Love The Least

This past weekend at Tri-County Church, I had the honor of preaching about the ways God asks us to love His children. You can listen here if you like. Isaiah tells us about love being the best way to serve God. Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms how much the poor and unfortunate mean to Him. When we serve them, we serve him. When we love them, we love Him. James tells us how important it is that we love them.

Here are some great resources for your pursuit of loving the least. First, a couple of books that I think are great on this topic.

Brian McLaren – “Everything Must Change”

Francis Chan – “Crazy Love” (This one is also currently available at our resource center here at TCC, if you are an attender.)

And here’s some great serving opportunities.

If you don’t do it yet, consider sponsoring a child (or two) through an agency like Compassion International or keeping a child in Africa on their anti-retroviral drugs at Keep a Child Alive. Or maybe do both!

Consider helping out at Abba’s Coffeehouse.

If you are part of our Tri-County family, you can help out with “Helping Hands” by clicking this link and filling out the form. (Don’t forget to check off “Helping Hands”.)

While you’re at it, be sure to pray for these folks as they do what they do, and find some new great way today to serve that person near you, whether family, friend, or neighbor, or just somebody you pass on the way.

Why I do what I do

So I’m sitting in a hospital room visiting with a member of our congregation last night, and he’s telling me about all the ways that our church has helped him get closer to God. We are, it appears, not very judgmental, so he felt at home and kept coming back, and feels closer to Jesus than he ever did before. We encouraged our people to start really digging into God’s Word on a daily basis with the Life Journal and he and his wife have been reading the Bible like they didn’t used to. It’s good to do what I do after all! It’s good to serve here. It’s good to be alive.

My problem with Joshua…

I have a great book in my library called “Hard Sayings of the Bible“. It helps me understand some of the things that are “tough” in the Bible, but it is really silent on my biggest “problem” with scripture. The book of Joshua, which I’ve been reading as part of my “Life Journal” (For those of you who go to TCC, you can get one at our Resource Center). Here’s the same God in the Bible that loves us enough to send His Son to die for our sins, and he’s instructing the Israelites to go on these wanton killing sprees. I have heard the explanations, but it’s still hard to take. It makes God seem really distant to me. And maybe that’s the point. God is very distant from me. He is holy, and I’m not. He is omniscient, and I’m not. I guess what it means for me is that these stories that make me feel God is so far away balance with the story of Jesus, who isn’t content just to be near us, or even around us, but loves us so much that He wants to be in us. And sometimes, that’s almost more than I can believe, too. But in a good way. I guess what I’m saying is I’d rather have Jesus living inside and through me than answers to the tough questions… Jesus, be in my head and heart today, and let me be some of Your mercy and grace in a fallen and broken world.

Too much pain

I’ve been so overcome by all the difficulty in so many lives these days. Loved ones lost to horrible tragedies. Hopes dashed by unforeseen circumstances. Jobs lost. Relationships ended. I have to admit, when pressed, that I do sometimes wonder where God is when people suffer because of things they’ve done, or things others have done… or not done. I understand about free will, but I know that a good father will often stop his young child from doing something in their free will that will hurt them (like walking out into traffic), and I find myself wishing God would do some more of that. So don’t get me wrong, I still believe God at His Word, but I don’t always like the way he chooses to leave things. And then I remember Psalm 88, one of my favorites, because it reminds us that even among God’s people, in God’s word, there is pain, there is lament, and there is even sometimes a momentary feeling of hopelessness. If you know someone who has lost deeply, or is hurting right now, take a moment and read that psalm and pray for them. Or for yourself, if it’s you!

Interruptions… The heart of your day

I’ve been reading Luke in my “Life Journal”, and just yesterday read the story in Luke 8 about two interruptions that happen in Jesus’ life at about the same time. (The Life Journal is a GREAT way to read the Bible. You can read more about it here or see Tri County Church’s online version on our web site here. It’s under “Resources”. For those of you who attend TCC with me, if you want one, we’ll get you one!)

So, on to the story.

His normal routine is interrupted when Jairus interrupts his “routine” to tell him that his daughter is sick. I don’t know if Jesus knew Jairus. I think he did, but the Bible gives us no indication, because it doesn’t matter. Jesus would interrupt his day for anyone.

On the way to visit Jairus’ daughter, Jesus is interrupted AGAIN by a woman who touches “the hem of his garment” and is healed. Jesus embraces this interruption fully, too. He stops what he’s doing to address the woman, and as a result, her example of faith becomes a lesson for us throughout the ages in God’s Word.

In the past couple weeks, my workday has been interrupted FAR more than usual. It’s good to be reminded that this is a good thing. I hope I get interrupted again today.

Embrace an interruption in your day today, if it’s just to talk to someone for a while, or to go to lunch with a friend. I think that if you embrace an interruption to maybe be God’s channel for grace, that it’s time well spent.

I gotta go, I’m getting interrupted…

EAT this book

I’m having a GREAT time with a book I just picked up by Eugene Peterson, called “Eat This Book”. You can check it out here.

But in just the first few chapters, I got some GREAT insight that I wanted to pass along. Nothing I didn’t know before, but Peterson puts it better than anyone I’ve encountered.

I don’t know that it’s really so wrong to read the Bible for instruction or illumination or guidance or inspiration or even comfort, but I don’t think that’s how God wants us to approach it. Instead, I think he wants us to look at every single page as the way God communicates about himself, his work in the world, and his plan for mankind. Not just for me, but for everyone. Hopefully, that’s instructive or illuminating or guiding or inspiring, but our purpose should always be seeking God, not answers. And the answers are, I’m finding, more uncomfortable as I get older in the faith. (That’s good, by the way…)

In other words, God isn’t looking to inform us, but to form us. Not just telling us things, but revealing himself. It sounds basic, but how often do we look to the text for answers about life, rather than the direct revelation of God to all of us.

Today is my day off. I’m going to work really hard to do that with my Bible today.

Go be formed… not informed…