The Love of Your Life: Light, Fire, and Love

Posted on April 28, 2021 by salooper57

In 1 John 4:7-12, the Apostle of Love gives three reasons why Christians love each other. First, they love because of who God is (vv. 7-8). Second, they love because of what God has done (vv. 9-11). And third, we love because of what God is doing (vv. 12).

First, Christians love because of who God is. Who is he? He is the source of love. “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God…” The Greek here is lyrical. The King James and at least one modern version try to capture it by translating, “Beloved, let us love…” Greek is Ἀγαπητοί, ἀγαπῶμεν. “Beloved, love…” Why? Because love is from God. When Christians love one another, the source of their love is God himself. And as his love is transmitted through their emotions, minds, and wills, they experience God and are changed.

All genuine love comes from God. This means that a parent’s love for a child comes from God, even if that parent doesn’t realize or acknowledge it. The love that causes a soldier to sacrifice himself to save his brothers and sisters comes from God, though he may not know it. In some cases, the people who love do not know where that love originated, but in our case it is different. We can knowingly enter into the love God has for others, make ourselves its conduit, and so experience God’s life flowing through us.

But John goes beyond saying that love come from God. He makes the daring statement that God is love. There are some things to keep in mind. First, saying that “God is love” is a very different thing from saying that love is God. What people call love is often not the self-giving love expressed in Christ but the hungry, grasping, desire expressed by needy people. Hollywood elevates that desire to divine status and makes a fortune. But if we do the same, we will only make a mess.

God is love. This is one of four explicit statements about the nature of God in the Bible. Jesus says that God is Spirit (John 4), John says that God is light (1 John 1), and the author of Hebrews (12), quoting Deuteronomy 4, says that God is a consuming fire. Don’t get the idea that because God is love, he is a softy. That, because he is love, we can sin without consequence. For the Divine Spirit who is love is also light and fire.

Because God is light, he exposes our sins. Because he is fire, he consumes our sins. But because he is love, he has found a way to expose and consume them without destroying us.[1] That way – and it is a costly way – is the cross of Christ. It is in the cross that the God who is light shines most brilliantly. In the cross, the God who is fire burns most intensely. And in the cross, the God who is love gives most passionately.  

[1] See John Stott, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Epistles of John. pp. 160-161

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The Love of Your Life: The Three Tests

Posted on April 27, 2021 by salooper57

In St. John’s first letter, readers are given three self-tests that can make clear whether or not a person belongs to Christ and shares the life of the age to come. This, he says is why he wrote the letter: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life” (5:13).

I’ve heard this verse presented as a stand-alone proof of the assurance of eternal life, but this verse clearly does not stand alone. John says, “I write these things to you … so that you may know you have eternal life.” The obvious question is: what things did he write? And the answer is, the three tests.

Each of the three tests is stated three times in the letter and with each repetition comes further elaboration. We could label one test the doctrinal test: Does a person believe that Jesus is God’s Son the Messiah who became truly human?

A second test is the life test. The person who has eternal life obeys God’s commands and pursues a Jesus-like life. This is not to say that person never sins. John knows that, apart from Jesus, anyone who claims to be without sin is self-deceived (1 John 1:8). People who pass the life-test aren’t perfect but they confess their sins and deal with them. They desire to be like Jesus and they take steps to make it so (3:1-4).

The third test could be called the social test. The first test is over what we believe. The second test is over how we live. The third test is over who we love. The person who has the eternal kind of life loves God and loves Jesus’s people.

One more thing about the three tests: they overlap a great deal. A person who is growing in faith will be growing in obedience as well. A person who grows in obedience will be getting better at loving other people. This overlap, which is mentioned numerous times in 1 John, is crystalized in a single verse in 3:23: “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ [doctrinal test], and to love one another [social test] as he commanded us [life-obedience test].”

That Jesus’s people love each other is a critical component – along with the calling of a people, the giving of the law, the incarnation of God, the death and resurrection of Christ, and the impartation of the Spirit – in God’s plan for the world.

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Why I Took the COVID-19 Vaccine

Posted on April 24, 2021 by salooper57

(Please read this first: A good friend expressed deep concern to me that this article seemed to mock people who refuse to take the vaccine. I have reread the article because I hate the idea that it came across this way. It’s already in the newspapers, so it is too late to add this note there, but I want to clarify here. Some of the things mentioned below – for example, evidence that the vaccine causes health risks, concerns over the lack of FDA approval, the unprecedented speed at which the vaccine was released for public use – seem to me to be perfectly legitimate concerns. When I weighed these legitimate concerns against the benefits of the vaccine, it seemed to me that the benefits outweighed the concerns. I realize that people I hold in high regard weigh it differently, and I do not intend to criticize them. I am only explaining my reasons for taking the vaccine.)

COVID-19 is currently surging through our county. According to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, new cases have jumped 81 percent over last week and the percentage of positive tests has doubled.

In the church I pastor, many people have decided not to take the vaccine. They have cited evidence that the vaccine causes health risks, expressed concerns over the lack of testing and of FDA approval, and protested that the vaccine is the latest example of government overreach. They have complained that other promising therapies have been unwisely ignored. They have also heard prophecies that declare the vaccine to be “the mark of the beast” mentioned in Revelation 13.

I understand and respect their choice. In the cascade of conflicting information, doubt is to be expected and certainty is unfeasible. When I first heard about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, I also had doubts. Less than seven months after President Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, the FDA had already granted Emergency Use Approval to the drugs. There is no precedent for the speed at which these drugs were developed, mass produced, and distributed. Nor, I think, for the amount of money that has changed hands in the process.

So I did some research. I read what I could find from respected scientists and from fellow Christians in the medical field. I learned that the science behind RNA vaccines like the Moderna and Pfizer drugs has been developing for the past 30 years, which explains the speed at which the COVID-19 vaccine was released.

I attended to the claims made by those who oppose the use of RNA vaccines. Some of these claims would make great story lines in a futuristic adventure movie. Indeed, some follow the plot line of “I Am Legend”: normal people are turned into something sub-human by the introduction of a vaccine into their system. I found the stories fascinating, even compelling. What I could not find was a shred of evidence to support such claims.

I dislike taking any medications. I nevertheless choose to do so in the case of the meds my cardiologist prescribed because it seems that the cost of not taking them is likely higher than the cost of taking them. After researching the RNA vaccines, I concluded the same to be true.

I also chose to take the vaccine because I refuse to be ruled by fear. When the COVID-19 virus first began to spread in the U.S., we heard daily reports of new infections and of increasing death tolls. The state shut down businesses, issued mask-orders, and social distancing guidelines.

Our church responded by taking steps to mitigate the spread of the virus. After a brief shut-down, we restarted worship services with a reduced seating capacity. We recommended mask-wearing, began a mask-required service, and stopped serving coffee and snacks. We went online and streamed services for many members of our church family who chose not to attend in-person services. We phoned our entire church family to check on their health and to offer help in getting groceries or driving to doctors.

What we did not do was panic. We tried to be wise and loving, to provide our church family with opportunities to worship together while mitigating the risk involved in doing so. In retrospect, there were decisions made over the past year that I would now make differently. But they were not made from fear.

I’ve noticed that many people who fear the virus do not fear the vaccine and many who fear the vaccine do not fear the virus. I refuse to fear either. I wear a mask when necessary because our governing authorities have required it, because I want to protect others, and because doing so does not require me to disobey God. But I do not wear a mask because I fear contracting the virus.

Likewise, I took the vaccine because I want once again to visit the church family I love in their homes and in the care facilities where some of them reside, and because taking it did not require me to disobey God. But I did not take it because of fear. I refuse to allow fear to govern my choices.

(First published by Gannett)

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Christian Hope: Does It Differ from Optimism?

Posted on April 23, 2021 by salooper57

What is Christian hope? Is it simply a feeling that things will get better? Is it just optimism? Or is it something more?

Well, hope certainly brings a feeling that things will get better, but it is more than a feeling. It is more than optimism. Optimism is a way of thinking. Hope is a way of being. Optimism is subjective. Hope is objective. Optimism comes from you but hope come from God.

He is its source, but what is its content? We hope in God (and that is of first importance); but what do we hope for?

We are hoping – this will sound completely foreign to many of us – for the end of the war. Not the Afghan War or the Syrian War. Not the war on drugs or the war on terror. Not the culture wars. These are border skirmishes and diversionary feints. I am talking about the war to begin all wars, the war into which we – and all humans – are born: the war between good and evil, light and darkness, heaven and hell, God and satan.

We who have never been in combat will have trouble grasping our true situation, but those of you have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq will understand. You know the longing for the war to be over. You know the hope of being victorious. When the war that began all wars is over, our children will never again be captured by evil, our lives ruined by greed, our families split by hatred, our minds wracked by fear. Our nation will not be torn by hatred or our loved ones deceived by untruths.

When this war is over, we will start again and, unlike the last time, we will not start off on the wrong side. We will have peace, joy, and love. Death itself – the last of our enemies – will be undone. For this we wait. For this we hope.

We have this hope because we have this God. He will not put up with injustice, violence, and exploitation for much longer. And because we belong to him, we won’t put up with it either. We will work against these things, knowing that our labor is not in vain.

We are waiting and hoping for a world where everyone matters. Where love reigns. Where evil – not just in actions but in motives and thoughts – will trouble us no more. The early Christians summed up all this – the end of the war, the joyful peace, the restoration, the rule of love, the death of Death in one word: resurrection.

With the exception of two occurrences (one when cruel businessmen lose their hope of making money and one when weary sailors lose their hope of being rescued), the Book of Acts always links the word “hope” to the resurrection. Resurrection includes the new beginning, the restoration of creation, the redemption of our bodies, and the enthronement of the good and just King Jesus. Christian hope is resurrection hope.

The Bible expresses this in beautiful ways. It says we hope in the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints. We hope in salvation, in eternal life (that is, in the life of the age to come), in the appearance of Jesus upon his return to earth, and in our transformation, when we will receive glorious new bodies that have been designed to be like his body.

For too many of us, resurrection is a doctrine but not a hope. It is something we commemorate on Easter rather than something we long for throughout the year. But people who know they are in a war live in hope for these things, in the hope of the resurrection.

Years ago, I met Scott who was in the last stages of ALS. My friend Dave Brown introduced us. When I went to visit him at his home, I found an emaciated young man confined to a bed. Near the foot of the bed was a Lazy Suzan of sorts that someone from Lockwood had built. It held Bible memory verses. Scot would turn the Lazy Susan with his toe – one of the only parts of his body he could still move – and in that way read and memorize the verses.

I sat in a chair by his bed and we talked. Scott told me that he had only recently become a Christian – a beautiful story in which Dave had played an important role. After we had talked for a while, I asked him if he was afraid of dying.

He then told me something – and it was hard for him to talk, so I had to listen closely – that I have never forgotten. He told me that the last two months – since he had come over to Jesus’s side – had been the two best months of his life. I looked at him in wonder. Here was a man from whom everything had been taken. His former life was gone. His world was a bed. His body was a prison. And the last two months had been the best time of his life.

How was that possible? What had happened? The God of hope had come and put hope in his soul.

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8 Things Hope Does for the Believer (part 2)

Posted on April 22, 2021 by salooper57
  1. Love also depends on hope. Hopeless people do not love well. They may want to, but it’s just not in them. Hopelessness is a kind of quicksand. It causes a person to sink further and further into himself rather than to move out of himself toward God (faith) and toward people (love).

2) Hope also protects us. 1 Thessalonians 5:8 calls the hope of salvation a helmet. The person without that helmet is vulnerable—especially, it seems, in regard to his or her thoughts. Hope shields us from harmful thoughts that can penetrate our minds and cause injury.

3) Hope does something else: It stabilizes us and keeps us from drifting or being blown off course. This is Hebrews 6:19: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” The Book of Hebrews constitutes one long warning against drifting away from God. Hope is the anchor that keeps that from happening.

My son Kevin and I were once fishing in Quebec from a boat that was anchored about 100 yards above a small waterfall. (I say small, but it probably dropped 30 feet over a course of a couple of hundred yards.) Without that anchor, the current would have carried us into pain and loss. And without hope, the strong currents of this age will carry you and your family where you do not want to go.

4) Hope does something else. We all have things that don’t belong in our lives: fears, prejudices, lusts, and resentments. Anger lives in us. Gossip settles into our conversations. Greed becomes a mindset. These things are hard to dislodge even when we are doing well spiritually. But they are impossible to dislodge when we don’t have hope.

Hope is the environment in which sinful habits can be removed and replaced. St. John, writing about our great hope, says, “Everyone who has this hope in [Christ] purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). Purifies himself. Removing those sinful habits – we’ve tried again and again – can only succeed when we have hope.

With hope we can endure trials that would otherwise derail us. Hope enables us to work harder, better, and with more satisfaction. Hope provides opportunities to tell others about Jesus and gives us the boldness to seize those opportunities. It keeps us from getting carried off-course by the strong currents of the age. It makes it possible to remove the engrained habits that plague our lives, obstruct out love, and dishonor our God. Obviously, we need hope.

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8 Things Hope Does for Us (According to Scripture)

Posted on April 20, 2021 by salooper57

(Part 1)

1.) hope in our Lord Jesus Christ inspires endurance in our trials and in our work (1 Thess. 1:3). It is not weariness that makes people give up; it is hopelessness. All of us have known people who are great at starting things but terrible at seeing them through. Why, when they are so capable and talented, are they always giving up? Lack of hope could be the reason. Hopeless people don’t endure.

Hope enables us to work longer and better. Professor James Avey led a team that studied the correlation between hope and absenteeism at work. They began by surveying employees and dividing them into two categories: high-hope and low-hope workers. Over the course of one year, high-hope workers missed an average of 20 hours of work (not counting planned leaves and vacations) while their low-hope counterparts missed between three and four times that much. Avey found that hope is a far more accurate predictor of productivity that any of the usual workplace metrics – like job satisfaction, commitment to the company, or competence.[1]

Hopelessness makes work seem pointless, but hope has the opposite effect. It is no wonder that the New Testament’s most hopeful chapter closes with these words: “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58). You know that when you have hope.

2) Another thing hope does: It makes us bold. St. Paul, one of history’s most hopeful people, wrote: “…since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Cor. 3:12). A literal translation could go, “Therefore, having such a hope, we proceed with much boldness.” When we don’t have hope, we hang back, cling to what we know. Hope enables us to venture out, discover new opportunities, and grow as people.

The word translated as “boldness” carries the idea of speaking freely. Hopeful people can say what is on their minds. Think of what a difference the boldness of hope could make in sharing the good news of Jesus.

We are seeing a historic drop in church attendance, membership, and affiliation. 8o percent of churches in America are plateaued or declining. Evangelism is in peril. There are both social and philosophical reasons for this, including a rise of commitment phobia and a descent into postmodernism. But at the base of it all is hopelessness.

3) But hope not only gives us boldness to speak for Christ; it gives us opportunities as well. St. Peter wrote, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). When we are hopeful, people come to us. When we are not hopeful, we don’t get opportunities.

4) Here is something else. St. Paul writes in Colossians 1:5 that “faith and love spring from hope.” That means faith is hope-dependent. Take away hope and faith withers. Hopeless people become faithless people toward God and others.

(The other four things hope does for us will be posted on Thursday, 4/22)

[1]  Adapted from Shane J. Lopez, Making Hope Happen (Atria Books, 2013), page 52.

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Hope – I Need Somebody (Hope- Not Just Anybody)

Posted on April 18, 2021 by salooper57
Viewing time: 28 minutes (approx)
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“I Believe in the Forgiveness of Sins”

Posted on April 17, 2021 by salooper57

One of the tenets of Christianity, found in every faith tradition and denomination, is that God forgives sins. Many examples of this belief can be found in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and in the liturgy of the Church.

The most widely used creeds in Christian liturgy are the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds. One or the other (or both) are recited in Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and many Protestant Churches. In these creeds, which are summaries of the Christian faith, the worshiper acknowledges belief in the forgiveness of sins.

What does it mean to declare, as a worshiper does when reciting the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins”? What – and whose – sins are in mind?  Who is doing the forgiving? Does the forgiveness of sins make any difference in a person’s life?

When a Christian claims to believe in the forgiveness of sins, is she talking about her sins, her neighbor’s sins, or everyone’s sins? Are these sins little or big, foibles or atrocities?

The scope of forgiveness is vast. Jesus said that forgiveness would be proclaimed to all nations (or people groups). St. John wrote that Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” Forgiveness is universal in scope but conditional in application. The condition is faith in God through Jesus Christ.

No sin is by nature beyond forgiveness (except the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, but that is a topic for another time). Many people find the extravagant breadth of Christian forgiveness objectionable. Should even Hitler, if he has expressed “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,” be forgiven? What about the sexual predator? The murderer?

I have had to be clear about this in my own mind. The forgiveness of sins is easy enough to believe when you are sitting in a church pew. It is another matter when you are sitting in a jail cell with a man accused of molesting a two-year-old child or a woman who shot her sleeping husband and then decapitated him so she could be with another man. In such situations, could I honestly say that I believe in the forgiveness of sins?

Yes. I have been able to believe in the forgiveness of sins – even in those cells – because I believe in the God of Jesus. I am, however, in doubt about whether the people I came to see believed. They didn’t stop making excuses long enough for me to find out, but people who believe in the forgiveness of sins make confession, not excuses.

When Christians, reciting the creed, say that they believe in the forgiveness of sins, it is important that they believe in the forgiveness of other people’s sins, not merely their own. Do we believe that God will forgive our enemy’s sins? If we do not, it is likely that we have fallen into the trap of thinking that others need to be forgiven while we need only be excused.

When we say that we believe in the forgiveness of sins, are we assuming that forgiveness resides in God’s domain but not in our own? Another way to put the question is to ask if God is the only forgiver or if others are included? When I acknowledge the forgiveness of sins, do I recognize that I too am called to be a forgiver?

God is surely the Primary Forgiver and it is his forgiveness that is central in the Scripture and in the creeds. But belief in the forgiveness of sins does not end at God’s throne. It descends to my desk chair, to the break room in the factory, and to the family kitchen. Jesus and his apostles will not allow us to exclude ourselves from the responsibility to forgive, anymore that they exclude us from the need to be forgiven.

Jesus taught us to pray: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” To believe in the forgiveness of sins is to believe that I need to be forgiven, not merely excused, that God will forgive, and that I must do likewise.

(First published by Gannett.)

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Faith Is Work

Posted on April 15, 2021 by salooper57

Amy Carmichael, said: “The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding [at all]. Yet they can knock a strong man over and lay him very low.” “The best training,” she says, “is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves.” [1]

She is talking about meeting these things with faith in our loving Father. Yes, that faith gets tested. It might feel like we cannot go any further in it. We want to retreat. Long to turn to distraction and self-indulgence. But whoever said that faith is easy?

This is Walter Wangerin, Jr.: “Faith is work. It is a struggle. You must struggle with all your heart. … And on the way, God will ambush you.” We struggle to trust. The doubts keep coming. We refuse to give in. We fight, fight to trust God; but it is so hard. We feel like we’re losing faith every other moment. But we aren’t. That is just the contaminants burning up. Our faith is being purified! And when we just can’t do it anymore, our heavenly Father comes from behind us to help.

I love the true story – many of you have seen the video – that came out of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It was the 400-meter race. Derek Redmond of Great Britain entered the back stretch with a real possibility of winning gold and fulfilling his lifelong dream. And then it happened: his hamstring tore and all the other runners went flying past him. He crumpled, kneeling there on the track, in excruciating pain.

A nearby photographer captures the moment of his dream-ending collapse. Frustration and dejection are written on his face. The race is over. The other runners are crossing the line.

Then, surprisingly, Derek stands and begins to hop toward the finish line. The crowd, which has been watching, begins to clap, and then cheer, louder and louder.

Then the applause hushes a little. What is happening? There is a man running toward Derek on the track. It’s his father. He throws his arms around his son and in a voice full of emotion, whispers, “Come on, son. Let’s finish this together.” The applause grows louder than ever. The crowd cheers and weeps as they watch Derek’s father bearing his injured son across the finish line.[2]

How many times you and I have struggled to trust God! Our faith has come up short and we have fallen. We won’t win the race. We’re not even sure we can finish it. But we get up, broken and limping, and begin again.

We will cross the finish line, as every one of his children do, upheld by our Father’s arms. The hosts of heaven will be on their feet, and there will be jubilant praise, abundant honor, and resplendent glory. And we will hear the words – is he speaking to me, who fell, who failed, who lay crumpled on the ground? We will hear the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matthew 25:21).

[1] Amy Carmichael, “Candles in the Dark.” Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 2.

[2] Source: Jim Nicodem, “The Father Heart of God,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 152.

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Everyone Gets Tested (Not Everyone Passes)

Posted on April 14, 2021 by salooper57

Everyone gets tested. Ordained ministers get tested. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines get tested. High School and college graduates get tested. Lawyers get tested. Police officers get tested. Corrections officers get tested. Pilots get tested. Drivers get tested. Do followers of Jesus get tested? And, if so, does everyone pass the test? To get personal, will I pass the test?

Let me answer those questions. Yes, followers of Jesus get tested. No, not everyone passes. But, yes, you can pass the test. As C. S. Lewis so eloquently put it: “The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God” (italics added).[1]

But not everyone passes the test. Listen to what the author of Hebrews says (12:16-17): “See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected.”

The word translated as “rejected” is a quality control word. It refers to something that cannot be used for its intended purpose because it has not passed quality or safety testing. The way Esau responded to a difficult circumstance indicated a flaw in his character. He was not yet a person to whom God could safely entrust his blessing. His response to the test showed that, in a critical moment, he would not turn to God but would turn elsewhere. It was his faith that was tested and it was found wanting.

Esau’s trial – so mundane and familiar – was a test of faith. It tested his trust in God, his dependence on him, and the integrity of the connection between him and God. We can get the idea that people who pass the test prove that they are smart or that they are spiritual or that they are strong. Not so. What is being tested – whether the test is mundane or exotic, familiar or extraordinary – is a person’s faith: his or her trust in God. It will help you to remember that.

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

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