I would also strongly add.. a relationship with God does not reach a point to where it ceases to grow. This relationship should be greater with each day. I would let this be my challenge for myself and you for this blog. Grow in your relationship. Do not be lukewarm. There should be no in-between. Place every bit of your effort into this relationship. Revelation 3:16 (New International Version) says "because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Converts
Text: Matthew 23:15
Matthew 23:14 does not occur in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew. The problem of exploiting the helpless and afterward performing a religious act instead of repenting is cited as a characteristic of misguided Israelites [including leaders] in some Old Testament periods. The problem is condemned. Israel as a nation disgraced God [as well as themselves!] by such practices. [See Amos 2:6-8; 5:10-12; 8:4-6; Hosea 12:1-11; Micah 6:9-16.] Verse 14's emphasis is consistent with such past practices in Israel: "I wish this religious stuff would quickly end so I can return to making money by taking advantage of the poor," or, "I will make money by taking advantage of the poor and afterward make things right with God by a religious act."
This lesson focuses on verse 15: the conversion of gentiles to Judaism. Let us start by deepening our understanding of proselytes.
Proselytes were gentile individuals who converted to Judaism [the Jewish religion]. In the Old Testament, this continuing stress exists: God is concerned about all people, not just about Abraham's descendants through Isaac. While it was true God made special promises to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac, those promises do not evidence God's disinterest in other people. There is the curious incident when Abraham [the lesser] paid tithes to Melchizedeck [the greater] (Genesis 14:17-20.) Melchizedeck was called "a priest of God Most High" or a priest of El Elyon. Melchizedeck is God's priest who is not in Abraham's lineage.
The book of Jonah emphatically documented God's interest in people who were not Jews. God sent a Jewish prophet [Jonah] to Nineveh [the capital of Assyria] to declare the consequences of Assyrian wickedness. The Assyrians repented, God forgave them, and Jonah was upset with God for not destroying those gentiles. God explained His concern for the people of Nineveh with these words: "Then God said to Jonah, 'Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?' And he said, 'I have good reason to be angry, even to death.' Then the Lord said, 'You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" (Jonah 4:10, 11).
Some gentile women figure prominently in Jesus' ancestry. God included in the ancestry of His Messiah Tamar (?), Rahab, and Ruth. Certainly two and perhaps three women who were not Jews are listed by Matthew (chapter one) as Jesus' ancestors. Women who were not Jews figured prominently in the lineage of God's Christ.
In Jesus' day, Judaism had genuine appeal to some gentiles. Judaism taught a superior form of moral behavior and community. Some gentiles viewed the God of the Jews as superior to the idolatrous gods. For these primary reasons [as well as numerous secondary reasons], people who were not Jews by birth were attracted to the Jewish God and His religion. While such gentiles were not welcome in Jewish homes or at Jewish meals, they were welcome in the synagogues. Consider Paul' visit to the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:14-52). The "men of Israel" (verse 16) were Jews. "You who fear God" were gentiles who believed in the God of the Jews. Verse 43 mentions Jews and proselytes in synagogue attendance. Verse 44-46 notes Paul and Barnabas turned to the gentile community--gentiles were at the synagogue that day! Paul's explanation: it was necessary for the Jews to hear about Jesus Christ first (verse 46), but these Jews rejected their God-given responsibility to be a light to the gentiles (verse 47; Isaiah 42:6; 49:6). Note the men of Israel, those who feared God, God-fearing proselytes, and gentiles were mentioned. Also note they all were part of an incident involving the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia.
Today's Christians would call a gentile becoming a Jewish proselyte a convert. The analogy is not perfect [to most Christians conversion involves no ancestral considerations], but it is similar. How did a gentile with no Jewish ancestry become part of the Jewish community? The process included the following elements. (1) Such persons were instructed in Jewish ways, traditions, and customs. [It was an indoctrination process -- "this is what you must do; this is how you must live."] Jewish teachers/leaders regarded this as essential if such people left idolatrous lifestyles and idolatrous moral practices. (2) Such persons were to accept a cleansing by water [an immersion] similar to Christian baptism. (3) Males had to be circumcised. For gentile males, circumcision involved an enormous decision. While we would regard the procedure as painful, pain was not the greatest issue. The majority of gentile cultures regarded circumcision to be a mutilation of the physical body. This view regarded any act of mutilation as disgraceful. In many ways, this marked "the point of no return." It was a physical rejection of past gentile culture and an acceptance of a new culture. (4) New proselytes were expected to give a gift to the Jerusalem temple [the only Jewish temple]. The transition from gentile to proselyte was demanding and required personal sacrifice. Only gentiles serious about transformation endured the process.
While there were numerous proselytes in the first century (see Acts 2:10), not all Jewish rabbis were pleased for Israel to accept gentile converts. Some wanted to "keep Israel pure" by living in isolation and accepting only those of Jewish ancestry. Others felt such people were prone to temptation and evil because of influences in their past. Accepting such people into Israel would morally and spiritually weaken the nation. Those views are not foreign to some church views. Some Christians prefer for the church to exist in isolation. Some view converts from specific moral problems as suspect, as "avenues to evil through the temptations created by their past." However, generally speaking, proselytes were welcomed into first century Israel. It was not a matter of Israel aggressively "going out" to pursue proselytes. It was a matter of welcoming gentiles who came to Israel.
What was the Pharisees' problem that created the hypocrisy of Matthew 23:15? Was not teaching and welcoming converts a good thing? Whether conversion is good or bad is determined by to what was the person converted. The Pharisees insisted that gentiles who became proselytes be instructed for a period of time, be cleansed, and be circumcised. When the approved process was completed, they "converted" these gentiles to their ways, not to God. Doing things in ways Pharisees said Israel should follow was more important than devotion to God's values. The result: everything God abhorred in the Pharisee's attitudes, motives, and behavior became inflexible positions of faith in their gentile converts. The proselytes the Pharisees taught were devoted to the Pharisees' views and ways, not God's views and ways. Jesus said the Pharisees were sons of hell [Gehenna], and their converts were twice the sons of hell. The Pharisees taught these gentiles the wrong emphasis! Thus proselytes influenced by the Pharisees emphasized spiritual values that God hated!
It is frighteningly easy for Christians to make that mistake!
Matthew 23:14 does not occur in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew. The problem of exploiting the helpless and afterward performing a religious act instead of repenting is cited as a characteristic of misguided Israelites [including leaders] in some Old Testament periods. The problem is condemned. Israel as a nation disgraced God [as well as themselves!] by such practices. [See Amos 2:6-8; 5:10-12; 8:4-6; Hosea 12:1-11; Micah 6:9-16.] Verse 14's emphasis is consistent with such past practices in Israel: "I wish this religious stuff would quickly end so I can return to making money by taking advantage of the poor," or, "I will make money by taking advantage of the poor and afterward make things right with God by a religious act."
This lesson focuses on verse 15: the conversion of gentiles to Judaism. Let us start by deepening our understanding of proselytes.
Proselytes were gentile individuals who converted to Judaism [the Jewish religion]. In the Old Testament, this continuing stress exists: God is concerned about all people, not just about Abraham's descendants through Isaac. While it was true God made special promises to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac, those promises do not evidence God's disinterest in other people. There is the curious incident when Abraham [the lesser] paid tithes to Melchizedeck [the greater] (Genesis 14:17-20.) Melchizedeck was called "a priest of God Most High" or a priest of El Elyon. Melchizedeck is God's priest who is not in Abraham's lineage.
The book of Jonah emphatically documented God's interest in people who were not Jews. God sent a Jewish prophet [Jonah] to Nineveh [the capital of Assyria] to declare the consequences of Assyrian wickedness. The Assyrians repented, God forgave them, and Jonah was upset with God for not destroying those gentiles. God explained His concern for the people of Nineveh with these words: "Then God said to Jonah, 'Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?' And he said, 'I have good reason to be angry, even to death.' Then the Lord said, 'You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" (Jonah 4:10, 11).
Some gentile women figure prominently in Jesus' ancestry. God included in the ancestry of His Messiah Tamar (?), Rahab, and Ruth. Certainly two and perhaps three women who were not Jews are listed by Matthew (chapter one) as Jesus' ancestors. Women who were not Jews figured prominently in the lineage of God's Christ.
In Jesus' day, Judaism had genuine appeal to some gentiles. Judaism taught a superior form of moral behavior and community. Some gentiles viewed the God of the Jews as superior to the idolatrous gods. For these primary reasons [as well as numerous secondary reasons], people who were not Jews by birth were attracted to the Jewish God and His religion. While such gentiles were not welcome in Jewish homes or at Jewish meals, they were welcome in the synagogues. Consider Paul' visit to the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia (Acts 13:14-52). The "men of Israel" (verse 16) were Jews. "You who fear God" were gentiles who believed in the God of the Jews. Verse 43 mentions Jews and proselytes in synagogue attendance. Verse 44-46 notes Paul and Barnabas turned to the gentile community--gentiles were at the synagogue that day! Paul's explanation: it was necessary for the Jews to hear about Jesus Christ first (verse 46), but these Jews rejected their God-given responsibility to be a light to the gentiles (verse 47; Isaiah 42:6; 49:6). Note the men of Israel, those who feared God, God-fearing proselytes, and gentiles were mentioned. Also note they all were part of an incident involving the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia.
Today's Christians would call a gentile becoming a Jewish proselyte a convert. The analogy is not perfect [to most Christians conversion involves no ancestral considerations], but it is similar. How did a gentile with no Jewish ancestry become part of the Jewish community? The process included the following elements. (1) Such persons were instructed in Jewish ways, traditions, and customs. [It was an indoctrination process -- "this is what you must do; this is how you must live."] Jewish teachers/leaders regarded this as essential if such people left idolatrous lifestyles and idolatrous moral practices. (2) Such persons were to accept a cleansing by water [an immersion] similar to Christian baptism. (3) Males had to be circumcised. For gentile males, circumcision involved an enormous decision. While we would regard the procedure as painful, pain was not the greatest issue. The majority of gentile cultures regarded circumcision to be a mutilation of the physical body. This view regarded any act of mutilation as disgraceful. In many ways, this marked "the point of no return." It was a physical rejection of past gentile culture and an acceptance of a new culture. (4) New proselytes were expected to give a gift to the Jerusalem temple [the only Jewish temple]. The transition from gentile to proselyte was demanding and required personal sacrifice. Only gentiles serious about transformation endured the process.
While there were numerous proselytes in the first century (see Acts 2:10), not all Jewish rabbis were pleased for Israel to accept gentile converts. Some wanted to "keep Israel pure" by living in isolation and accepting only those of Jewish ancestry. Others felt such people were prone to temptation and evil because of influences in their past. Accepting such people into Israel would morally and spiritually weaken the nation. Those views are not foreign to some church views. Some Christians prefer for the church to exist in isolation. Some view converts from specific moral problems as suspect, as "avenues to evil through the temptations created by their past." However, generally speaking, proselytes were welcomed into first century Israel. It was not a matter of Israel aggressively "going out" to pursue proselytes. It was a matter of welcoming gentiles who came to Israel.
What was the Pharisees' problem that created the hypocrisy of Matthew 23:15? Was not teaching and welcoming converts a good thing? Whether conversion is good or bad is determined by to what was the person converted. The Pharisees insisted that gentiles who became proselytes be instructed for a period of time, be cleansed, and be circumcised. When the approved process was completed, they "converted" these gentiles to their ways, not to God. Doing things in ways Pharisees said Israel should follow was more important than devotion to God's values. The result: everything God abhorred in the Pharisee's attitudes, motives, and behavior became inflexible positions of faith in their gentile converts. The proselytes the Pharisees taught were devoted to the Pharisees' views and ways, not God's views and ways. Jesus said the Pharisees were sons of hell [Gehenna], and their converts were twice the sons of hell. The Pharisees taught these gentiles the wrong emphasis! Thus proselytes influenced by the Pharisees emphasized spiritual values that God hated!
It is frighteningly easy for Christians to make that mistake!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Hey
I'm working on an updated post and will be putting it up shortly. For now, You should hop over to www.twitter.com and hit me up on twitter!!!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Compassion
Compassion means - the feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for one who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate that suffering.
In the greek form this word is splagcnivzomai which in the greek means to be moved as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity)
SO, compassion is made up of two requirements:
1) The feeling/emotion of deep sympathy and sorrow
2) An action that fills the need of the person who has the misfortune
In every case Christ had compassion, it is always followed by an action!
In the greek form this word is splagcnivzomai which in the greek means to be moved as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity)
SO, compassion is made up of two requirements:
1) The feeling/emotion of deep sympathy and sorrow
2) An action that fills the need of the person who has the misfortune
In every case Christ had compassion, it is always followed by an action!
Friday, September 7, 2007
A Thought From Outside The Box...
Think about this for a second.....
1. If someone prays to God for patience..Does God give them patience or does God give them the opportunity to be patient?
2. If someone prays to God for courage..Does He give them courage or an opportunity to be courageous?
3. If someone prays to God for their family to be closer.. Does God hit them with all the warm fuzzies or does He give them opportunities to love one another?
Well, I have got to run for now and do some reading. Think about this and even comment and let me know what you think.
1. If someone prays to God for patience..Does God give them patience or does God give them the opportunity to be patient?
2. If someone prays to God for courage..Does He give them courage or an opportunity to be courageous?
3. If someone prays to God for their family to be closer.. Does God hit them with all the warm fuzzies or does He give them opportunities to love one another?
Well, I have got to run for now and do some reading. Think about this and even comment and let me know what you think.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
YAY 4 Wii!!
Just for all of the skeptics out there! I found photographic evidence of old people and the Wii!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
