Baggage, Beauty and The Bride

When I awoke this morning I lay in bed and began to pray over a number of requests, my own and also those of others.  One that laid heavy on my heart was the small group of "home missionaries", Christian brothers, who are leaving town this morning to minister to flood-ravaged Denham Springs, LA, as well as their wives and children left behind.  Denham Springs received over 20 inches of rain over a 3-day period last month, more than they normally receive during the entire month of August.

One of my friends, who is also one of those wives, wrote eloquently on her Facebook page late last night that it was 11 years ago today she and her husband moved into the home of dear Christians in Denham Springs, as a result of Hurricane Katrina.  They lived there, in their home, sleeping on mattresses on the floor, for a year.  She spoke of what a blessing it was, because she was able to see firsthand how to "do ministry", how to be a "minister's wife".  Now, eleven years later, her husband is leading the team to go and BE the Body of Christ to them and their flooded church.

Such beauty!

On the morning news program a young singer (14 y.o) I'd never heard of was there to sing.  Her name is Mara Justine.  She is a beautiful child, seems to have a delightful spirit, and can sing like an angel.1 Honestly, this girl has "got it".  Long, long auburn hair, peaches-and-cream skin, huge smile, gorgeous voice....beautiful!

Mankind, God's second most amazing and beautiful creation!  Come on...ask me...."What's the first?"

His People...The Church.  Not the local church, per se.  We all know that the local church can be, but I am referring to the larger Church, what the old-time saints referred to as "The Church Universal". That sounds all "new-agey", now, doesn't it?  But, the term simply means "the total number of believers in Jesus Christ, scattered around the world, including the saints who have gone on before us and those yet to join us".

Jesus calls us His Bride, because He loves us so.  As such, He asks that we love one another.  When we do, we show our incredible beauty!  Don't you know?  It is HIS incredible beauty, at work IN us, and shining through us.

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 6:2

The law of Christ is the law of love.

Today, we begin the very short book/letter of Philemon (25 verses), another lovely example of the Body of Christ at work.

The book is titled, Philemon, because he was the immediate recipient, a friend of Paul's who lived in Colosse.  Paul wrote the letter from house arrest in Rome.  Actually, the letter concerns a man named Onesimus, a slave who apparently robbed his master, Philemon, in Colosse and then went "on the lam" to Rome, where he hoped to lose himself in the crowds there, to "disappear".

Providentially, though, he ran into Paul, who led him to salvation in Jesus Christ.  Those of us who know Jesus Christ as Savior understand the supernatural power of God to transform a life forever. This is what happened to Onesimus.   The Body of Christ gained a new member.  I look forward to meeting Onesimus one day, when I join him in Heaven.

We all either were or are the runaway slave, Onesimus.  Christians were, before they met and accepted Jesus as their Savior, lost and owing a debt they were unable to pay.  They realized with joy and gratitude that Jesus paid all of their debt...that all they had to do was to accept and receive it.  ("It is finished!", Jesus cried from the cross...)
Those who are currently firmly planted in the camp of unbelief today are Onesimus, enslaved by their own pasts, shackled to a unshakeable burden of sin, trapped, on the run from God, seeking asylum, thirsting for peace, craving relief from their bondage.

Ah, but like all of us, when we become His, we bring our assorted "baggage" with us.  Onesimus had some serious "junk in the trunk".  Jesus Christ forgave him all his sins, forever; but, Christ's forgiveness did not negate the earthly consequences of his thefts.  The law at the time demanded that he be executed for his thievery; however, it was within the control of the offended master to either hand him over to be prosecuted or decline to press charges.

*****

Can you guess what happened?  We'll explore the story more fully tomorrow.

Father, thank you for the love you show us, in all our life's circumstances.  Thank you for how you demonstrated your love for us most fully, through the gift of your Son, Jesus.  Please give us daily opportunities to share that love with this crippled world, so that they may see You and come to know You.  Please bless my brothers, who are traveling to LA today, and most especially bless the people of Denham Springs and surrounding areas who are struggling mightily to overcome the aftereffects of this terrible flood.  Make Your name glorious, precious Lord! Let Your marvelous, mighty works be known in all the Earth!  In Jesus' name, amen.

Chasing Hospitality

There's a lady blogger who I was introduced to by my uncle (of all people!)  When I told him about the newest phase of my blogging ministry (making and posting videos of my posts), he recommended I check out Leah Adams' blog: leahadams.org
What a wonderful gift he gave me!
Leah is a gifted Bible teacher, but what further distinguishes her blog is her hospitality.
Let me 'splain....

First of all, Leah always welcomes comments on her blog posts, and she regularly responds to them. But then, on Wednesday mornings, she opens up her blog so that fellow bloggers can post on a topic of Leah's choosing.  For example, today's topic is "healthy living", and I posted "Eating the Starter" from my blog, back in March.  I just love reading the God-given wisdom from fellow Christians who post there.

I was thinking of Leah's 21st c. hospitality as I meditated on today's verse, Romans 12:13 (NET).

Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality.

See, through her technology-fueled ministry, Leah contributes to the needs of the saints.  She does so beautifully what I strive to do at Resplendent Daughter blog.  But, as opposed to what I do, which is to post a devotional blog post most days, she opens her hand and opens her blog to the contributions of others.  She actively solicits God's wisdom, as revealed through others.  She chases hospitality!
Through her example, I am so uplifted and inspired!

As we dig deeper into this verse, we see that Paul is talking about the many ways we as followers of Jesus Christ (saints) should support one another.  (In the very next verse, Paul addresses how we should interact with those outside of Christ, who do not yet know him.  We will get to that tomorrow!)

My chiropractor likes to affirm that God created the human body with a tremendous capacity to heal itself, and I believe that is largely true.  So, we as The Body of Christ can be sources of healing to each other, if we only will.  When God reveals to us individually a need of another member of The Body, we should respond by rushing to meet that need.  I believe this is why Paul used the verb "pursue" (more literally translated "practice") here.  There should be no wavering or hesitation.  It should be a habit which we allow the Holy Spirit to form within us.

How does this verse speak to you, personally?  Has God revealed to you ways you can pursue hospitality toward fellow believers?  Has God used a fellow believer to bless you?  If so, please share in the comments section of today's post.  In so doing, you may bless someone else!

Father, I confess that there have been times I have not been open-handed or open-hearted to the needs of fellow believers, because I have been too consumed with my own self-interests.  Thank you for opportunities to be hospitable, loving and giving toward our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Help me to both recognize them and seize them for Your glory!  In this way, I show to the world a tiny glimpse of the perfect love You poured out and continue to lavish on me in Jesus, my Savior, in whose name I pray, amen.

I Love You (Not Really...)

Let's consider the human body for a moment:
Does the healthy body fight against itself?
Does the toe try to outdo the finger?
Do the arms try to outdo the legs?
I could ask several more redundant, anatomical questions along this line.
The answer to all of them is "NO".
In a properly-functioning human body, the various parts faithfully carry out their designated roles.
As a matter of fact, they help each other.  Here's an example - -
When the human encounters a situation which requires "flight"  (you know, "fight or flight"),
the adrenal glands, above the kidneys, produce adrenaline, which gives the muscles used in "flight" (the leg muscles primarily) the ability to skeedaddle quickly away.  But, the arms also help.  Have you ever tried to suddenly run very fast?  You can't do it unless your arms start pumping, to help propel you forward.
I think you get my drift.

In Romans 12:9-10, we get a taste of Paul's larger treatise on the topic of love in 1 Cor. 13.

9Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

The word "genuine" in verse 9, is translated from the Greek ἀνυπόκριτος. which means literally "without hypocrisy".  The title of today's post reeks with hypocrisy, doesn't it?

Remember, now, that Paul is speaking to the Christians in the young church of Rome.  He is exhorting us to love each other sincerely, genuinely, without hypocrisy.  He is urging us to function as a healthy Body of Christ, group of Christ-followers.

Those of you who have ever associated yourself with a group of believers know that this is not always the case.  Sometimes, The Body acts as though it has an auto-immune disorder; it eats/tears-down Itself.  The "ME Syndrome" can be quite prevalent.  Examples:

"I'd be a better chairman of the deacons that he."
"I'm glad Pastor preached that sermon today; _______ really needed to hear it!"
"Can you believe he chose her to sing that solo?  Ghastly voice!"
"{Construct your own carnal statement here.  I'm sure you can think of one.}"

Obviously, I've been in some churches....as have many Christians reading this.  If we love each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, we will do what verse 10 says, which is to "outdo one another in showing honor".  That doesn't mean we will be immune from carnal, fleshly thoughts, such as the ones mentioned above. Satan is not going to abandon his very successful strategy of causing dissension in the church.  It does mean, however, that we will choose to reject such carnal impulses, put them "under the blood", release them to the Holy Spirit and not act on them in a sinful fashion.

Let's be honest: God's range of variety in His creation is amazing.  Accordingly, there are members of the Body who will just make you roll your eyes or drive you crazy, and that is when they are being totally holy!  They are just so different from you that they might as well be aliens.  Still...

Over and over again, we read in the Bible about the power of choice.  It's inescapable, despite our all-knowing, all-powerful God knows our choices before we make them.

Here's verse 10 in the beautiful Greek:
"With the brotherly love toward one another devoted; in honor, one another esteeming"

Let's be known for the love we have for each other, for our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Unless and until we CHOOSE love and we honor each other well, we will be hampered in our capacity to love an unsaved, bound-for-Hell, spiritually dying world.

Really.  :)

Father, I thank you that You did not create us all the same.  If You had, we would be a grotesque representation, a monster (as I've heard it said).  Instead, we fit together as a Body of Christ, as beautifully as a properly-functioning, healthy human body does.  May we choose daily to honor You by showing humility in our honoring of each other.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Gifts, Small and Great

Good morning,

I've waded into a difficult passage this morning, 1 Corinthians 12:14-31.  Because of its length I won't reproduce it here.  If you don't go read it, however, you will be lost.  Here is a link, to make things easy:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A14-31&version=NASB

The essential difficulty of this passage is the seeming contradiction contained in it.
First of all, Paul is saying that all of the spiritual gifts are as necessary as each part of the human body is necessary.  But, then, later (in verses 28-31), he seems to imply that some of the gifts are more special and important than others.

I love the analogy of the Church to the human body.  (Paul expounds on this also in Ephesians 1 and 4.)  Each believer is created by God, according to His perfect foreknowledge.  Each is a miracle. Each is designed to work beautifully together.  It is God that constructs the body in the womb of the mother.  It is God who gifts each new believer.  It is God who leads believers to the local churches, along with the gifts each received at the time of his/her conversion (salvation).  He builds churches according to the giftedness of each individual member.

And, here is a powerful truth - - -
To the extent each of those members yields to the Holy Spirit, walks in obedience to the Word of God and exercises his or her spiritual gifts, the local church grows.
(Now, there are exceptions to this.  There are, for example, churches which have unhealthy growth, based on false teaching and deception.  Satan will pervert anything that is of God, even the growth of the local church.)

Diversity of gifts is healthy.  Where there is little diversity, there is an overabundance of uniformity. Uniformity is not the same as unity. We should pray for and work for unity of purpose in our churches, while we celebrate the diversity of our spiritual gifts.

Another distortion of the devil's is to persuade us to honor some spiritual gifts more than others. Paul seems to confirm this false teaching by mentioning how the Church got started, through the work of the apostles (that gift was preeminent in spreading the gospel initially), prophets, teachers and so on.

Yet, Paul speaks of this to "call out" the false teaching and frame the truth correctly.  Some gifts are more "important" for specific times.  Some are more "showy" in that they seem more effective in leading others to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.  Evangelism is one of those, for example. Healing is another.  Yet, all the spiritual gifts are necessary, whether they are "pretty" or "flamboyant" or "sensational".... or not.  After all, you can live without some of the more visible parts of the body (ears, eyes, hands, feet, face); but, it's hard to live without some of the "less honorable" parts (the elimination system, the heart, the brain, etc.)

What, then, does Paul mean when he says, "Earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I will still show you a more excellent way" (verse 31)?  How can we "desire" something that is not part of our individual "gift package" the Holy Spirit gives us at the time of our salvation experience?

There ARE "greater gifts", and they are the heritage of every believer, in addition to their customized "gift package" from the Holy Spirit.  They are gifts found in every Christ follower, every child of the King: faith that leads to salvation by grace alone (Ephesians 2:8), justification (Romans 5:1 - being made positionally right with God forever), sanctification (John 17:17 - the continual purifying we can have through the Holy Spirit's work in our lives, in this earthly life), glorification (Philippians 3:20-21 - when we finally are totally free from sin, see Him face-to-face and are with him eternally). Inherent in each of these stages are the gifts of righteousness, joy, peace and love, the beautiful anointing oils of the Holy Spirit onto and into our own spirits (Romans 14:17).  We should every day earnestly desire these extraordinary, available-to-all-believer gifts!

In the next chapter, Paul shows us "a more excellent way", as he describes that ultimate mark of the Christian, the spiritual gift of Christ-like love.

Lord Jesus, you know I have truly wrestled with this post today.  There were (good) distractions.  I could not find things I wanted.  I believe this post to be horribly imperfect.  But, I pray that you will anoint it with Your matchless grace and use it in my life and in the lives of those who read it, as I pray for all my "almost daily" posts.  It is not about me; it is about You, and all of this (sometimes seemingly wretched mess) is offered up for Your honor and glory alone.  All love and praise to You, my King!  Amen.