Called to love

 

Love Has Called My Name

 

I have been there when it is hard to love someone that God has called me to love. When I finally let go, He empowered me to love and to keep loving. Yes, I have walked away first many times before coming back to love. God is always patience, kind, gentle and affirming through it all.

Living out God’s calling as a redeemed person myself, I trust that my gifts, talents and personal temperament all factor in how He uses me.

And there I will give her her vineyards
    and make the Valley of Achor[e] a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
    as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. – Hosea 2:15  ESV

I am adopted into His family. He transforms my valleys, my sin patterns, into a door of hope for others. And all of who I am intersects with human need around me.

And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” – Hosea 3:1  ESV

Despite my own unfaithfulness, foolishness and obstinacy, God’s love and patience endures and leads me through hardship to discipleship.  God is responsible for making me righteous – justified.

With that comes peace.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith[b] into this grace in which we stand, and we[c] rejoice[d] in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:1  ESV

Suffering is an intense word. Maybe it would be good to check out what it means. Translated it means pressure or affliction.

The expression given to me that allows me to endure is God’s love and my ability to love too.

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No division

 

I was reading up on some Shakespeare pieces as there was pointed out to me that he was not free to put God in any of them but alluded to things about God in them. In particular, I wanted to read The Phoenix and the Turtle as there was a stanza there about the Trinity.

So they lov’d, as love in twain 
Had the essence but in one; 
Two distincts, division none: 
Number there in love was slain. – Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle 
I see the math dynamics for sure and if I were to read some of the Trinity pieces in the same era as Shakespeare I believe I would understand the counterparts even better.  I do understand John much better and I think this explains just how united and close the Trinity operate together in community.
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. – John 17:20-24  ESV
Could it be that Jesus selection of disciples were so radically different in temperament, personality and political philosophy – so that because of their glaring differences, their unity was so evident.
Jesus desires unity, closeness and a love with His disciples and that love reflects the very same love in the Trinity.
Notice how different this prayer was from the one in which He taught the disciples to pray.
“The request of our Lord thus given in John’s seventeenth chapter is clearly no prayer of an inferior to a superior: constantly there is seen in it the co-equality of the Speaker with The Father. The Two have but one mind… Where the Son speaks He is not seeking to bend The Father to Him: rather is He voicing the purpose of the Godhead.” – Trench
The message to me as a disciple is this – without love and without unity I do not deserve credibility.
Unity does not mean uniformity, but rather to remain in love, in spite of tensions and conflicts. The unity in love revealed in the Trinity is the model for communities – no division.

The advantage of believing in the Trinity is not that we get an “A” from God for knowing the right answer. The advantage of believing in the Trinity is that we then live as if the Trinity is real, as if the cosmos around us is actually beyond all else a community of unspeakable magnificent personal beings of boundless love, knowledge and power. – Dalles Willard

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Dale Bruner and the Holy Spirit

 

I Will Sing of My Redeemer (with 1st-3rd grade skit intro and choir)

 

In my quest to understand the Trinity more and in understanding how the Holy Spirit engages as part of the Godhead, I ran across Dale Bruner’s material. Let me share some quotes and thoughts.

Dale Bruner wrote about this. He said that the Spirit could be pictured by my drawing a stick figure (representing Jesus) on a blackboard. Then, to express what the Spirit does, I stand behind the blackboard, reach around with one hand, and point with a single finger to the image of Jesus: “Look at him, listen to him, learn from him, follow him, worship him, be devoted to him, serve him, love him, be preoccupied with him.”

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. – John 16:12-15  ESV

In other words, the Holy Spirit doesn’t exist in order to draw attention to Himself, He wants to get people to focus on Jesus. Self-giving, unconditional loving, mutual affirmation, promoting the welfare of the other.

 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. – John 14:26  ESV

The Spirit is always pointing people back to the Son.

“It is often said that the Holy Spirit is the Cinderella of the trinity …the great neglected person of the godhead. But the holy spirit’s desire and work is that we would be thrilled again, excited again, and gripped again by the words and majesty and relevance of Jesus. The holy spirit does not mind being the Cinderella outside the ballroom if the prince is being honored in his kingdom.” – Dale Bruner, The Shy Member of the Trinity  

“One of the most surprising discoveries in my own study of the doctrine and experience of the Spirit in the New Testament is what I can only call the shyness of the Spirit… What I mean here is not the shyness of timidity but the shyness of deference, the shyness of a concentrated attention on another; it is not the shyness (which we often experience) of self-centeredness, but the shyness of an other-centeredness. It is in a word, the shyness of love.” ~ Dale Bruner, in The Holy Spirit: Shy Member of the Trinity” – Dale Bruner, The Shy Member of the Trinity

It is, in short, the shyness of love. Bruner points out the ministry of the Spirit in the Gospel of John, a ministry constantly to draw attention not to Himself but to the Son—the Spirit comes in the Son’s name, bears witness to the Son, glorifies the Son

 “It is worth noticing that the voice from Heaven does not say, ‘Hey! Listen to Me too! Don’t forget about me! Don’t be too taken up with my Son!’ …God the Father is shy, too. The whole blessed Trinity is shy. Each member of the Trinity points faithfully and selflessly to the other in a gracious circle.” ~ Dale Bruner

 

 

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Abraham’s life

 

The God of Abraham Praise – Fernando Ortega

 

In the beginning of last year I started a leadership discovery challenge by looking at the skill sets of leaders in the Old Testament. My very first study was Abraham and it took me about three months to finish. He is a fascinating individual. I had to ask myself a number of times – I wonder what I would have done? He experienced moments of critical decision making and they came with grave consequences.  My most precious takeaways involved watching his relationship with God. I had to challenge myself with what I learned from that and to apply some of those relationship traits in my own life.  There are verses in Romans that describes some of this best.

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,  as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.  In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”  He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness[b] of Sarah’s womb.  No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,  fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.  That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”  But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,  but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. – Romans 4:16-25  ESV

If I had to memorize a verse among these that represented Abraham to me most, I would choose…

 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,  fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. – Romans 4:20-21  ESV

 And if I had to memorize a verse among these that represented what God has done for me in Jesus, I would choose…

That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”  But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,  but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,  who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. – Romans 4:22-25  ESV

Forgiveness is what God has done for me in Christ. It is a gift given to me by God. In Christ my sins are forgiven the moment I turned to Him. His sacrifice on the cross, His burial and His resurrection made me right with God. Now my forgiveness is motivated by and modeled after Jesus’ forgiving me.  All this from the life of Abraham and a little perspective from Romans.

 

 

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Calling

 

Deborah Joy Winans – The Master’s Calling

 

I remember the calling of Isaiah – he thought he was doomed..

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train[a] of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”[b]

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” – Isaiah 6:1-8  ESV

One thing about callings – does it seem that God chooses the least expected ones? What a blessing to know that no one is beyond the reach of God’s call, no one is too sinful to do God’s work. Just this thought alone keeps me going deep, and yet keep small. It allows me to work to build up the church, the people of God. I can express love and I can recognize what I need to throw overboard in my life. So I never stop studying, learning and practicing what Jesus taught. I have come into a place where I fear transformation less as I see my likeness to Christ show up.

The goal seems simple enough – stay consistent with God’s Word and in the power of the Holy Spirit – when God calls, He also provides everything necessary to accomplish His will.

I would say the danger does not lie with the call, it is what happens when we respond and become stronger and more confident. Somehow there is a temptation to become strong in our own conceit. Too the point where we credit ourselves with whom we have become when in fact it is due to the grace of God. Look at Uzziah’s life.

In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.

But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.  – 2 Chronicles 26:15-16  ESV

It happens to all of us I think and I know I find myself going back to the basics all the time.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. – Romans 3:21-27  ESV

There is no salvation in any other – my calling and works have no ground for boasting. So I enjoy my calling knowing that God continues to work in me and His work has made the calling what it is.

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