Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

John 15:18  If the world hates you, keep in mind in mind that it hated me first.

Have you ever been bullied?  Have you ever been one of those people that a bully looked for and as soon as he saw you he came running to mess with you?  Fortunately such things typically only happen to some of us when we’re children.  Plus we live in a western culture where such behavior is generally disapproved of.

But think of being in a culture where this type of behavior is a way of life and instead of the bully being an individual, it is a group, or mob or even family.  Worse still consider the reality that all ages are affected by such groups – not just children – and it includes anything from beating to burning to killing.  Becoming a target, results in the reality that it could cost you your life.  So, what makes a person a target of such groups?

In many places in the world today, becoming a follower of Jesus Christ makes one a target of such groups, resulting in severe, often bloody persecution.  Conversion to Jesus Christ requires a price that many in the West just don’t realize.  Fortunately Jesus is more than worth the price!

We encounter discrimination and persecution but it is more in the context of Christian activities being excluded from all manner of places where they have always existed: Merry Christmas becomes Happy Holidays; Christmas vacation becomes Winter break; no prayers at graduation ceremonies; situations in the military where Chaplains are ordered not to pray in the name of Jesus.  There is also a growing perversion of the rule of law where Christian beliefs are not protected by the 1st Amendment (Freedom of Religion).  Think of bakers and same-sex weddings or requiring abortion coverage by all.

We have had a rule of law here that has protected us.  But in too many other parts of the world that law doesn’t exist or is ignored.  There, becoming a believer in Jesus Christ often results in disowning, disinheritance, expulsion, arrest or death – by stoning, beheading, burning or even crucifixion.  The hatred that Jesus spoke of (today’s verse) is alive and well in the world.

People all over the world – today – are being tortured, beaten, enslaved, imprisoned and broken because of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Recognizing the love of God and Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior, triggers a hateful revenge in so many places that we in the west are often clueless about.  But this is what so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are facing and experiencing.

We must remember the spiritual reality that exists in all this.  Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  Fortunately, Jesus has equipped us all to face and overcome such opposition, “because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4b)

Staying with – I Corinthians 7:19b  Keeping God’s commands is what counts.

What really matters in our lives, overall?  What are the main convictions/values that drive us?  If one of our answers is our faith, what is it about our faith that is at it’s core?  How does our faith impact our lives and those around us?  Although this verse is in a particular context, it can really stand alone.  It’s telling us that it isn’t enough to just talk the talk.

Think of buying a product with a brand name and then having nothing but problems with it.  Or maybe it’s okay most of the time, but it has a knack of not working when we need it most.  If someone asked us if we would recommend it, we’d say NO.  Although the product might look good, and it might perform well much of the time – that’s not enough.  The issue is that it’s lacking in quality and reliability.  It’s subpar.  You might even call it a lemon.

In light of this illustration, consider the verse again, “Keeping God’s commands is what counts.”  I’m reminded of a major manufacturer whose corporate motto was, “The quality goes in before the name goes on!”  We were bought at a great price.  We are new creatures in Christ Jesus.  We have His Spirit within us.  We are freed from the power of sin.  God has expectations and requirements of all of us as His sons and daughters.  They are not optional.

As believers, the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to teach us how to live.  He also convicts us of sin in our lives.  He shows us our wrong motivations, our frailties, weaknesses, shortcomings and all manner of things in order to help us to obey – to become more like Jesus.  He convicts.  We repent.  He empowers and transforms us.  We co-operate with Him.  Our lives become testimonies of keeping His commands.

A portion of this verse is a very important definition (1 John 5:3).  Keeping God’s commands is the Biblical definition of loving God.  Why is obeying His commands so important?  Paraphrasing today’s verse sums it up really well: “Loving God is what counts.”

I Corinthians 7:19b  Keeping God’s commands is what counts.

Have you ever noticed how doing the right thing is a whole lot easier when you have a right attitude/good motives?  Obedience just seems to flow out of a right attitude, when our motives are good – even when the circumstances are difficult.

Your spouse or kids or parents need help with something and you just got home and have just collapsed into a chair exhausted.  All you want to do is relax.  But when your heart is to help them, getting yourself up isn’t that difficult to do, in spite of how you feel.

But what happens when your attitude isn’t right? Doing the right thing can be made a lot more difficult if our wrong or bad attitude prevails.  Another trap is to disobey because we wrongly focus on our motives rather than on repentance and obedience.

Picture this:

Godly Motives & Attitudes <—————Faith—————- > Obedience

Right motives and attitudes coupled with faith lead to obedience. The great news is that the opposite can happen!  Obedience, coupled with faith (honesty with God) can lead to Godly motives and attitudes! This continuum can go either way!

When our attitudes/motives are less than they should be (or are awful), our obedience can become the framework for God to use in shaping and transforming them.  Think of cement forms for laying a walkway.  The forms are put into the correct shape and the cement is poured in.  Once it hardens the forms are removed.  Our obedience is like the concrete forms.  It, coupled with our acknowledgement of our sin, provides the framework for God to use.

We cannot avoid obeying God because of a bad attitude.  When I am in situations like this, I find myself confessing my sinful attitudes/motives to God and asking Him to transform them as I obey and do the right thing.  Through my continued obedience and repentance, God transforms my heart moving it to the Godly end of the above continuum.

It is a marvelously redemptive process that we can confidently use whenever our attitudes and motives are less than they should be.

Romans 15:13  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This morning I thought I was going a different direction with today’s devotional, but then my mind was filled with a chorus that I haven’t sung for many years.  But more than a chorus, it expresses the reality of our lives:

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know, I know, I know He holds the future.
And life is worth the living just because He lives.

This chorus is from the song Because He Lives – by Bill & Gloria Gaither. The first verse says it all:

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus.
He came to love, heal and forgive.
He lived and died, to buy my pardon.
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.

In the good times, the hard times and the bad times – life is worth living because Jesus lives!  He is who we are all about.  But it’s more than just having a reason to live for.  He touched us!  He changed us!  He lives within us and transforms everything – most of all us!  In Jesus, we possess the greatest gift ever given to mankind and it wasn’t just a one time event.

Each and every day, we get to awake to the wonder of our God.  Because He lives in us, each day is filled with opportunity to walk with Him – to experience and express His love in the midst of whatever we find ourselves in. We don’t live in fear, but in hope – no matter what things look like.  His joy and peace fill us and sustain us.  Our lives become a fragrance of Him to all those around us.  Peace, joy and hope are not common commodities in the world today.  Our lives are about Him!

All of this is possible and a treasured reality for us – because Jesus lives!

James 4:3  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

NOTE: March 1 is my personal national holiday – Winter is over!  Spring is taking over! But this morning Old Man Winter is celebrating with a dusting of snow and temperature in the 20s!

Why do we do what we do?  What is our motivation?  Do we do things to get blessed?  Do we do things to express our love for Him and one another?  Or, does a lot of other stuff become involved creating a mix of motivations?  Today’s verse highlights that we can have wrong motives.  Not much of a surprise there.

Having pure and right motives is wonderful.  Hopefully it will be true of us with ever increasing frequency.  Unfortunately, there are times when our motives are not what they should be.  Disobedience because our motives aren’t what they should be is not an option.  When we know God wants us to do something, whether through the leading of His Spirit or through His Word, we are to do it.

Think of the times where we encounter problems with co-workers, teachers, friends, clients – people we have to deal with.  The Lord says it’s easy to love those who love us.  It’s the unlovely ones that can pose such problems for us.

In such situations I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit and His convicting power.  He not only shows us when our motives are wrong, but he provides the grace to recognize it, confess it and deal with it redemptively.  By looking to Him in faith, we can find ourselves in a transformative process where He uses our obedience to be the framework to create the right motives within us.  When we cry out to Him to do it, it consistently happens – although it might take longer than we would like.

When the Holy Spirit reveals problems with our motives – or anything else for that matter – we see that they are not obstacles but opportunities for Him to transform us more and more into the image of Jesus.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Are we aware that our lives are being conformed to something – it’s just a matter of what that something is?  What is right?  What is wrong?  What is appropriate?  What is wise?  The more we do things or see others around us do them, the more susceptible we become to accepting those behaviors as the norm.  Sadly, we can accept some very wrong things as being okay, simply because we have unknowingly been conformed to a worldly standard.

Think of typing a note in an email that requires us to hit spell check in order to have errors identified.  But then we only do that if spelling and grammar are important to us.  Even if we reread the email carefully, we can miss all manner of mistakes – that are only caught by clicking on spell check.

Now, think of typing in word processing software where as we type, misspelled words or duplicates have red lines under them.  Grammatical problems have green lines under them – the warnings are there as we type.  We then have the option of correcting them or leaving them.  The choice is ours.

The Lord wants us to live lives where we become aware of problems, issues, sin, etc… as we encounter them or are making decisions.  He provides the warnings if we but have eyes to see and ears to hear.  The Holy Spirit is a fully functional “Spiritual Check” that we don’t have to click on for him to work.  But, the more we are conformed to the pattern of the world, the less we notice the still, small voice speaking within us.  Worse, we can lose any awareness of even caring that we are doing what is right.

Suppose our lives were laid out as documents with all our thoughts, intentions, beliefs, actions put into grammatical form with a fully functioning “Spiritual” spell check in place.  What would our ‘edited documents’ look like?  Do we know or have an idea?  Would they be filled with red underlinings?  If so, how would we respond?  Would we experience remorse from the recognition that all the red indicates a life that doesn’t love our God?  Would we have the desire to repent and make the needed changes?

This illustration is far more accurate and applicable than you might imagine.