Let’s Talk About Love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.   1 John 4:7

Beloveds, we are to love without hypocrisy. God is love, and we cannot love without His Spirit. His love is unique and unfathomably profound. It is beyond the love we can give or appreciate, and it is best expressed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, our love must mirror His love, or we are merely hypocrites - bad actors. Love embraces good and rejects evil, it is kind, generous, consistent, durable, and humble. It takes action, overcomes obstacles, and manifests in service to others. It talks less than it works. Love is alive and active, and the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.

Our love is to be shared in maturity and wisdom. It handles the good and the difficult with the dignity of the Holy Spirit. Love does not require that it be returned or acknowledged, as it is not needy, but complete in Christ. Love is not showy or dramatic, and it is not hindered by or mired in controversy. Love always accomplishes what it sets out to do; and just as Jesus was not deterred from His mission, neither will you be, if you love God.

Remember, love is the best revenge.  No other power can compete with love, so it never has to get even. Love will never allow us to act in kind with those who wrong us, or the world, or those who don't know the Lord. Our example is Jesus, and He never avenged himself, vindicated himself, or felt the necessity of explaining Himself. His love spoke for Him, and He ever lives as the Lover and Savior of all men. Amen.

Love and perfect peace,

Pastor Eric

Faith That Believes God

Faith that Believes God

Galatians 3:6-9

just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

The gospel of Jesus Christ was preached to Abraham, in that we are saved by God's grace and our faith that believes God. That is the blessing "all nations" receive through Abraham - we believe like he did, and we are saved. In the same way, you and I are a blessing to "all nations" by our decision to believe God and walk according to that belief, for men are still saved by grace through faith. That fact has always been and forever will be. Without faith, it is (and always will be) impossible to please God - believing that He "is" and that He is good is the bedrock of saving grace. (Hebrews 11:6)

Our flesh and our carnal nature, however, war against the simplicity of faith, always seeking to justify itself through its own goodness and nobility. Therefore, we hear numerous messages, some mixed and some perverted, telling us there are other ways to God and other ways to please Him. Jesus is often left out and relegated to a sideshow in God's plan of redemption (and if I can be pleasing to God some other way, why do I need redemption???). So you will hear none of the rugged, bare truth of our lostness and our desperately sinful nature, little about the awfulness of the Calvary, the Blood of the Lamb - that is left out, no longer central to today's message. It's all about people and their needs, and our responsibility to relieve those needs. We are told we must fix the wrongs, change the world, procure justice, etc. But there is no acknowledgment of our inability to do anything worthy without Christ - and who needs faith when we can accomplish our goals by being good on our own? (By the way, "giving back" is nowhere in the scriptures, and is, in fact, antithetical to Christ and His Word - the world never gave you anything to "give back" but sin. This is the voice of the Anti-Christ).

Believing God is the greatest thing any man or woman will ever do, and this cannot be learned in a day, or in a laboratory, or in any field of our choosing. The Lord will place us in impossible and dire straits, he will squeeze and strain us, He will frustrate and offend us until we surrender to Him or forsake Him. The purity of our faith makes all the training and testing worth it to Him. Even Jesus learned obedience through suffering, and so will we.

You will never hear this message preached by great preachers of the day. What message are you preaching?

Love you,

Pastor Eric

WE ARE CHILDREN OF LIGHT

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of incredulity, and it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct the other way...”

From “A Tale of Two Cities,” by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens’ words refer to the volatile days of 1775, but they also could be spoken of the present day. Perhaps you feel it to be the “best of times and the worst of times” in your life. Things may be going very well, but there are some stiff challenges - great spiritual victories but perplexing difficulties - feelings of being closer to a God than ever before, yet days of feeling like a spiritual failure. Can you identify? I believe you can.

 You are the light of the world.  (Matt 5:14)   

Being close to Jesus means living in the light - and being the light in the world is not all that easy, because the light reveals all our imperfections, even our innermost thoughts!  Also, His light will bring out all manner of things about those around us – the good, the bad, and the ugly!  Now that can be uncomfortable. It’s hard living in the Light! 

Whatever you do, be determined to walk closely with Jesus Christ, even when it is uncomfortable. Jesus taught His disciples that apart from total dependence on Him, they could do nothing productive or spiritual! Staying close to the Him keeps us encouraged, focused, and fruitful in spite of life’s discomforts and contradictions.

So, now you understand why so many perplexing issues are at hand. You’ve begun to “walk in the Light” and to be a light. Sometimes that light reveals unpleasant things in and around you. But Jesus will never bring anything to light without giving you the grace to deal with it. So, be encouraged, and face life on God’s terms. Whatever you do, don’t go back into darkness and sin. Ask God to give you His supernatural power to bear the hard times, and let the light that resonates from you reveal Jesus to everyone around you.  Remember, you are the light of the world, and He is the light in you!

Love,

Your pastor and God’s servant,

Eric