What is love?

And now that I've succeeded in getting A Night at the Roxbury stuck in all of our heads (for which I do sincerely apologize) I aim to proceed to matters of much greater significance. Lately I have been caught pondering and imaging the depth and power of this crazy little thing called love (*cue the Elvis music).

For those of a certain level of maturation, love is little more than an emotion. It is a good feeling and promotes thoughts of attraction and affection. This love lacks power, finality, and worth. Love is an emotion, that is true to a certain degree. But love is so much more than an emotion. The butterflies in your tummy and that light-headedness are just feelings. These feelings can act as indicators of something more, but love itself does not flow from these things. No, love is the base from which all other indicators flow.

Many have heard Paul's definition of love from 1 Corinthians chapter 13;

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

I don't know what images that passage conjurers up in your mind, but grab a hold of your first thoughts and run them through the passage. Use it as a sort of sieve. It should offer a very polarizing tool with which love can be accurately distinguished.



Now, I willfully admit, that my conceptualization of what love is has been radically altered in the past year of my life. As my previous post alluded to, I have fairly recently become engaged to Carissa Curtis. Naturally, since we are to be married, it makes sense that we are indeed in love. And we are deeply in love. And how do I know that? How can I be absolutely certain that this love I feel for Carissa and the love that she reciprocates to me is in fact genuine, real love? Like all questions, I test it with what scripture says love is.

Love is patient. Is patience evident in our interactions with each other? Am I willing to listen, to wait, and to support her in any task for any duration? I am.

Love is kind. Is our love marked by kindness? It should be devoid of harshness and sarcastic jabs. Love must be sincere (as it says in Romans 12:9). Am I genuinely striving to be continually kind to her? I am.

... I could go on and on through all of these things, but I do not mean to exalt my relationship with Carissa over anyone, nor do I feel the need to prove some sort of perfection for some sort of "holiness test". Rather I give these examples to encourage you to think. If you are in a relationship with someone, test it by the spirit and the Word of truth. Does it stand? Now, there is grace abundant in Jesus. No one can love perfectly. For if God is love (1 John 4:8) and Romans 3:11 says that no one seeks God, how can we possible proclaim to love perfectly if we don't seek to know love?

I will be first to admit my tendencies to selfishness and resentment. I am not always willful to lay down my "right" to insist on my own way. I am far from perfect.

So if we cannot achieve perfect love, then what really is the difference between the love of attraction that I cited at the beginning of this post and the love which we broken people are left with, even as we strive to achieve the purity of love that Paul exults? The difference comes in that final verse I included from 1 Corinthians 13, verse 10, which reads "for when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away." The difference between genuine, sacrificial love and a fleeting emotion is time. Lust and emotion are chemical states created through the mind and the body which were never meant to last. They are temporary, designed to be reactions to certain stimuli. The love Paul describes is eternal.

Love does not pass away. It does not fade. You cannot "fall out of love". Sure, you can run as far as you'd like, but in the end everything else will fade and there will be nothing left to hold on to, save love.

My heart in writing this is reactionary after noticing a trend in our culture that idolizes this concept of love. But this is not a love that is eternal and self-sacrificing. Our culture promotes a love that is me-centered. Love that emanates solely from how I feel is not love. This "love" is adamant about having things the way we demand. "If this person doesn't continue to make me happy then I'll move on to somebody else" is a message that rings throughout our world today. From a boyfriend or girlfriend you've been dating for a few weeks to a spouse that you've been with for 20 years, nothing is off limits. "Love" in our world is self-serving, demanding, and inward focused on personal happiness at all costs.

Friends, we must not idolize the love that comes from our world, but rather we must let the love that comes from the Father dwell deeply inside of us. Worldly love does not last. It is partial, and it will pass away. In the Garden man took a place that was created by God for the purpose of unifying God and man in a perfect experience of harmony and worship and altered its purpose. When Adam and Eve sinned, they took the focus off of God, and put it onto themselves. They wanted to be equal with God and to not be bound by the limits that God set in place for their own good. This fracturing of purpose created the same dichotomy that exists in the world today. Adam and Even replaced the center of the universe, God, with themselves. Biblically, Godly love exists as a perfect union of self with an eternal purpose that produces worship and fruit. Self is set aside and this love exists to make much of the God who created is. Worldly love seeks to eliminate God and make love about one's self. Worldy love is selfish and centered on man.

I urge you brother and sisters, test what you to be love in your life. If Godly love is examined, you will follow its fruits all the way back to God and will end in worship. If worldly love is looked at even on a cursory level it quickly can be found to degrade to emotion, temporariness, and selfish desires. These selfish desires bring forth death. Godly love produces life.

So what is love? Love is a heaven focused state of being that seeks to unite the broken man with a holy God which can only be achieved through humbly accepting the sacrificial work of Christ who came to define what love really means through his selfless purchase of human life on the cross. I love Carissa, but only because I see that this love embodies the eternal purpose of a yearning to make Jesus' Name famous in all the world and believing and seeing her life strengthen and encourage me, and my life the same to her, to become more enamored with the love that God has for us. Godly love is attractive. It seems that I just happened to luck out that Carissa is not only in love with God, but also the most beautiful girl in the world.

I hope this challenges and encourages,
-Matt

Undeserving

While reading through Deuteronomy this morning I came across a powerful juxtaposition in chapters 16 and 7. In verses 5-6 as God gives instruction for the Passover sacrifices He says:

"You must not sacrifice the Passover in any town the Lord your God gives you except in the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name"

Amidst this instruction I was cut to the core and the Spirit reminded me that I am the place He has chosen to dwell in. My body is the temple that the God of the universe has chosen to reside. It is inside of me that I sacrifice my life, my very soul, to give everything to the Lord who came for me.

It was this that made reading the first 7 verses of chapter 17 so heart-wrenching. I'm posting it here so because the power of scripture is much too valuable to skip over.

"Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to him. If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a person is to be put to death, but no one is to be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting that person to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you."

Wow. That same God that dwells inside of me hates the violation of His covenant with me so much that the price of that trespass is death. I deserve death, yet the Holy One lives inside of me. This glorious paradox makes me feel so small, and so loved. I don't have the words to convey how humbling and wonderful this all-invasive love that conquered death is to me. But I hope this scripture speaks louder than my words.

His servant,
-matt

We Never Saw Anything Like This

I was reading from Mark 2 the other day and couldn't help but be mesmerized by the story of the paralytic healed by Jesus in verses 1 through 12. His friends carry him to Jesus, and when there seems to be no way to reach Him, they take him to the roof, tear the roof apart, and then lower him down to Jesus.

Hard Truths that Heal Hard Hearts

I've been traveling through Job this last week and the Scripture that God rocked me with today was way too powerful not to share! You can read the entirety of Job 9-14 here, and I'm going to highlight just a few key verses that really jumped out to me. Seriously, you should stop now and read it... Do it, the Word has so much more power than anything I have to say. Read it yet? I hope so. Here we go.

Jump Start

I went to my first country music concert last Friday in College Station, and although I am not a fan of country music, the opening act Brian Burke played a song that I just cannot get out of my head for more than a few hours. The song was called Jump Start and it tells the story of someone "looking for a way to jump start [their] heart." The subject turns to lusts and a one night stand to "jump start [his] heart".

Thousands of Years

So far this summer season has brought plenty of adventures into my life. My family grew to 8 in May, my brother attended his new student conference in June, and come July I'll be in Scotland for the first time in almost 17 years. In addition to adventure, there has been a fair share of monotonous school work. I've been trudging through a business law course this summer and its been a doozy. Not only are we responsible for knowing what the law says now, but we have to know how it came to that point. 200 years of business law can get a bit tedious if you can imagine.

Summer Encouragement from Romans 12:12

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer." Such simple and challenging words like these are scattered all over scripture, but it is today I find myself meditating on these few. Simple is probably the furthest from the word I mean to use, perhaps compact would better suit this occasion. No matter how simple these three phrases are to read, I know my life will be spent learning slowly how to master them.

10,000 Years

I woke up this morning with an old Christian classic, Grace Like Rain stuck in my head on repeat. And as all songs that repeat in your head, its never really the entirety of the song is it? Of course not, its just one phrase, or one verse, or if you're unfortunate, the chorus over and over and over again. Back to my story, I had one distinct verse that I couldn't shake out of my mind. The verse goes;

When we've been there ten thousand years

Bright shining as the Son

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we first begun.

Sanctification: The Essentials

God has ordained this mysterious, yet beautiful process that some have called sanctification. God wants to buy us, cleanse us, and transform us. In that order - it's that simple.

"Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to REDEEM us from all lawlessness and to PURIFY for himself a people for his own possession who are ZEALOUS for good works." - Titus 2:13-14

God Wins the War

I was praying with my SALT which is a group of 4 or 5 Impact prayer team guys that each have their own groups (camps) to pray for and encourage throughout the semester leading up to the Retreat in August. We were praying for the incoming freshmen of the Class of 2016 when someone prayed something to the effect of, "God, we know that Satan might win the battle, but You always win the war." I know I've said that a plethora of times, but it was during this prayer time that something in my Spirit cried out against it.

God's Righteousness

Isaiah is a wonderful book. You should definitely spend some time in it if you haven't recently. A few days ago I was reading in chapter 59 and came across a nugget of theological truth that wowed me...

Unity: Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 1

Totally blown away by Jesus this morning, and it's been a wonderful day! God stirred my heart to open up to 1 Corinthians and just start soaking it in. A few verses in particular really stood out namely verses 10, 17, 23, and 30 all from chapter 1.

Victory in Christ

I've been meditating a lot lately on this story from 1 Samuel 5:1-5 (here). In this passage we see what happens to the Philistine god, Dagon in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant. Leading up to this encounter, Israel has wrongfully decided to go into battle with the ark at the forefront as it usually was. The ark was captured and taken as spoils by their enemies.

Choosing the Cross

Continuing in Matthew 16 (first section here), finishing the chapter with verses 24-28. I found that it flows remarkably with the theme of the previous verses (13-23) that I discussed in my last post (here). Our last thoughts there left us with the question of what to do now. How do we remedy our misuse of authority?

After continuing on, I believe Jesus gives us the answer. We used our authority, which was given by God, to argue for our sinful desires. We choose to value our impurities over the thoughts of God. How do we overcome this? Only by laying down our own agenda and picking up a heavenly one. Many of us have heard this snippet from Scripture several times, but it came to life when I saw this connection to the rest of what Jesus says [Quick aside: Context Is Everything]. Denying ourselves shifts our purpose from our selfish desires to God's plans. Our thoughts are replaced by Kingdom thoughts.

Misplaced Authority

I was reading in Matthew 16:13-23 this afternoon and wanted to share. Verse 18, referring to Peter, says "... on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

Here Christ promises us, as the church, ultimate victory. Knowing the end should influence how we live now. I know I have heard countless sermons on this subject. Beyond that repetition, I studied eschatology this summer. Eschatology is the study of the end times. This is only relevant to us because it is meant to spur the church onward. To follow the commands of Christ and spread the Gospel to the world.

In the same breath, Jesus also promises the keys to the Kingdom to the church. The key symbolizes ultimate authority. Only with the key, can one open the gates. What does that mean for us?

Overflow

After working for a youth ministry this summer, I have seen very clearly that all good ministry comes from an overflow. Dylan Lucas, the lead student pastor that I am working with has often mentioned this concept, and I find it to be true.

Let me unpack this concept a bit. The concept centers around the notion that as ministers, we are a cup waiting to pour out what we can to those we minister to (which in my case, was youth). What wisdom, truth, and spiritual insight we have to convey to students is merely what flows from us. We pour ourselves out for others in an effort to train them in righteousness and exhort them to lead holy lives. This necessitates that we have something to give. "Every good and perfect give comes from above" (James 1:17). With the presupposition that no part of us is good (cf. Romans 3:11-20), we must admit that we have nothing to give. Wisdom of men is "earthly, unspiritual, and demonic" (James 3:15).

Therefore,

But He Gives More Grace

First a disclaimer; to all of those in Faithbridge's College Ministry this may seem nothing more than a recapitulation of this evening's message. That aside, my reason for writing this is for my own processing. I find that the most penetrating of all truths are discovered through teaching and sharing those same truths with others. To teach is to teach oneself.

Now to the point. Tonight we turned to James 4 and let the Word have its way with us (Read it here). It really comes to the point in verse 4, in which James simply calls his readers (that is, us) adulterers. The truth is that we as Christians are identified as the Church, the bride of Christ.

Touching the Clothes of Christ

In Luke 8:40-48 Jesus is walking through the crowd on His way to the house of an important ruler whose daughter has died. On his way, a woman (who had suffered from a blood discharge disease for twelve years and gone to countless doctors and had yet to experience any breakthroughs) reached out from the crowd to touch even a small corner of his clothes. Scripture tells us upon contact, the blood flow stopped and she was healed.
Presumably sensing power going out from Him, Jesus asks the crowd, "who was it that touched me?". With that context, we look at verse 47;

And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before Him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed.

My first question I pose to you, readers, is this: why do you think Jesus asked "who touched me?" Perhaps the simplest answer, because He didn't know who had. Although possible, I would consider this unlikely in view of God's questions posed throughout the rest of scripture. Often when questions from God appear throughout the bible, they are not posed in search of an answer, as to enlighten God. God already knows the answer, and thus the question is usually asked for the audience's sake.

From that perspective, it would appear that Jesus wants the woman to speak out and declare her actions before the crowd. As we have established, this was not for his knowledge, but I would instead contend that the purpose was for her experience. It was most certainly as well, a test for her faith as well. Jesus has done something for her that she did not earn, and now He asks her to tell everyone around her what He has done. Sounds oddly familiar to the call that Jesus has on the lives of 21st century Christians as well, doesn't it?

Just like the woman in this story, we have reached out to Jesus and been healed. Our desperate condition of eternal death that was approaching, has now been destroyed and replaced with eternal life. Jesus asks us, "Who came to me?" with the intent of an answer before the people. We are in the same position as this woman, and are forced to consider our response. Will we wait in awkward silence and allow Our Lord to stand before the crowds and appear to be crazy as others mock Him with jeers of "No one touched you, Jesus. No one follows you."?

Our lives are meant as a testimony of God's work in us. Your story is meant to be a testimony of the goodness of God in human history. Pray over this challenge from scripture. How do we need to alter our response? If we remain silent, then who will testify of the work in our lives? We have orders to be witnesses for the nations! But how can they believe if no one tells them?

Jesus asks you, in front of everyone you know, "What have I done for you?".
What is your response?
-matt

Matthew 5:20

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." - Matthew 5:20

Jesus is a pretty straight forward guy isn't He? On first glance, it would appear that the bar has been raised higher than we can reach. That would be correct. Jesus knows just what He said, and He wants to get the crowd (and you) thinking. Righteousness, for many, is obtained from following the rules and living as closely to the Law as possible. The Pharisees in particular, based their entire lives on being perfect in obedience to the law. Their hope was this: if I obey everything in the Scriptures, God will count me righteousness enough to enter Heaven.

Pharisees (both today and 2000 years ago), Jesus has news for you. You can't do it. Christ intentionally made a point that the righteousness you had was not enough to gain entrance to the Kingdom. You could waste your entire life trying to earn, but trust Jesus when He says that it's beyond your reach. Paul echoes this in Romans 3:10-11 as he writes "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God."

That realization must be reached to move forward. The painful truth is that many of us are still caught up in trying to earn holiness. We struggle with laziness - so we ask Jesus to take it away as we lay on the couch watching tv. We have can't seem to stop spending our money on wasteful things, and we promise that we will stop - after we purchase this one last item. But we buy and buy and buy. We know God sees how ugly we are, so we try and clean ourselves up before we come to him.

The mind then begins to wonder, declaring, "There must be another way." That's what Jesus was hinting at.  Christ took the religious system of the day and flipped it on its head. He does the same today. The church, quite often is left open-mouthed and confused. No longer can institutions created by man facilitate the growth of righteousness. Instead mankind is left with nothing to make itself worthy.

That's what makes grace scandalous. You see, everything about the word grace is unfair. We receive the righteousness for free without earning it. Jesus faces death so that we can obtain the gift of Heaven that is beyond our reach. You see Jesus not only raised the bar. He also lifts those who seek Him up to it.

This is not a call to rejoice in our worthiness. This is a time to marvel in our worthlessness. Open your eyes. Look at God through the lenses of grace. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God"


For the Righteous One,
-matt

From My Knees

As I worshiped in my Antioch community this morning, God continued to reveal exciting things to me. The Spirit came to me saying "You are strongest from your knees." I've been in the Christian circle long enough to translate this Jesus-jargon into something about prayer. I thought initially I understood what God was telling me, but I persisted to ask for more. Let's explore this together, what does it mean to be "strongest from [our] knees"?

First let us consider the apparent division between the two parts of this sentence. "Strongest" carries a very positive connotation of power. It implies that we are mighty, but in what situation? From our knees. Kneeling demonstrates submissiveness, meekness, and humility. By kneeling before a Holy God we admit that we are under His sovereign rule and our very selves are secondary to His will.

The honest truth is that without God, we are powerless. God is all powerful. Isaiah 40:23 tells of how the strong of this world are nothing before the might of Our God. As much as we flee submission, we are called to it. We are called to be obedient to God in all circumstances. This obedience produces a humility in our souls that gives God room to work. A prideful person leaves little opportunity for God to be real in their lives.

To be strong is not something that we are inherently capable of. Our power comes from the Spirit of God that lives inside of us. Our access to God comes by means of prayer which is direct communication with Him. Nothing in us is worthy, but God communes with us because He wants us! He wants to be the power inside of us. With an invitation of this magnitude, how can we refuse to live a life under his authority. How can we refuse ultimate power. Let us live a life from our knees.
-matt