The Love of the Giver

 Thomas A Kempis wrote: A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.

Think about that- when I see the gift of salvation provided in abundance and freely bestowed on me, I have to go beyond the gift of God, and examine what caused Him to want to give it in the first place—the Love of God.  So while I value the gift, the gift is only there to lead me to the Love behind the gift.

 

And therein lies the reason we got trapped into all this commercialism surrounding Christmas in the first place.  We got the whole gift thing.  That made sense.  God gave to show His love—therefore, we can give to show our love.  So we give to those we love.  At least that’s where it started.  But then we began to spread that out a little to include those we appreciate.  And then we found out about political correctness, and we expanded it to giving gifts to those we couldn’t afford to offend or else to those by whom we wanted to be thought of more highly.  

And the gift giving became the focus, instead of the love behind the gifts.  When you separate the value of the gift from the love of the giver, you are left with raw materialism.  And then our worth becomes measured by the expense of the gift.

Let’s take a look at John 1 then, and take a look at the Giver of the gift in order to see if we can see the love of the Giver. 

 

John 1:1   In the beginning was the Word, (capital W—but who is this Word?) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. (being with God and also God himself would give us a clue.  Next John turns to the function of the Word)  3   Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (Keep your finger there and let’s go back to Genesis 1 and see if that’s true.)

 

Gen. 1:1   In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

 

Wait—God just said—let there be light and there was light?  How did that work?

 

Psalm 33:6-9 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.  7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses.  8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him.  9 For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

 

Did you catch that?  By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.  Go back to John 1:3-4   Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

 

The Word was the enacting power in the creation story.  In Him was life…without Him nothing was made that has been made.  But watch this.  Jump down to verse 14. 

John 1: 14   The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

He, the Word, the Life-giver, the one that made everything that has been made—came down and made his dwelling among us.  Why?  To offer Himself to us in relationship.  To help us understand what God was like. 

 

After centuries of mankind enduring the powerful lies of Satan about what God was like, Jesus came to show us exactly what God was like.  And it wasn’t what we thought He would be like at all.  

 

Degenerate human nature says, “Show your power and gain respect!”  But the One who had the most power in the universe—the One who, with a word, could create all things, cloaked His power in the guise of a Baby.  But Satan knew the potential of that power and tried to have His life snuffed out as a toddler.

 

Degenerate human hearts crave money and wealth.  But the One who had everything and came from a place where gold was so cheap they used it as a paving material for streets and building material for the walls, walked through this life unencumbered by material possessions.  And Satan tried to tempt him with everything that man considers important, promising to deliver it all if Christ would only bow down and worship him.  But relationship with the Father is what Jesus centered on because it was the source of His strength as well as the heart of His mission.  Nothing else was worth having.

 

So Satan decides that if relationships are what we need, then present before the  degenerate human heart a string of them.  If one isn’t good enough, cast it aside and grab another.  But each one leaves us only more damaged than the last and leaves a string of broken people and relationships in our past.  Satan knows that if he can keep them shallow and surface, they will never be as fulfilling as God intended.  Jesus chose to focus deeply on that one relationship that mattered—the one with His Father—and that enriched all of the relationships He had with people.  It freed Him from the shallow and the surface.  It allowed Him to go beyond the outer protective shell that people would throw up around themselves, and penetrate to the heart of each.

 

It allowed Him to see the need of Zaccheus—not more money or things—but relationship.  

It allowed Him to see the need of Nicodemus—not more money or power—but relationship.

It allowed Him to see beyond the sin of the woman caught in adultery with her guilt and shame, and He knew she didn’t need more of that, so He offered grace instead.  He offered her relationship.  Not one that condemned her away from the presence of God, but one that restored her to God through Himself.  And that was beyond comprehension to the degenerate human heart.

 

John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

 

John 1:9-10 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.  10  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

 

Has life soured for you because you have been living it your own way and now everything is falling apart? Have you been striving for the wrong things, thinking they would be the fulfillment of your dreams, all the while having a nagging knowledge that tells you that the fulfillment will only be temporary?  Have you been measuring your worth in dollars and cents with the false god of materialism, yet finding that no matter how much you buy, it leaves you unsatisfied?  Do you find yourself in shallow or broken relationships knowing that they won’t truly be the answer, but not willing to let go, simply because you fear being alone?

 

Then the good news found in Jesus, is that he comes to offer Himself.  He's the Right Answer to a mixed-up world.  A relationship with the Word (capital W) can allow Him to speak a re-creative word (small w) into your life.  He can make you and your world all over again. And He can make it better, richer and with a brighter hope for your future. But it can’t be done apart from Jesus.   Any striving for any of these things apart from Jesus will only leave you more broken, more frustrated and more destitute at the end of the day.  How do I know?

 

John 1: 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.

 

That’s where the right answer for your life is found.  In Christ.  Alone.  In Him is life and that life is what can bring light to your life.  It can re-orient your priorities, bring fulfillment and purpose to your life, show you what is truly important, and restore relationships and deepen them beyond your wildest hopes, dreams or expectations.

Are you ready to try Him...again?  Or perhaps, for the very first time?  Then simply ask Him to come in and speak that word into your life.  And if you need help knowing what to do next, I'd love to hear from you.

Where Do I Find My Faith?

Over the past two weeks, my FaceBook inbox, my email inbox and many comments left on my Facebook feed have all begun to point at one main question.  “Where is my faith?”  Or “Where can I find peace.”   Is it possible?  And the answer is “Absolutely.”  I know that many others are talking about it, but for the sake of my friends who are asking, I’d like to take a stab at it.

First of all, I think many of us get confused when we hear the word faith.  Where is it found and what is it?  Well, it’s found in the dictionary, which is where most people would logically start.  Oxford defines it this way:

faith | fāTH |

noun

1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something: this restores one's faith in politicians.

2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof: bereaved people who have shown supreme faith.

• a system of religious belief: the Christian faith.

• a strongly held belief or theory: the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe.

It starts out good by saying, “complete trust or confidence in someone or something”, but then goes downhill when it mentions politicians.  Then we see “strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion” but then we see stuff like “based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.”  The we see “a system of religious belief, and Strongly held belief or theory.”  And none of those are really helpful in restoring my faith.  No wonder we are confused.  I don’t want a faith that is simply based on my spiritual apprehensions or blind trust or simply chanting the mantra, “I believe, I believe” over and over as if God were Santa Claus and I really want to see him at Christmas. 

Here’s the problem.  While the dictionary can take a great stab at defining it, the type of faith we are talking about is not centered in a system or doctrines or even just strongly believing and hoping.  None of those is where true faith lies.

True faith lies in a relationship with a Person.  And the funny thing about relationships is that you can never really prove that they exist, you can only give evidence of them existing.  For instance, I can say that my wife, Sandy, loves me.  But I can’t prove it.  I can believe it to be so.  I can hope it to be so. But I can only point to the evidence of that love.  She treats me nice.  She continues to stay with me after almost 40 years.  She cooks and cleans for me.  She says nice things, etc.  But all of those are not proof—only evidence.  

Each of you could point to examples where the above evidences were only in place until that person could gain what they wanted or something of greater importance to them.  Let’s look at them one at a time.

“She treats me nice”...you already know intuitively that people can treat you nice because they want something from you.  So that is not necessarily a proof of love. “She continues to stay with me”...maybe she has no where else to go and she is comfortable with the lifestyle.  “She cooks and cleans.”  Could be she just sees that as a trade-off for a roof over her head and some groceries.  “She says nice things”...maybe she doesn’t want to mess up her good gig.  

So you can’t point to any of those and say you have conclusive proof.  BUT...if I take all of those pieces of evidence and put those together, and combine that with the ongoing nature of such evidences, I can conclude that my wife loves me.

Nice, Pastor, but I still haven’t found my faith.  Ok.  Since we are talking about God, why not see how HE defines faith. And since the Bible is His self-revelation to us, let’s see what it says.

In Romans 10, Paul points out that the Jewish people were having some of the same struggles that we have when it comes to walking in faith.  

Romans 10:1    Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved. 2 I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. 3 For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. 4 For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.

Here is often where we get stuck.  We want to know God.  We want to follow Him.  We want to have faith in Him, but we don’t understand God’s way of making people right with Himself.  Why is that?  Because many well-meaning people in our past have obscured it with well meaning words and rituals and practices that hinder a true view of Jesus.

In my faith tradition, especially during my youth, we often confused a relationship with Jesus with following of rules to help us live better lives.  Nothing wrong with the rules per se, but it caused me to miss Jesus, the person I need to have faith in, as I focused on being a good member of my church community.   And, as I am friends now with clergy from many other denominations, our comparing notes has led me to conclude that most of them have had a similar time in their history where following rules was more important than following Jesus.  

So does that mean they were bad people?  No.  I believe they were wanting to follow Jesus, but simply bought into what someone else had told them they needed to do, ultimately leading to a type of legalism in the church.  And in their misguided zeal, the true picture of God was marred and many were led to conclude, “well if God is like that then...”   The problem with that conclusion is that the premise was never challenged.  If God is like that.  Perhaps instead, we should have asked, “Is God really like that?”  And then gone looking in Scripture for the answer.

Other things that keep us from understanding God’s ways are expectations that we have learned or deduced or heard that may or may not be true.  I had such expectations when my dad got cancer and then consequently died while I was begging God to spare his life.  It really made me question if I could remain a minister.  I mean, why minister to the goodness of a God that you suddenly didn’t feel was so good?  If you are interested in reading that story, it’s here on my blog from a few years back.

I have realized in the ensuing years that the devil can create a lot of misunderstood passages and misguided expectations that can lead us to the wrong conclusions, and when we don’t get the desired outcome, he can twist our consequent pain into a blaming of God and an anger at Him that is neither accurate nor deserved.

I prayed and believed and nothing happened...therefore God doesn’t care and He can no longer be trusted.  It spirals downward from there.  God could have done something but He didn’t so I hate Him!  And on we go, spiraling away from where the only real hope is found.

So what does God look like?And how do I find my faith?  The simple answer is God...looks like Jesus. Notice this question and Jesus’ answer in John 14:8,9   Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9   Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? 

John 1 calls Jesus “The Word”.  Starting in verse 1 of John 1 we read:  

1 In the beginning the Word already existed.

The Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

²  He existed in the beginning with God.

³  God created everything through him,

and nothing was created except through him.

⁴  The Word gave life to everything that was created,^a

and his life brought light to everyone.

⁵  The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness can never extinguish it.^a

John is saying that Jesus IS God and Jesus was basically saying to His disciples, if you want to see what God is like, look at Me.  Watch Me.  Hang out with Me and I will show you a pure undistorted picture of what God is like and what we want for you!

So, how did Jesus treat people? Matt. 14:14 Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.   Over an over we see that Jesus led with compassion.

How did He deal with those that made mistakes?  Read the story in John 8:1-11 of the woman caught in the very act of adultery and then read the ending.  You will see Jesus response.  

John 8: ⁷ They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” ⁸ Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

v.9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. ¹⁰ Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

v.11    “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

And of course most people have heard the greatest statement about what God is like in John 3:16…but don’t often read what John 3:17 says.  And John 3:17 was the continuation of Jesus’ thought when he was talking to Nicodemus.  Check this out.

John 3:16    “For this is how God loved the world: He gave^a his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 

Yep…that’s the part I’ve heard.  But let Jesus continue that thought.

¹⁷ God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

One of the biggest lies that Satan has perpetrated through the centuries is that God hates you and is just sitting up there trying to catch you doing something wrong.  But Jesus didn’t come to judge the world…but to save it.  That means that God wants you to be saved more than you can ever even have the desire to be saved.  He won’t be throwing obstacles in your path.  The devil does that.  Jesus calmly, relentlessly pursues us as we continue to look at the distorted picture of Him that Satan has been pushing ever since the Garden.

All that is required of us is to see a picture of Jesus/God who loves us, wants to save and redeem us and who continues to pursue our hearts in love, and then simply stop and respond in returned love.

Here’s the capstone verse, in my opinion: 

1John 5:11   And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. 13    I have written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life. 

So the questions on the road to faith that we each have to answer are these: Do I have the Son of God in my life?  Have I accepted His forgiveness and am I willing to take the next step of faith that He lays out for me?