Tag: love your neighbor

1 Peter 1:17-2:1 – Real Love Is…

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For,

“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

And this is the word that was preached to you.

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. (New International Version)

Love makes the world go round. The cycle of life brings an end to all things. Yet, the permanence of love has always existed, and will never cease to exist. (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)

Biblical godly love comes not because we first loved God, but because God first loved us and gave his Son, Jesus Christ, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:7-12)

So, the Christian’s faith and hope are completely grounded in the person and finished work of Jesus. People are so valuable to God that we were purchased from the slavery auction block with the costliest price ever: the precious blood of Jesus. 

To know this love of God in Christ, to be thoroughly captured and enraptured by it, results in a profound and deep love for others. And I’m not just referring to a nice touchy-feely love, but also a steadfast love which is committed to love regardless of what another person says or does.

Love is wonderful. But that doesn’t mean its easy. Being on the receiving end of love is a beautiful thing. Giving love, however, can sometimes get dicey.

You see, although we Christians really do believe that everything in life and ministry centers around the grace and love of God in Christ, our boots-on-the-ground loving sometimes seems compromised and conditional. That’s because it’s easy to love those who love us back. Yet, what if our love is not reciprocated or requited?

This situation brings us face-to-face with our own selves. The painful reality is that we all discover that our love is sometimes, maybe oftentimes, dependent on an assurance that we will be loved in return.

There is perhaps no more transcendent and glorious thing than mutual love. However, what happens when only one of the persons is able to give love? What do we do when grace is our only option, when we must choose to love, knowing that love won’t have a response?

Christians everywhere must come to the point of giving the same kind of love that God shows to us in Christ. We need to decide that grace is going to be our lifestyle. It comes down to this: It simply doesn’t matter what condition the other person is in. It doesn’t matter what another is going to say, or not say. Nothing on the other party’s side doesn’t matter. It…just… doesn’t… matter.

What really matters is our own loving another person deeply from the heart, regardless and in spite of everything else. That, my friends, is real Christian love.

“Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.”

Jesus (Matthew 5:43-47, MSG)

Since we are redeemed people; since we have acknowledged the truth of Christ’s redemptive events of crucifixion and resurrection; since we are recipients of God’s great love to us in Jesus; we all must make the decision to live our lives full of grace and love, no matter what.  As God’s redeemed people, purchased by the precious blood of Christ, we will love one another unconditionally.

Unfortunately, over time, many Christians slowly become disconnected from this fountain of grace and love. It is likely that, at some past point, they were deeply touched by a gracious encounter with Jesus Christ. They found peace, love, and joy. Minds were swept up in the awe and wonder of God. Hearts were deeply moved for a few hours, days, or weeks. 

But then, there was a return to the routine grind of daily existence. Gradually, the demands of work and family took over. Jesus began to be treated like some old friend from another town whom we dearly loved in years past but have just lost track of. 

Of course, it was unintentional.  We simply allowed circumstances to drift us apart. We became preoccupied with something else. Now, we find ourselves with a low level irritation, frustrated with others and unable to love as we ought. We become what the late author Brennan Manning called “Christian agnostics” – people who do not deny Jesus, but just ignore him.

If your days are trivial and hectic…

If the clock determines what you do…

If you are numb to the news and headlines around you…

If you are all jangled and jittered by life’s circumstances…

If phones and computers and gadgets rule your day…

If there is little room for responding to humanity humanely…

If you have settled into a comfortable piety and a well-fed virtue…

If you have grown complacent and lead a practical life…

Then you need to be touched again by the grace and love of God in Christ by treating Jesus as if he were your very best friend as well as the awesome Son of God.

We are all still here walking on this earth because none of our failures and lack of faith have proved terminal.  We are here today because of God’s radical grace. 

The forgiveness of God is a gratuitous liberation from guilt and regret. It is an extreme amnesty. Through looking in the mirror, and seeing personal sinfulness, we amazingly end up encountering the merciful love of the redeeming God. 

The grace of God says to us, “Hush, child, I don’t need to know where you’ve been or what you’ve been up to; just let me love you.” 

When we have experienced that kind of love, we are then finally able to love one another deeply from the heart.  It is a new life of love, the kind of love that comes from God – an unconditional love that is permanent and will never go away – it is imperishable.

Therefore, as Christians loved by Christ and belonging to God:

  • We will not just show love when we are assured that we will be loved in return.
  • We will not just wait for others to show love to us first.
  • We will not expect to reach some higher level of knowledge or spirituality in order to be gracious and loving.
  • We will simply love with the love given to us by Jesus.
  • We will love with a gracious, sacrificial, vulnerable, and desperate kind of love. 

It is the kind of love that is like the waiting room in a hospital burn unit. Many years ago, I spent some time with a person in such a waiting room after her brother had been severely burned in a farm accident. In the waiting room we were all strangers. Yet, there was a loving vulnerability to our being together. I sat watching and waiting with anguished people, listening to their urgent questions: Will my husband make it? Will my child walk again even she survives? How do you live without your companion of thirty years? 

The burn unit waiting room is different from any other place in the world. And the people who wait are different. They can’t do enough for each other. No one is rude. The distinctions of race and class melt away. Each person pulls for everyone else. Vanity and pretense vanish. No one is embarrassed about crying or asking tough questions. In that moment their whole world is focused on the doctor’s next report. If only it will show improvement.

Everyone intuitively knows that loving someone else is what life is all about. 

By God’s amazing grace we will all learn to live like that without having to learn it the hard way in a place of intense anxiety and suffering.

Christ’s resurrection is not some flash-in-a-pan – it has staying power – it is real and permanent. Christ is the Christian’s hope of living a new life of gracious unconditional love. 

Jesus actually expects more failure from you than you expect from yourself. And he gives grace. So, all of our failures to love as we ought can be laid before Jesus because there is grace that covers it all – a deep love that forgives, redeems, and makes new.

Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.

Who Do We Minister To?

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

Welcome, friends! Matthew 22:36-40 are the words of Jesus to love God and love our neighbor. The ability to extend that love is grounded in God because God is Love. Click the videos below and let us consider the great love of God toward us and all humanity….

Pastor Tim Ehrhardt, Matthew 22:36-40

May Christ the Son be manifest to you, that your love and your life may be a light to the world. And may the blessing of God our Creator, Redeemer and Giver of life be with you always. Amen.

Romans 12:17-21, 13:8-10 – Let Love Be Your Only Debt

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Don’t mistreat someone who has mistreated you. But try to earn the respect of others and do your best to live at peace with everyone.

Dear friends, don’t try to get even. Let God take revenge. In the Scriptures the Lord says,

“I am the one to take revenge
    and pay them back.”

The Scriptures also say,

“If your enemies are hungry,
    give them something to eat.
And if they are thirsty,
give them something
    to drink.
This will be the same
as piling burning coals
    on their heads.”

Don’t let evil defeat you but defeat evil with good….

Let love be your only debt! If you love others, you have done all that the Law demands. In the Law there are many commands, such as, “Be faithful in marriage. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not want what belongs to others.” But all of these are summed up in the command that says, “Love others as much as you love yourself.” No one who loves others will harm them. So, love is all that the Law demands. (Contemporary English Version)

Not everybody is likable. We all have others that drive us crazy on the inside with their annoying habits or ungodly ways of life. 

Sometimes we might experience much more than being irritated. Raging vitriol that results in verbal persecution; becoming the targets of evil intent; and, in some cases, finding ourselves victims of violence done to us or a loved one can stretch our Christian sensibilities to their maximum. It is understandable that in such cases we would be upset, angry, in grief, and desire justice.

As we reflect back on Reformation Day and the great truth that we are justified apart from any work of our own but by grace alone through faith, this helps to give understanding as to why we do not take vengeance into our own hands. 

We are clearly exhorted in today’s New Testament lesson to repay no one evil for evil because vengeance belongs to God alone, not us. 

If justification is a work of God to rescue and redeem sinners from their plight, then wrath is also a work of God. Just as justification is initiated and made possible through Christ by faith, so vengeance belongs to God, as well. Our part in the whole affair is to trust God to take care of judging the world. Judgment is way above our pay grade.

Our responsibility is showing love, even to those whom we consider enemies. If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, then we will leave plenty of room for God to do what God does best: either show mercy to sinners or execute judgment upon them. It’s all God’s business what happens with humanity. Our business is coming under the lordship of Christ and allowing God’s new creation to work itself out through us. 

We are to work for the kind of justice that provides others with what they need, not what they deserve. The world cannot become a better place if we keep insisting on playing judge, jury, and executioner. Sometimes the best way to show love is to sincerely pray for the person for whom we have such difficulty loving. 

Who do you need to love today? Here is an excerpt from a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., delivered at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on November 17, 1957:

“Love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you.

Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them.

And by the power of your love, they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So, love your enemies.”

Just and merciful God, you are the rightful Judge of all the earth. Help me to trust in you so that I can give room for you to do whatever you want to do in others’ lives. I pray you will grace many people with the repentance that leads to new life in Jesus. Amen.

1 John 2:3-11 – From Hate to Love

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing, and the true light is already shining.

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. (NIV)

If we claim to be in the light and hate someone, we are still in the dark. But if we love others, we are in the light, and we don’t cause problems for them. If we hate others, we are living and walking in the dark.

Simply based on this Scripture alone, it ought to be abundantly clear that hate really has no place in the Christian’s life. Hate is never justified for any one person or group of people. Love, however, is the consummate Christian virtue. The highest of all truth in Christianity is the grace bestowed on us through the love of God. We, in turn, reflect our Lord’s grace by loving others, no matter their gender, race, religion, creed, or ethnicity.

We all have individuals, maybe even a particular group of persons whom we do not like. Perhaps we even despise them. The Apostle John squarely places the burden of change to fall on those who claim the name of Christ and choose to hate, and not on those for whom we dislike.

I am wondering what will you do to deal with this Scripture? Will you begin or continue the difficult process of forgiveness?  How will you come to be ever more characterized by love?  Will you ask God to shine his light on the shadows of your heart? 

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

As for me, I have not always been a lover of humanity. And I have not always been a lover of God. There was a time (much earlier in my life) when I found relationships and people to be a necessary evil, at best. I believed God to be aloof and unconcerned. Through a series of circumstances, I had become jaded toward my fellow humans and did not see the image of God within them.

One day, many years ago, after I had come to connect with my faith and sought to walk in way of Jesus, I encountered a former classmate by happenstance. Her eyes were bloodshot. It was apparent she had been crying. She told me that she just found out someone we both knew was killed in a car accident.

I don’t recall what I said to her. The only thing I remember is what I thought after walking away. It went something like this: “Well, God, that guy probably wasn’t a Christian. I’m not sure of his eternal destiny. He probably deserved to die. He was kind of a jerk in this life. Hell seems like a good place for him…”

Then, as if some divine baseball bat hit me upside the head, I felt the full weight of my heart’s callousness. Dazed and confused, I went straight home and reflexively went to today’s New Testament lesson. There it was. I had not a wit of love for the deceased man. Neither did I have much love of anyone.

That was the point I began praying earnestly for love, to feel compassion for my fellow humanity, to experience loving another like Jesus did.

To make a long story short, my heart was changed – transformed by the grace of God. It was such a dramatic turnaround, I barely recognized myself. I almost couldn’t believe that a person like me with such a hard heart could be so profoundly different, could have a completely different attitude and feeling toward the great mass of humans for which I previously cared not a wit.

I suddenly understood the Grinch’s enlargement of heart. I became enlightened to old Scrooge’s new approach to the world around him. I felt the power of the Beast being transformed because of beauty’s selfless love. I “got it.” I could now relate to love coming from the depths of my being:

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. (Romans 12:9-13, MSG)

And I have not looked back since but have pursued loving God and loving neighbor as one in the same.

Those who are in the dark do not see their flaws. Those in the light of the Son can clearly see their need for God’s help. They discover, indeed, love is the most powerful force in the universe. For God is love.