Month: December 2017

Love, Dad

My Dear Beloved,

As I think of you, I am filled with longing for good things for you.  Oh how I want you to be satisfied with undeserved favor, blessing and honor!  I so want you to know the beauty and intimacy of a relationship restored to wholeness because you’ve experienced the kindness of Jesus.

I am so thankful for you, Beloved, and how you’re overflowing with joy and gratitude.  I see it in your generosity – you gladly share all that you can because you’re delighted and pleased by the generosity that’s been shown to you.  Now I’m about to ask you to do something that’s going to take all your resources. I know it won’t be easy.  But if you do it, I promise good will come from it for you. You’ll know by experience more of what God is like.  You will grow and be stretched and blessed. You’ll be able to do the impossible.

I know you can do it because you’ve done something like it before.  It’s just that this time it’s going to be a little harder, it’s going to go a little deeper, it’s going to take a little more. But because I know how sweet your love is, and because I want the very best for you, I’m boldly asking you for this favor.  I could force you, or insist that you do it because it’s the right thing to do.  But it’s up to you.  It’s your choice.  Love that’s demanded is not love at all.

And that’s what I’m asking you to do – show kindness to the person who has wronged you.  Love him.  Welcome her.  I don’t want you do it because you’re obligated or because you feel guilty, but because you want to.  Because you know by experience that when a person encounters Jesus, they’re changed.  They become a new creation, a new person given the chance to live a new and completely different life, a life of such goodness that one human lifespan can’t contain it all.

No matter how good your relationship was in the past, it was temporary. Without Christ, it was certainly going to end in sorrow. But now, no matter how bad it was before, Christ has made it possible for it to give you great joy that will go on forever.

So please, dear one, because you love me, won’t you welcome your offender with open arms, the way you would welcome me?  If it costs you something, and I know there’s a good chance it will, charge the debt to my account.  I will more than restore whatever you’ve lost. I promise you will be satisfied.  You won’t be left wanting.  You know I’m good for it because I’ve never held anything back from you.

You yourself have been made new, redeemed, restored.  You know by experience what a tremendous gift you’ve been given.  This is your chance to honor the One who gladly embraced you by being generous with the grace He gave you so abundantly.  

Oh how I want to see you!  I can hardly wait.  Be ready for me.  I’m coming soon.

*my paraphrase of Philemon

Advent

Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ?  Any comfort from his love?  Any fellowship together in the Spirit?  Are your hearts tender and sympathetic?  Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one heart and purpose.  Philippians 2:1-2

If you get anything out of your relationship with Christ, if it means anything to you that you’ve been reconciled to God, then you must pursue unity with other believers.  We are intended to be of one mind, closely knit, joined together like one building, or one body (Ephesians 2:21, Romans 12:5, Ephesians 4:3-4, 16).

But how do we do it?  How can we be joined together with people who get on our very last nerves?  Or those who have been our enemies? It’s impossible unless we know what it means to be forgiven, unless we have experienced true love covering our countless sins.  Then we can offer peace and enter fellowship with others because God first loved us and showed us what love really looks like (1 John 3:16). It overlooks a multitude of sins.  It doesn’t keep a record.  It remains when all else fails.

But, you might be thinking, you don’t know what they did. You’re right. I am certain God hates the harm that was done to you.  I do know they cursed, mocked, humiliated, beat, and pierced a child of God. Same as you.  Same as me.  Ultimately all our offenses are against God (Psalm 51:4), and the sting for them all was endured by Jesus Christ on the Cross (1 Peter 2:24).

And so He can be trusted with our wounds. He knows the depth of the hurt, the bitterness of the offense, the ache of the loss.  He knows the disappointment, devastation, and destruction of the past.  He knows that what came before is only darkness.  There’s no hope in the past. Our hope lies in what’s yet to come, what’s still possible, what might be.

Jesus invites us to turn our backs on the pain and rivet our gaze to what lies ahead, the breathtaking renewal of all things.  When we can’t tear our eyes away from that wonderful vision, we’re able to turn the other cheek, give more than what’s asked, go the extra mile, love our enemies (Matthew 5:39-44).  We can ignore the spirits of anger, bitterness, regret, doubt, and fear, and embrace the Holy Spirit instead, whose fruit nourishes unity.  We can see past the offense, beyond the offender, to Jesus, who’s getting everything ready for our happily ever after.

God never intended that we keep all His goodness for ourselves.  He extends His magnificent and abundant grace to us.  And then we are the channels by which His grace extends beyond us to others. We are blessed, so we can bless others.  We are comforted, so we can comfort others.  We are forgiven, so we can forgive others.  It’s possible for us to do these things as a result of the goodness we’ve received.  And they are given so that we will pass them on. Our forgiveness and reconciliation is merely a shadow of the restored intimacy that God desires, intends and offers for us.

Hope waits ahead of us.  In order to live in harmony with each other, we have to stop looking back and start looking ahead.  We have to reorient our focus from what we’ve lost to what we’re longing for.  We must hold fast to our confident expectation that in God’s kingdom, all will be as it should be. All our hope for this glorious future waits on the Advent of the King.