Tag: love

Love and Truth

Something I struggle with is how to share the truth of the gospel all while being loving at the same time. It’s not something I have always done well. Often times love and truth are pitted against each other. As if you can’t have both, you can only pick one. If you tell someone the truth of the Word you have to compromise love. If you are loving well then you have to compromise being truthful. When in all actuality love and truth go hand in hand. God is love and God is truth.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that who ever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NIV) This is probably one of the most well known scriptures in the world and I have read it and seen it hundreds of times. Not until recently did I begin to understand it. In order to know God it requires more than a Sunday visit. It’s daily studying and mediation in his word. The greek word for so is (outos), which means thus or in this manner or like this. The verse doesn’t mean so, God loved the world. It means, in this manner God loved the world. God loved the world like this. How does he love the world? By giving the world his one and only son. What happens after that? Whoever believes in him will have eternal life. That is whoever believes in him will not only accept that truth but will live out that truth. God has just shown us love and truth in a single act. The giving of his Son, Jesus Christ. Love and truth are not opposing each other. If you believe in Jesus you believe in love. If you accept Jesus you are dedicated to his truth.

Jesus does not condemn. That is satan’s job. We are required to be transformed, to pick up our cross daily. That means dying to yourself. Not physically, but to our own selfish desires, to do the will of God. We are called to be in this world, not of it. So if that means making a sacrifice to a fleshly desire daily, that is what we must do.

Being a Christian is not easy and in this culture it gets harder every day. We will never win anyone to Christ by hammering a person over the head with truth and not showing any love. On the other hand we can love someone right into hell by not ever speaking truth. We must be in our bibles daily, spend time in prayer and have a good church community. God will show us how to “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15)

One Perfect Truth

Who can we trust? Certainly not the news. They don’t report the facts anymore. There may be some facts sprinkled in, but it’s slanted depending on what channel you are on. We are hearing the opinion of the network and only the information that they want us to hear. Fear is the job of most of the news networks and they do a fine job at that. Most of the stories floating around on-line end up being false and you have to fact check everything that you read. Even then, unless you are hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth, could there possibly be another side to the story?

We live in a world that seems to be falling down around us and not to add to the doom and gloom, it feels like that on most days. The nuclear family is under attack, our children are being targeted and the church is slowly deteriorating. We have just been told that UFOs are real and aliens have indeed landed here and we have been studying them for some years now. SAY WHAT!! You can pick your own gender at will and boys/men are playing on girls/women’s sports teams. Right is wrong and wrong is right. In fact it’s all subjective. Everyone has their own truth and is encouraged to speak it and stand on it. We are ridiculed for speaking or standing on THE truth. We are ridiculed for speaking and standing up for facts. No one wants to hear THE truth. Everyone wants to feel warm and fuzzy and live their best life. Well, I’m sorry. No one promised you that you could always be warm and fuzzy and live your best life.

The fact of the matter is sometimes the truth is painful. Sometimes truth makes us uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t want to hear the truth, but I don’t want to have people around me that just make me feel good and watch me spin out into chaos as I wreck my life. If I didn’t have people in my life that would speak the truth, I would be a drug addict and an alcoholic, probably divorced and estranged from my child and the rest of my family. If you don’t have anyone in your life brave enough to speak the truth, then you need a new set of friends and maybe even family.

There is one perfect truth, and that is the truth of the Gospel. As I look around I am burdened for the world as I see it falling down, but I know thankfully how it ends. I know I am going to heaven and I hope that anyone who reads this will meet me there. If you know Jesus, then you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, then let me tell you. God, because of his mercy and great love for us, did not leave us in our brokenness. He sent his son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for our sin. He lived a perfect, sin-free life. He willingly, chose to die in our place to pay the penalty for our sin. He then defeated death and rose to life. He did for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Merely knowing this won’t suffice. You have to act on this. You must confess your sins, seek forgiveness from God, and follow him as your Lord and savior. It’s as simple as that.

So even as the doom and gloom news and everything else is chaotic in this world, you and I can have hope and know that we will spend eternity in heaven with Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter how bad things get. God is always in control. He wrote this story from beginning to end. Those that do not accept him will be separated from him for eternity. My prayer is that whoever you are, may you not be separated from God. Now, it’s your job to spread this far and wide.

Power In His Name

There is power in your name. (Awaken Music) That is the song that is playing as I sit down to write this afternoon. I think we have forgotten that. We are all mourning once again as we watch families lose children and mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. It pains our hearts and every time we hear it; we agonize and the country becomes enraged. How can this keep on happening? Whether it’s a school or a supermarket or a concert or military base. Where are we safe?

Now the blame game starts. Take the guns, ban assault rifles. Better care for those with mental illness. Longer waiting periods between the time of purchase and the actual physical transfer of a firearm. It’s all the fault of the republicans and the democrats because they can’t agree on anything. It’s just politics that get in the way. If you think this is a pro gun blog, you are wrong. I am not stating whether I am for or against in this blog. Now is not the time for that. What we need so desperately in this country, in this world, is to call upon the name of Jesus. It doesn’t matter what laws we put into place, evil is afoot and is marching through our nation. We are in a battle for the souls of our children, our families, our neighbors, those beside us in the checkout lines at the grocery store, behind us at the drive-thru at McDonalds, everywhere we look.

Next week, this shooting will be old news, and we will have gone on with our lives. Nashville will still be picking up the pieces as every other city has done every time evil comes through and takes a piece of our goodness. We must not let evil continue to win. We must stand and claim authority in Jesus’ name. Every day we must all get up and then get on our knees and speak his name. That is the only way we can take back our nation and protect our children.

I have had my own spiritual battle this past week, and I have spoken his name and watched evil literally flee from me. Please use this time to earnestly pray for those around you and for those who are so deeply hurting because such evil has directly touched them. We need prayer, lots of it. God hears us. – “For where two or three gather in my name. There am I with them.” Matthew 18:20. My cousin Bubba shared this song with me this morning on a family thread and it spoke directly to me. I hope you will listen and it will speak to your heart as well.

Jesus Is Waiting

I am at a loss. I have been trying to blog since we came home from inpatient hospice on Monday. I have written and deleted I don’t know how many times. Nothing seems right for me to put on the page. I’m all over the place.

We were given such a gift from God on Monday. Dad woke up, is how I like to describe it. It’s called a rally. It’s very common for a person to have a rally as it gets closer to the time that they are going to pass. He was alert and he wanted to eat and we all got to spend some time with him. I think we all got to tell him things that we thought we weren’t going to get the chance to tell him. I had the chance to tell him I love him again. I had the chance to hear him tell me he loved me. I was able to hold his hand and look in his eyes and let him know how very much he means to me. What a good, good, father he is. I don’t want to let him go. Looking around the room at all the people that had gathered to spend a moment with him and love on him was overwhelming. There must have been close to 20 people in the room. A person isn’t surrounded by that many people if they did not touch all those lives in some special way. The room was lit up with laughter and love, tears of joy and tears of sadness. I went to bed that night feeling like I had been rushed from the bottom of Mt. Everest straight to the top in about 5 seconds. Cold wind rushing in my face, snow hitting me and standing on the top peak with the sun shining down on me warming every part of my being making me feel alive.

Only to wake up the next morning and find that he had gone back inside himself again. As fast as I had been whisked to the peak I had been dragged back down to the valley and the trip was exhausting. He was still somewhat responsive and could call us by name. We were still able to talk to him and understand if he was uncomfortable or in pain or not. He was still able to say I love you but that spark that had been lit the day before was slowly going out. Little by little he has traveled inward until he is unresponsive. We might get some sort of an answer every now and then when we talk to him and ask him questions but I believe he is battling now. He has many conversations, most of them we can’t decipher but he is talking to someone. The nurse explained so many things to us about the mind and the body and how they fight against eachother. His body is struggling and is tired and I think he is ready to rest but his mind still wants to stay and isn’t ready to quite let go. He is having hallucinations according to the nurse and I like to think he sees his Mom. Meemaw is sitting in her rocking chair chuckling and shaking all over and can’t wait to hug him and show him around. I’m so excited for him to go and sit and talk with Jesus. I know he is going to have all his quesions answered and I can just picture his face full of light and love and joy when he sees the Father. At the same time I want to be selfish and hold on to him. I know it is time. I don’t want him to suffer or be in pain or struggle to stay because he thinks we are not going to be ok. I have told him it’s ok. He can go. As much as I will miss him and mourn his loss I know I will see him again. That’s what makes death so bearable. I know he knows Jesus as his Lord and savior. I know Jesus as my Lord and savior. I know where he is going without the shadow of a doubt and I know where I am going. So I know we will be reunited. Death is not the end. It’s just the beginning. We are only on this earth for a short period of time. If there is one thing my Dad would want anyone to know who is reading this or who knew him it would be Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you. Jesus rose from the dead for you. You can have eternal life and live with him in eternity if you just believe and accept him as your lord and savior, admit you are a sinner (as we all are) and believe he died and rose from the dead and is the one true Son of the living God. He will wash you white as snow and you will be forgiven. You will have eternal life. So you see, earth is just a short journey and we should certainly live and love and spread the love of Jesus Christ while we are here. Death is where our real life begins. It’s where we are made whole again if we so choose and to live in peace for eternity or to be separated from God for all eternity. That is the true definition of hell.

So while I sit here today by my Dads bed and watch him labor to breathe and struggle with a foot in both worlds so to speak I pray that he will hear us and know that it is ok. I love him with all my heart but Jesus is waiting and I will see him in a short while where we can sit and talk just me and him on the steps.