Tag: Love

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10 Tips for Applying the Book of Judges to Your Life

Out of all the books in the Bible, the book of Judges may be harder for modern ears to hear than any other. Between kidnapping brides, guts spilling out, tent pegs in skulls, and sending body parts to the various parts of Israel, there’s enough crazy stuff in there to make even the most experienced moviegoer wince. So, what to do with this book? In spite of all the gore and war, there is much to learn here to enable us to live well with God and fellow human beings.

We might not like to talk about it, but there is still plenty of violence and messiness along the lines of the book of Judges in the modern world. Then as now, we find God right in the middle of it. Jesus was not born into a sanitized world but a world filled with such things. When God comes down, He enters into a world filled with evil and problems in order to bring it to a better place and in order to bring us to a etter place. If we look at things from that perspective, we can learn much from the book of Judges.

Here are ten tips for applying this ancient book to your life. If you wish, you can listen to my recent sermon where I took this approach. Listen to it here.

1. God’s wrath is rooted in His love for people. There is no question that God gets angry in the book of Judges. No way around it. Other cultures may struggle with the love and forgiveness of God, but ours is one that struggles with the wrath of God. At the same time, would we really want a God that did not care how humans lived or what injustices they committed? God is passionate against evil because He wants humans to do what is truly good for them and what is best for them is to live in harmonious fellowship with Himself and with other human beings. When you see the wrath of God in the book of Judges remember that it is rooted in God’s passion for people to live in the good way He created them to live.

2. God’s wrath is rooted in His love for His Son. The book of Judges is Trinitarian. The whole Bible is really about revealing the Son of God who ultimately comes in human form in the gift of Christmas. But Jesus was present and existed before He ever became a human. In the book of Judges, one way we see Jesus is as the angel of the Lord (Judges 2, Judges 6, Judges 13). This angel of the Lord speaks to the people of Israel and says that He is the one who brought them out of Egypt. He identifies as Jehovah, the Lord, and yet he is also in some ways distinct from Jehovah. It is the relationship of the eternal Father with His Son. The Father has such supreme delight in His Son that when people don’t listen to Him, it grieves Him and angers Him (see Psalm 2 for a framework for this).

3. Every generation faces its test. Judges is a book of multiple generations. There is a part of us that wants smooth sailing for our children and grandchildren, but that’s not going to be the way things work out. Each generation has to face the hard facts of reality and decide how it will live in light of them. It has to decide whether to rely on the Lord and seek the way of the people around them. This is true for our generation, and it will be true for the next generation. In Judges, each new generation faces its own challenge and has to work through things in order to come to the right place. Generally, that’s how it works, and this book is a great reminder of that. The more we can tell our children that they will have to face challenges, the better we will be able to equip and prepare them for that test.

4. Passing on the faith is a challenge. It’s easy to assume that our children will just “get” what we teach them. They do imitate us to a great degree. However, passing on our faith requires conscious effort. The generation that came out of the wilderness served the Lord, but “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). They lived for the Lord but did not talk about Him nearly enough to the next generation. We should prepare the next generation for the tests they will face and make sure they know what God has done in the past.

5. God is full of compassion. One amazing thing about Judges is how compassionate God is. In spite of the way people ignore Him and do exactly what He tells them not to, when they are in trouble, He is always ready to help them. Judges 10 is a poignant example. The people cry out to Him, and He says that He is not going to help them anymore. The people keep crying out to Him and say, “We don’t believe you! You will help us!” Then, it says that God became impatient with His people’s misery, i.e., could not bear it any longer (10:16). Then, He acted.

6. God will hear us when we cry out to Him. That should encourage us to cry out to the Lord when we are in misery. Whatever we are struggling with, we should cry out to Him about it. “But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel . . .” (Judges 3:9). Ask, and you will receive. When there is deep hurt, pain, or struggle, it is time to cry out to the Lord, and He will hear you and help you. Does He not act right away? Keep crying out. He hears and in the right time will act.

7. God delights to use His people for big things. In Judges 3:9 (just cited in #6), it notes that when the people cried out to the Lord, He raised up a deliverer. He did not just destroy their enemies. He didn’t just confound them by miracles or mighty acts. He raised up a leader, Othniel. That’s what God likes to do. In Judges and throughout the Bible, God delights to use His people to do great things. He delights to use you!

8. God uses many leaders to point to the greatest leader, Jesus. One reason God the Father loves to raise up leaders is because He is always thinking about the greatest leader, His Son, our Lord Jesus. All of the leaders that God raises up point to this one great leader who is the great Judge and Savior of the world, the Savior from Satan, sin, and death. God sends hundreds of leaders in the Bible to point to Him, and each one teaches us a little bit about the Son whom the Father delights in and wants to honor as the greatest leader the world has ever known, the conqueror of all evil.

9. God’s Spirit empowers us for service. In Judges, we see not only the presence of the Father and the Son but also the Holy Spirit. When Othniel led the people of Israel to freedom against Cushan-Rishathaim of Mesopotamia, the Spirit of God came upon Othniel. That’s how He was made a leader. When God calls us to His service, He not only gives us the command but the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to serve Him and do great things for His name.

10. God is faithful to keep blessing His people in spite of what they deserve. God is faithful. He keeps doing good in spite of what His people deserve. He doesn’t give up on them. He keeps working with them, calling them, and leading them. God just keeps working with His people. That should encourage us when we fail, make mistakes, and sin. God keeps coming back with His relentless love to bring salvation and blessing to the world, and especially His people.

This should give you some ideas for thinking of how to apply this ancient book to the modern world. Have different thoughts or ideas about this? I’d love to read them in the comments below. Thanks for taking the time to read my site. If you liked this post, you can sign up to the right (laptop) or by scrolling down (mobile). I hope to see you hear again.

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5 Ways to Develop a Friendship with Jesus

Recently, I was traveling through rural Indiana and stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast. There was a group of older men talking and laughing. They were clearly from the community, knew each other well, and met there all the time. It’s meetings like those day after day, week after week, and month after month that develop those deep, deep friendships. Unfortunately, we cannot meet Jesus at McDonald’s tomorrow morning, so, how do we form a deep, deep friendship with Him?

Fortunately, Jesus’ disciples faced the same problem, and Jesus gave them a solution. They had been with Him more than those men were together at McDonald’s. They generally ate breakfast, lunch, and supper together and travelled together all over Israel. Jesus told them that He was going to go away, into the very presence of His heavenly Father, but that wasn’t going to be the end of their friendship. Understanding what Jesus told His disciples about continuing their friendship can help us understand what it means to have and develop a deep, deep friendship with Jesus in our day.

Let me highlight five ways they would continue developing their friendship with Jesus. For more context, see my previous post, “Five Lessons on Friendship from the Life of Jesus.”

First, they would continue to fellowship with Him through His presence, even if it was not the physical presence of His human nature. The Holy Spirit, the third person of Trinity, would connect them to the eternal Son. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16–17). In this way, He said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18). So, we can still enjoy the presence of Jesus. We can enjoy it whenever we want to. We just have to be aware of it and live in it.

Second, they would continue to fellowship with Him by listening to what He said. He describes abiding in Him as “abiding in His word” (15:7). He told them that He had already told them what He was doing, “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (15:15). We can fellowship with Jesus by continuing to listen to what He wants us to do.

Third, they would continue to fellowship with Him by doing what He told them to do. Part of friendship is doing things together. We learn what Jesus is doing by listening to His Word, and we engage in it when we obey that word. That’s why He said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (15:14). I don’t think Jesus is saying, “Do what I tell you, and then you will be my friend.” Rather, He is saying, “If you are interested in the things I am and are engaged in them, then we will have a friendship.”

What does this mean concretely? Jesus is interested in culture, family, politics, honest labor, etc. When we engage in these things, we are engaged in activities He cares about. Similarly, when we care about the people around us, espeically those who are most vulnerable, we are working on Jesus’ agenda and engaged with Him as friends. It is especially when we are enagaged in the work of connecting people to God that we live out a friendship with Jesus because that’s what He is most interested in. That’s what His coming into this world, death, and resurrection are all about. A friendship arises when we share and work at Jesus’ interest in connecting people to God.

Fourth, they would continue to fellowship with Him by talking to Jesus. We often call this prayer, but prayer is really just interacting with Jesus by listening to Him and then telling Him what is on our hearts. Jesus said He had chosen them so that they would ask things of Him and the Father, “so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16). We can continue to interact with Jesus through prayer. We can and should share with Him what is on our hearts.

Fifth, they would continue to fellowship with Him by connnecting with His friends. Jesus concludes His talk on friendship with them by saying, “These things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15:17). Just as the Father loved the Son so that the Son might love us, so the Son loves us so that we might love one another. Whatever we do for the least of Jesus’ disciples, we do for Him. We interact with Jesus by interacting with His people.

Let me try to put all this together. We can live as friends of Jesus. We do that when we are aware of His presence with us. But we need to do more than just be aware. We need to listen to Him and talk to Him in conversation. Friendship is not primarily about talk, though. It is about doing. When we take an interest in what Jesus is interested in and engage in it, we will develop a friendship with Jesus. This is not just about “me and Jesus.” This is something we do together with Jesus’ other friends.

Sure. This is different than living with someone physically, but we actually can have a friendship with Jesus that is much closer and more intimate and life-giving than what we have with any of our friends. That’s the blessing Jesus offers us. If we are interested in that relationship, Jesus is more than happy to “call us friends.”

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5 Reasons to Work Harder on Becoming a Loving Person

Loving people in this world can be hard (see 5 Reasons Why It Is Hard to Love). We see things from our own perspective. Other people see things from theirs. This brings us into conflict with them. This inflicts wounds upon us. Why put in the work of becoming a loving person when it is often so hard to love?

There are plenty of reasons. The Christian faith offers us many motivations and reasons to work on becoming a loving person. In some ways, this is what the Christian faith is all about, helping us become loving people instead of selfish ones.

What are the reasons the Christian faith offers to work on it? The Apostle Paul wrote his famous “love” chapter in 1 Corinthians 13, but I think Romans 12 offers more insight into love, though it is less elegant. I want to look at the motivations that he offers there.

Reason #1: The love of God for us. When Paul tells us that we should love others, he begins with the love and mercy of God. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God . . .” (Romans 12:1). If we have trouble loving, we should not first try harder. We should take a plunge into the infinite ocean of the love of God.

When we consider how little thought we have given to God and how much He has blessed us, it will motivate us to love. If God loved us, we also ought to love one another. God sought us out when we were going astray and didn’t even want to come back. How, then, can we not imitate our heavenly Father and show love?

Reason # 2: We are made for each other. We are not made to exist alone. We are social beings. We are made to work together and live together. When we don’t, we are living contrary to our nature. “So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5).

Paul speaks here of the body of Christ, but the same is true of humans in general. This is recognized more broadly in the Bible, but others have used the same metaphor. The Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away” (Meditations, 2.1). We are made to love. To not love is to act against what we were created to be.

Reason #3: Being a jerk is terrible. This goes back to Romans 1: “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy” (29—31). Living this way is terrible. So, why would we let the world drag us down to this level? If someone wants to be a jerk, they harm themselves. We should not let them harm us by turning us into jerks. We should learn to love, which is excellent and beautiful.

Reason #4: The judgment of God. Christianity does not say that revenge is wrong. It just says that we are not competent or authorized to carry it out. We leave it to God. When we let go of wrongs and learn to love, even when it’s hard, we are not saying that wrong is not wrong. We are saying that we trust God to sort everything out and deal with other people. “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). We can release ourselves to love because we can be confident that God will deal with everything in a satisfying way.

Reason #5: It is effective. Love conquers. That’s why the Apostle Paul said, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). When we can respond with love when others don’t, it can shine a light that dispels the darkness. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a great example. He sought to bring whites and blacks together, but he also said that the injustice of the white community was wrong. He used non-violence to protest while not turning away from a relationship with them. The result was a radical transformation of our society. That’s what bold love can do (to use the words of Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III, whose book I highly recommend).

These are the central reasons in the book of Romans for working harder on becoming loving people. I hope that you feel encouraged to work on developing one of the most excellent virtues that you can have. You’re not in it alone, God stands behind you becoming a loving person! He’s for it. He is all in. That’s why He gives us so many reasons to pursue it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I hope it was a blessing. If you liked it, please share or subscribe below. I hope to see you here again soon!

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5 Steps for Becoming a More Loving Person

You’ve tried it over and over again. You want to show more grace. You want to be patient with people. Then, you get out into traffic, and somebody cuts you off. There goes patience out the window.

How do we become loving people who can endure the annoyances of life? In my last post, I explained five characteristics of real love. But how do we get there? Let me give you five steps for doing so.

1. Pray. Have you actually asked the God of the universe to make you into a loving person? God’s grace is available. The power of Christ’s resurrection is at work in this world. The Holy Spirit works love in our hearts. But God wants us to ask! Have you asked? The Apostle Paul said, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight” (Philippians 1:9). Paul prayed that God would give the Philippian Christians more love and more insight into how to love well. And so should we.

2. Reflect on how you think about people. A lot of our reactions to people our automatic. We don’t understand well what we are really thinking. We need to examine our own thoughts and feelings. We can do this by journaling, praying, or talking with others.

To get you going in this, consider some of the following questions:

  • What do you think when people do something you disagree with?
  • When you see people on the street, what do you think of them?
  • When you meet new people, what is your thought about them?
  • What do you think and feel when people disappoint you?
  • What sort of expectations do you have for what people should do for you?

These and many other questions like them can help you think through how you view people. When you do that, you can take the next step.

3. Re-think how you view people. In Paul’s love chapter in Romans 12, he tells us that we need to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (v. 2). He teaches us that love begins in the heart. It needs to be sincere. How we think and feel about people is what is in our heart. What do we actually see when we see other people? Do we see them as God sees them? We have to think about what is going on in our hearts and minds and be transformed.

Here are a few ideas to get you going on re-thinking your view of people.

  • What do I think human beings are?
  • What do I think the possibility of connecting with people is?
  • What are some ways I could view people’s attacks that would make me less reactive?
  • How could I view the fact that people are different in a good way?
  • When people block my goals, can I view this in ways other than an attack?

You can use these directions to begin to re-think your conception of people.

4. Put new thoughts into practice. It’s not enough to think about things. We have to put them into practice. For me, I noticed that my anxiety would go up when I wasn’t achieving a goal. Then, I would often be short or terse with people. I recognized that this is not how I wanted to live. I drive Uber. I often have a vision of how it will work out. Regularly, a wrench is thrown into my plan. Sometimes, it is because of the unwitting action of my customers. For example, they may change their trip and make it less profitable for me. They are not trying to do me harm. They are just trying to figure it out. But this can make me upset, and I can show it in subtle ways. I have begun to practice not getting upset at this and just responding with kindness. This practice will have effects in other areas of my life.

5. Keep doing it. Perseverance is key. Character does not change in a day or a night. Even big and sudden breakthroughs take time to transform our thoughts and hearts. We have to keep going. Being a loving persons is one of the highest and most important goals we can achieve. It is worth working at it. We should keep praying, keep re-thinking, and keep practicing. This is how character and virtue develop.

That’s the method for character change. There’s no better time to start working on it than now. It is our destiny to be transformed into loving people. That’s what God is doing in this world. It is one of his highest priorities. That should motivate us to give ourselves to this work and keep at it. With His help, we can expect real progress in this life.

Thank you for reading this series on love. I hope it was a blessing to you. If you liked it, please consider sharing it and subscribing below. I hope to see you here again soon.

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5 Characteristics of Real Love

People often talk about the “will of God.” Is it God’s will for me to move somewhere, marry someone, or start a business? These questions are legitimate, and God certainly has something to say about them.

We should also remember, though, that what God wants us to do is clear. His greatest priorities are very clear. He wants us to be loving people. He wants us to love God and our neighbor. If we learn to do that, then we are doing what God wants the most. Becoming lovers of God and others will keep us busy and give us great fulfillment.

But what does it mean to love others? There’s a lot of fake love. There are a lot of misconceptions about it. It’s hard to show real love for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is that we haven’t been taught how to love. We need to think more clearly about what love actually is.

The Apostle Paul gave an explanation of what love is all about in Romans 12. His more famous chapter on love is 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13 is more inspiring, but Romans 12 might have more solid instruction on what it means to really love. Let me show you five characteristics of real love from this chapter.

1. Real love is sincere: it starts in the heart. In Romans 12:9, we begin a long list of commands or rules. The first is, “Love must be sincere.” It must not be hypocritical. What does this mean? We can act like we love (“Bless our hearts”) and not really have that love in our heart. It is an act. We show kindness in our interactions but do not have it in our hearts. We have all known people who acted like they wanted to be with us but who ended up not having any real interest in us. It was a mask. We have also done this to others. It hurts when we discover it and when others discover it in us. This is insincere love.

What this means positively is that love begins in the heart. It is not enough to show it on our faces. We have to have it in our hearts. How do we really think and feel about people? That’s where love starts. Love is a genuine affection of the heart that desires union and communion with others.

2. Real love is attentive: it takes an interest in anybody it meets. Philostorgos is a Greek word. Paul uses it in Romans 12:10, and it is the only place we find it in the Bible. It is love like parents have for their children. It’s hard to translate into English in one word. Love takes an interest in other people’s well-being. Parents generally seek the well-being of their children in a way that simply gives. We need to learn to take that love and extend it out to others. Continue reading “5 Characteristics of Real Love”

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