Month: May 2010

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Bible Study

A Look at Love Part 18 (Conclusion)

Good Morning Dear Readers, 

Today marks the last Wednesday in May. Likewise, today will be my last weekly message for a while. During this hiatus, let’s do some “housecleaning”… If you do not read these weekly emails and/ or wish to remove yourself from the email list, simply let me know and I will do so. On the flipside, if you know someone who wants to get future messages, let me know and I will add them.

Starting back in late January, we’ve taken a look at true love as defined in the Bible. For review, let me put forth the scripture covered since then…

1st Corinthians 13:4-7 (NKJV)
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Can you now see how love is so much more than an emotion and a feeling? True love transcends emotions and feelings… and even circumstances. The apostle Paul concurred about this love that comes from above…

Romans 8:38-39 (ESV)
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What a magnificent thing God’s love is! It is any wonder Satan degrades and cheapens love to a self-centered animalistic impulse? True love draws people to the Lord, and the world system by Satan’s design obscures it by defining it as something else. Arrgg! 

Nevertheless…

1st Corinthians 13:8a
Love never fails.

Friends, “never” is a rather dogmatic word, wouldn’t you say? And it is true, for God is true. And if God is true, then what He says is true 😉 You can place all your everything on to this truth.

And when you finally come to Christ as a poor, wretched, and ungodly beggar, casting yourself before Him and His mercy in complete and total surrender… He will gather you into His divine love! His love for you and to you is everlasting!  It cannot end, because love never fails! How utterly senseless would it be to reject Almighty God’s lovingkindness.

To those of you who have God’s love poured into your hearts (Romans 5:5), let nothing hinder you from manifesting that love to those around you. Why do you suppose we’re still left on earth? Ha!

Our love demonstrated toward others is a primary way we breach hardened hearts. It is not that we have a hidden agenda, but that our very nature (regenerated) is to love others.

1st John 4:19
We love because He loved us first.

Well, it has been a privilege and delight to share my thoughts with you all. Please continue to read your Bible… everyday if possible! With love, I conclude for now, but keep you all in my thoughts and prayers.

**Comments/ questions/ testimonies/ objections most encouraged!

Dear Lord, thank you for this time to consider Your word and Your ways. May our thoughts, words, and deeds bring You glory… and glory to You alone. –Amen

Peace,
Jim

Categories
Bible Study

A Look at Love Part 17

Hi Again,

I hope everyone is doing well these days. Springtime (here lately) in the Northern Maryland area has seemed to be more like late February…. cold, windy and rainy. And whatever the weather may be like, we continue on with our routines and schedules anyway. We endure.

Guess what else endures? (You knew I’d go there, right?) 😉

1st Corinthians 13:7b
Love… endures all things.

Endurance is virtue. If you have endurance, you can complete a long distance run. If you have endurance, you can overcome obstacles that might block someone who does not have endurance.

Just now, (tangent alert) my mind thought of the word perseverance. Perseverance and endurance seem similar to me… Hmmm. Let’s look at Merriam-Webster:

Endurance-
the ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially : the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity

Perseverance-
the action or condition or an instance of persevering  (doh… lemme get that one too)

Persevere-
to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement

So endurance looks to me to be an ability, and perseverance is an action.  Also endurance speaks to prolonged effort (doing something) and perseverance speaks to remaining despite opposition (holding fast). Maybe someone can do a word study on this…

In either case, I think the words come from the same idea of a determined willingness to accept suffering for a greater purpose. And who now comes to your mind? Is it not our Lord Jesus Christ?

Philippians 2:8
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This obedience to the point of death shows us Christ’s enduring love for God the Father and His sheep. His love was certainly a driving force…

Then think of all the misunderstanding, the rejection, the abandonment, the persecution, not to mention all the efforts of Satan against Him; and even Almighty God Himself pouring out judgment on Jesus when those three hours of darkness covered the land. Yet Christ still offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of His elect.

See how love endures all things?

Those whom Christ has called and redeemed and regenerated have a new nature within them. This very love that Christ demonstrates on the pages of scripture is also within His saints!

Romans 5:5b
God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

Is your love enduring?

**Comments/ questions/ testimonies/ objections most encouraged!

Dear Lord, thank you for this time to consider Your word and Your ways. May our thoughts, words, and deeds bring You glory… and glory to You alone. –Amen

Peace,
Jim

Categories
Bible Study

A Look at Love Part 16

Good Afternoon, 

It’s that time again to look at and consider (deeply ponder) the word of Almighty God found spoken through the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote to them to help them get a grip on the proper use of spiritual gifts. And beginning in the thirteenth chapter, he comes to the more excellent way… namely, doing all things with the motivation of love.

Recently in our messages, we’ve seen love in action. Not only does love bear all things and believe all things, but look what else it does…

1st Corinthians 13:7b
Love… hopes all things…

The concept of hope is rich in meaning. For our particular verse, I looked to the Blue Letter Bible website to get the Greek word for hope, and it is:

Elpizō – a verb meaning to hopefully trust

Now to see how hope is trusting, just consider this common everyday phrase, “I sure hope so!” I would respond with such a phrase when asked “Will you get paid this Friday?” My hope is trusting because my mortgage payment is automatically withdrawn from my bank account, ha!

Hope also believes. This is easy to see too, for what happens to a person when they have no hope? Despair sets in… because there seems to be a finality to it all. There is no hope left, how sad. But then, a little flicker of hope sets in and everything changes. There is a way out of despair, and hope shows the way. See?

The writer of Hebrews uses faith and hope in the same statement…

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Love hopes because it trusts the character of God.

May we all experience this hope, amen!

**Comments/ questions/ testimonies/ objections most encouraged!

Dear Lord, thank you for this time to consider Your word and Your ways. May our thoughts, words, and deeds bring You glory… and glory to You alone. –Amen

Peace,
Jim

Categories
Bible Study

A Look at Love Part 15

Good Morning Ya’ll, 

This week’s message will be a product of lesser time, but with no loss of sincerity…

We’ve been taking a good long look at love in Biblical terms, Godly expressions, and Christian experience. It is my hope that some of you have begun to comprehend that true love is a rich and matchless reality, manifested in various expressions of thought, word, and deed. 

True love is of God and He enables His children (born-again believers) to love in the ways He loves. In your encounters with people, such expressions of love as a pattern of life (as we have so far covered) are a ready indicator for you to know the believer from the hypocrite.

Here’s another manifestation of love…

1st Corinthians 13:7a

Love… believes all things…

Believing something means you trust that something (or Someone) completely by faith. If I believe the word of God, then I am trusting what He says is the truth… and my trust is built upon my faith in God.

Contrastingly, if I don’t believe the word of God, then I am not trusting what He says is the truth, and my not trusting is built upon my doubting of God.

For some people, seeing is believing. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” This faith in the visual is really a shallow, man-centered faith. Watch this…

John 20:29b

…Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Now what about the “all things”?

The verse that immediately popped into my head has a great answer!

Romans 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

The good, the bad, and the ugly… everything that you encounter on a daily basis all your life-long… I think this is what is meant by “all things”.

Those people who love God, believe all things happen according to His will. This is how we can honestly say, “Thanks be to God”!

**Comments/ questions/ testimonies/ objections most encouraged!

Dear Lord, thank you for this time to consider Your word and Your ways. May our thoughts, words, and deeds bring You glory… and glory to You alone. –Amen

Peace,
Jim