Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #91 |
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JESUS calls US to be |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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Artificial "love" or God's LOVE?
Bill Leong thinks if you love a person you'll want that person to know about Jesus and live with Him eternally. Reuel Lemmons thought in 1985 that the war with Satan wasn't lost yet. Steven Clark Goad says an artificial love can be substituted for the real thing, with very unsatisfactory results. Note first what Steve wrote in the Blythe Banner (weekly bulletin) for 12/14/97 -- Romans 12:9 -- Love must be sincere.Love, especially the kind of love we read of in the Bible, is a difficult concept to grasp. We're told to care for our neighbors as we care for ourselves. We're to have as much concern and affection for those around us as we do for ourselves. What an idea! It's revolutionary. It involves the "golden rule." It involves becoming like God, who IS love.
It may be that some of us have a distorted image of God. We repeat and repeat texts which tell us God's essence IS love. Perhaps we don't really comprehend their meaning.
His essence is love. God demonstrates His love for us in the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. We make note of that. We try to assimilate the reality of a powerful Creator who also has the capacity to love His own creatures. So we end up doing what God either did or urged US to do to demonstrate here what loving really amounts to.
We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit (share our goods with) the widows, orphans, and imprisoned. Yet, down deep in the pits of our stomachs, we fail to receive any joy from the doing of these good deeds. We go through the motions, and sometimes even forget to do that much, but find our hearts are not engaged. Is this because we suspect that God only PRETENDS to love us while He keeps His big stick handy where He can use it on us? Do we believe that God really IS love?
If we suppose our heavenly Father is a figure who hides a frown behind a smiling mask, this may explain the behavior we often see manifested within our Christian communities. If we do not grasp the significance of God's beneficent and holy love for His images on earth, then we have difficulty in being genuine about how we express OUR love. For us it may be more a matter of motion than emotion, of reaction rather than action based upon faith.
In which case we may end up being superficial with those outside of Christ, and sometimes barely tolerant of those who are our brothers and sisters in the faith. We may have developed some sort of intellectual love that will serve the bereaved if the service doesn't interfere with Monday-night Football. If it doesn't entail money or movement on our part, we might even share our faith in Christ. Which is having no real love at all.
One must look at the gospel facts in order to truly understand the kind of love our Lord requests of us. It's a love so transparent that most of us would be embarrassed to tears if we could know how tragically obvious our superficial love-making has become. "Holy" kisses and hugs in the foyer of our meeting houses may give us moments of warm fuzzies. But when it comes to sitting by the bedside of a cancer patient, or mowing the grass of someone who is ill, or for an extended period of time feeding a family down on its resources, or taking the time to study for weeks and months with a starving soul who is genuinely searching for answers, these expressions are far more demanding.
Practicing God's love isn't reduced to smiling at those you hate to think of having to talk with after church services. It's more a matter of DOING than feeling. If love were merely an emotion, we could express with faces full of emotion that WE CARE about the many who are without Christ and without hope for eternity. But Jesus shows us by His life that love is more than mere emotion. Love involves motion as well as emotion. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, He still points out.
I knew one evangelist who was proud of the number of people he could coax down the aisles during special meetings of the church (some called them "gospel meetings.") He would have the song leaders sing extra verses while he told emotional stories in order to urge more souls to come forward. His high pressure depended upon arousing a deep sense of guilt in members of the audience who heard him speak. It seemed to me that perhaps he enjoyed a little too much the twisting of the cutting edge of the sword.
Compare this with the methods used by the Master Teacher. Jesus made people aware of guilt, yes. (Most of us are well aware that we are not all we should be, but some do need to have guilt made obvious). But Jesus did not use methods preferred by some of the pulpit-pounders of our generation. Jesus invited some sinners to banquets. He encouraged them to quit sinning. Even to ones taken in adultery (so that all recognized their sin), He spoke with kindness, understanding, and forgiveness. He did not approve of nor make light of sin. He DID love people, and they felt that love.
Love is not some quid pro quo performance, but it is a spontaneous outpouring of the presence of God (the God who LOVES) in our lives. Let's make our love for others GENUINE! --
Steven Clark Goad (Blythe, CA)
We Are At War! Christians love peace. We follow the Prince of Peace. Yet, Paul characterized the entire Christian walk as a warfare. True, we don't fight against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in heavenly places. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (not of this world), but they are mighty (and effective when we choose to use them!).
For the last quarter century, Christianity throughout the world has been on the defensive. Largely because it has retired within its cloister to talk to itself, it has been losing the battle for the minds and hearts of men in this world. The battlefield has been ceded to the humanists. In the U.S., our public schools have become tools of the Devil while every possible mention of God has been censored out of the curriculum.
Attacks of materialism against the church have been on a broad front and against every facet of the Christian value system. These attacks have been relentlessly pursued. They have NOT been relentlessly withstood. With little or no struggle, we peace-loving people have surrendered most of the field, and not just in the public schools.
One result has been that moral values, which are absolutely essential to the survival of godliness, have been eroded and erased in our society. Not only have they almost disappeared out of the world, but the church can no longer hold a line even in the church against the onslaught. Name any sin, from adultery to murder, and you now find it in the church as well as outside it. Many within the church cannot agree that God means it when He calls sinful those things which result in death.
"The church" is made fun of in movies and on TV, scandalized by the press, challenged by the government, and treated contemptuously by everyone. Religious people are publicly portrayed as weak and insecure, gullible and ignorant (unless highly educated and brainwashed), hypocritical and cultic. Powerful public relations agencies have been recruited to front the hedonistic cause. Ridicule is the Big Bertha humanists use to intimidate the faint of heart.
The public school system wrestles from parents and local school boards the task of educating children. Other religions seem to be welcome in many schools. Christianity is forbidden in most. Prayers to Jehovah God in the name of His Son Jesus must not be uttered aloud on school property. Bibles must not be seen in the classroom. If the situation were simply one of militant humanism (the "new age" religion) confronting a militant, united Christianity, we would fear no evil. No power can prevail over Christ's church when it marches in the Lord's name. But the church today is in shambles, hopelessly divided, with its house in total disarray. There is little about us to inspire confidence. We can't even agree on who or what the enemy is.
If the contemporary church could present to humanism a united, militant front, we could turn the tide of battle. If we could regain the evangelical aggressiveness that characterized the church in some previous periods of history, we surely would win. If we lived our religion while we engaged in politics and daily living, God might again send the sound of rushing chariots to confound the enemy. He WOULD give us victory.
By showing some anger (righteous indignation), we might put some panic in the hearts of those who hate God and things of God, and who have assumed that the victory already belongs to the Devil they serve. When humanism succeeds in destroying the value systems of this nation, it has already bound the strong man, and then is at liberty to destroy his goods. Can we agree together to NOT surrender to the materialistic antics of the false religions of the world?
Fight the good fight of faith. Through faith in God's power, we can overcome. We should refuse to compromise with what is wicked. We should fortify our families. Strengthen our faith. Unite on God's revealed truth. Preach commitment. Practice charity. The battle has NOT been lost. NOW is the time for Christ's people to challenge and overcome the heathen world!
Approach ministry with the premise that Jesus is building His church (as He said He would). We take Him at His word. If we by faith obey His directions (make disciples, baptize..., teach), we become the instruments in His hand to accomplish building His church as He desires. The Lord says, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit...."
Any pressure to "succeed" belongs to the Lord Himself because it is HIS vision, plan, and Spirit. Whether we win one or one million, to us what counts is to hear His "Well done, good and faithful servant." There's never any failure in obedience to the Lord Jesus.
We tend to make our own plans, do things our own way, and then ask God to rubber-stamp His blessing on what we've done. Well-meaning, sincere people by fleshly means (including human ingenuity and plenty of hard work) can often build an apparently successful work (e.g., Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, "Church" of Scientology, etc.). But even though it may have large numbers, any church other than Christ's church is not a group which truly glorifies Jesus Christ.
These comments concerned a discussion about various "seeker service"
methods by which some were considering winning converts to their
congregations or reporting having done so.
Later, on 1/12/98, Bill added this word --We do care about souls. We are concerned about reaching people for Christ, and with populating His kingdom (which is not always exactly the same as "growing" our congregation). And we realize that we ALL are ministers of Christ (whether full-time or part-time workers in His kingdom).
But before we are ministers, we are Christians. Before we are pastors, worship leaders, teachers, evangelists, workers in whatever way, we are adopted sons and daughters of the Most High. By grace through personal living faith we were SAVED. God's grace. Our faith. It's because we do have faith in God that we are called believers. Through faith we were and are saved. In that faith we find peace and joy and life.
Sometimes, in our excitement and exuberance to serve God successfully, we may forget to live by faith, to minister by faith, to seek to build by faith. Instead, we may look to see how others "do it." What methods worked for our neighbors? Only if those methods fit with faith in God and God's ways are they right for those who live by faith in God.
Since we received salvation through faith, let's work at building Christ's church by faith also. Does this mean that we'll trust in winning others to the risen Christ through spreading gospel facts throughout the land, using the best methods we know of which rely on conversion to the cross rather than to a building, or a person, or a doctrinal system?
What do YOU think?