Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” – 1 John 4:18

We live in a world full of fear. Fear sells and our newspapers, TV, online media, and social media all want to sell us fear on top of fear. Don’t buy it! It’s not that there aren’t serious and even truly dangerous issues and situations in our world. Of course there are. But don’t let them cause you to live in fear.

Love is the antidote to fear. Not raw self-discipline, not false bravado, not cruelty, and not anger. Those might mask fear, but they don’t cure fear. Love is the true and lasting antidote to fear. As followers of Jesus, we have more than enough love available to push out all the fear we might feel.

”For God so loved the world, that He gave His own Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). God’s infinite love was expressed through sending His beloved Son Jesus into this world to die as a sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins. God’s faithful love is more powerful than all the evils of this world because God’s faithful love has already defeated those evils at the cross.

Let God’s love for you, a love proven at the cross of Jesus, drive out any fear that might be holding you back from living the life of obedience to Christ to which you have been called. Let yourself be perfected by the love of God within you. Become an agent of God’s love rather than the world’s fear, abundantly loving everyone you encounter. Enjoy, experience, express, and share God’s love that drives out all fear!

“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” – 1 John 3:18

Writing as a kindly spiritual father to all of us, the Apostle John reminds us of the profound meaning and challenge of Christ’s commandment to love one another. It’s completely inadequate to simply “love everyone” in the abstract. If you love everyone, you love no one. As followers of Jesus we have to love people in the concrete – by our actions and the investment of our lives, our time, our energy, and our resources. We must do practical things to love one another. Inconvenient things. Messy things.

True love for others isn’t about platitudes, abstractions, speeches, or appearances. It isn’t even about feelings. It’s about rolling up our sleeves to demonstrate true care and love day in and day out. It’s about listening, sharing, caring, and helping. It’s about love that overcomes barriers, divisions, and separations to love others regardless of race, ethnicity, citizenship, or social status. It’s about loving others who can’t necessarily love back.

We’re called to a hard love, but equipped for that by a divine love within us. As you reflect on your actions, particularly in a year when our instincts, advice, and personal situations may have driven us away from others, have you been loving in deed and in truth? If not, it isn’t too late! Simply repent and put your actions where your words were. Love in deed and truth!

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” – 1 John 3:2

In this little verse are such wondrous truths about our life in Christ!!! For all who believe in Jesus, the Son of God, we are truly children of God. When we trust in Christ, God adopts us as beloved children with full rights of inheritance in heaven alongside our brother Jesus! What a glorious reality!

It doesn’t matter who the world says you are. It doesn’t matter what people call you. The labels and categories of the world belong in the past. In Christ, God calls you “Beloved Daughter” or “Beloved Son”. No matter what your earthly family situation may be like, you have a perfect, loving, wise, caring, kind Father in Heaven.

But wait, there’s more!!! Though we may ache and grown in our bodies, this verse also reminds us that we will one day have glorified bodies like the body of our risen Savior. Though our bodies may currently be frail, aging, wounded, aching, limited, or painful they won’t always be this way! One day, Jesus will return, and when He returns, we’ll receive our glorified bodies. These bodies will still be our bodies, yet transformed and perfected. What that exactly looks like or means, we don’t even fully understand right now. But it will be amazing!

At a time when the weaknesses and limitations of the human body are very much on everyone’s minds, it’s a wonderful thing to remember that this isn’t all there is. One day, we will enjoy transformed bodies along with our transformed minds as we enjoy the presence of our Heavenly Father. Come, Lord Jesus!

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” – 1 John 2:15

Consider this a biblical wake up call on Cyber Monday! No matter how good that deal or how great that new piece of technology is, it won’t be nearly as fulfilling and satisfying as you imagine. So don’t spend a lot of time and energy imagining it! This world offers many good things for us to enjoy and use for God’s glory. However, we need to get our relationship with the world and the things of the world right or they will prevent us from fully loving God and experiencing His love!

This passage isn’t telling us to hate the world, be disengaged from it, or fail to take care of it. As Christians, we are to care for this world as the stewards God made us to be. We’ve been given the world to manage on God’s behalf and haven’t done a particularly good job. We need to manage it well politically, environmentally, and economically, but all that’s a topic for another day.

Good stewardship is far different from obsessive love for the world or its goodies. Unfortunately, it’s too easy to fall into the latter. Much of the anger experienced by Christians this year flows from loving the world and its things like political power, influence, wealth, and social status far too much. As Christians, we have a stewardship responsibility, but we’ve got to dial back the emotional attachment to this world and its systems!

We can’t love God if we love anything else more than God. Our love must be for God. First and foremost. At all times. Our emotional extremes (extreme joy, fear, anger, anxiety, etc.) reveal where our love really is. We can’t love God and obsess over the world. We simply can’t. We must choose to love God each and every day. We must love God more than toys and tech. We must love God more than wealth, retirement funds, and status. We must love God more than political influence and power. We must love God more than comfort and health. We must love God more than we love the earth and the beautiful things in it. Who or what do you love?

“If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” – Daniel 3:17-18

We must never compromise our faithful obedience to God, no matter the pressure or threats that face us. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were threatened with fiery death if they wouldn’t bow down and worship the king’s statue. These words were their response.

While they were completely confident that God was capable of saving them from death and thwarting the king’s will, they also understand that He might not choose to do that. Nonetheless, they weren’t going to compromise their faith and integrity to protect themselves. They were at peace with doing the right thing to glorify and obey God, no matter the consequences to themselves.

As we follow Jesus, we must admit that there are aspects of doing so which are increasingly out of step with the prevailing views of our culture. That will likely continue to increase and the cost of that is likely to become significant – after all the prevailing culture of the day killed Jesus. As followers of Jesus, now is the time to commit to follow Him regardless of cost or consequence.

We must never bow to kings or to culture. We mustn’t be squishy about believing the Bible. Let us consider it an honor to follow Jesus into the fiery furnace, regardless of whether or not He chooses to rescue us from it.