The Law of Love

And to us who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us in the gospel, how unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No talebearer can inform on us; no enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us. "For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

Read

Matthew 5:43-48

Think

The previous paragraph on nonresistance/non-retaliation flows easily into the Law of Love. How easy is it to love our friends and hate our enemies. That is natural. We love those who love us. We love those who are like us. But when someone comes along who is different, or who expresses distaste or hatred for us or our beliefs, we naturally revert to hatred for them. That's what you'd expect of anyone, isn't it? If for no other reason than self-preservation, you avoid people who hate you. Yet, Jesus shows us that the true fulfillment of the Law is not just to love our neighbor, but to love our enemy as well. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells us that even our enemy is our neighbor.

But it goes even beyond that. Jesus says that in order to be sons of our Father, we will love and pray for our enemy, for those who would love to see us dead. We are to pray and act for their good.

A true son looks and acts like his father. So let's look at how our Father acts. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

We were enemies of God. But He acted in love toward us. How can we do anything but extend that same love and grace to absolutely everyone we encounter, even those who would chase after us with guns and imprison us for no other reason than our faith? It is easy, even natural, to extend love to our friends and family. It is Christ-like to extend love and grace to absolutely everyone, especially our enemies.

Fortunately, with the last phrase we are brought back to the underlying theme of this entire chapter, achieving perfection. Unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we will not enter the Kingdom. This is fortunate, because in myself I am incapable of this kind of love. I must depend on God's work in me to even have a shot at life with Him. I must depend on Christ's sacrifice to make my character like God's. So without Christ, I am unable to love this way, but with His love overflowing in my life, my enemies become my friends and I see those who are different from me through an entirely different lens.

Pray

Ask God to help you see people the way He sees them, with tender mercy, kindness, and unconditional love.

Do

Befriend someone you would normally avoid. Get to know them and extend the same love and grace God extends to us.

Gift Giving

I’ve never been one to accept gifts easily. It probably goes right along with my tendency to refuse to ask for help. Something inside tells me that I am not worthy of the gift, or that I should have an equally nice gift to exchange with the other person. On Gary Chapman’s list of 5 love languages, gift giving is not mine. It also follows that I am not much of a gift-giver. If you’ve ever gotten a gift from me that you just thought was perfect, Misha probably picked it out.

So you can imagine that this time of year challenges this tendency of mine to balk at receiving gifts. I have been getting better as the years go on, especially since Misha’s family is really good at giving you exactly what you want or need. And they love to do it. After years of practice, I’ve been getting better at showing outwardly the gratitude I feel on the inside. Rather than awkwardly squeaking out a “thanks” and turning to run the other way, I’ve learned to openly enjoy the gift and adequately express my gratitude right there in front of the person. I still have twinges of guilt, though, when I haven’t thought to get that person a gift, or when all I have to offer is a gift that pales in comparison with the one I’ve just received.

I find myself in that situation quite a lot at BBC. It seems a regular occurrence for someone to offer a gift to me when I have little or nothing to give in return. And I’m not just talking about the tangible gifts of material things, although that happens often. As I pray with my kids before bed, I thank God for people who we love and who love us so well. I think maybe Paul felt this way about the Philippians when he said in Philippians 1:3-5, I thank my God with every remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We give because we have received. God has given us such a great gift that we can’t help but share that gift with other people. And because people delight in giving us good gifts out of the overflow of their love for us, just like God does, we receive their grace whether or not we have anything to offer in return. In doing this, we act out on a very small scale our relationship with God, except with Him, we only have to offer what He’s already given us.

So I want to thank my church family for the tangible gifts of stuff and the intangible gifts of love and service, neither of which I will ever be able to repay. And, thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. (II Cor. 9:15)

The Extra Mile

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

C. S. Lewis

Read

Matthew 5:38-42

Think

I don't know anyone who likes to be abused and manipulated. It doesn't really feel good to be treated that way. Yet Jesus tells us that if we are truly following the Law, that we will not retaliate for wrongs against us, that we will always go the extra mile for anyone who asks. Self-preservation leads me to withdraw from an encounter when blows begin, not offer my other cheek. Maybe I would feel differently if I were 6'5", 230 lbs. But, do not resist the evildoer? Call me shag, because that makes me a rug for anyone to walk on.

But this really is what Jesus means to say. If we are truly following the Law, we will not claim our right to retaliate. Do we even have that right, anyway? Though it seems counter-intuitive, God's best for us is to not fight back, to act in generosity to those who want to swindle us out of our coats, to willingly serve above and beyond those who want to enslave us.

That's what Jesus did.

He turned His cheek. He did not seek retaliation. He laid the final vestige of His glory on the ground for soldiers to gamble over. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The only One who truly had the right to come down in retaliation offered His life for the benefit of those who were putting Him to death.

As I take stock of my own life, I see all the ways I claim my right to protect myself. I am stingy. I want what is mine. I want justice for those who wrong me. And my righteousness still exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees, not because I always do what is right, but because I am not depending on my own abilities to make myself righteous. Jesus offered Himself as a guarantee of eternal life, and I would rather claim that than any right to retaliation I think I might have.

Pray

Ask God to help you to release your right to retaliation. Pray that He would create in you a dependence on Him that transcends anything men can do to you.

Do

Get rid of the list of people who've wronged you. Let go of revenge. It's not a happy way to live, and it's not God's best for you.

Promises, Promises

This is what the Lord says,

"Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.

Where then is a house you could build for me?

And where is a place that I may rest?

For my hand made all these things,

Thus all these things came into being," declares the Lord.

"But to this one I will look,

To him who is humble and contrite of spirit,

And who trembles at my word."

Isaiah 66:1-2

Read

Matthew 5:33-37.

Think

I sometimes cringe when I hear some people make promises they can't keep. Usually they go something like this: "I promise I will never let anything hurt you." "I promise I will always be around." "I promise that I will never let you down." It's not that these people don't intend to keep their promises. It's that they are incapable of guaranteeing that they will follow through. And when we make a promise and then don't keep it, our promise becomes a lie.

The fact is that there is not one single promise we have the power to guarantee. We try. We try so hard. We want to make it to little Johnny's ball game. We want to be there for people when they need us. We want to protect the people that we love. And most of us are able to keep most of the promises we make. It's those few promises that turn to lies that really cause the issue for us. It's that one promise that we don't keep that reveals that we are not like God.

God's character is always truthful. God always keeps His promises. God is capable of guaranteeing follow through. He is the one who sits in the throne of heaven, with the earth as His footstool. He is the one who commands the wind and the sea. Yet He is also the one who is intimately involved with our lives and cares deeply about us.

So don't make frivolous promises. In fact, maybe it's best if we don't make hard and fast promises at all. Maybe it's best if we turn our dependence away from ourselves and place it on the only One who makes vows and has never been found to be a liar. Maybe we should say things like: "I will do my best." "Lord willing." "If it is possible."

Pray

Pray that you will be able to fulfill the promises you do make, and avoid making promises you can't guarantee. Pray that your relationships will be strengthened because of it.

Do

Make a list of phrases you can say instead of "I promise".

In It For Life

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Jesus, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with thy glory's sight.

Thomas Aquinas, Adore te Devote

Read

Matthew 5:31-32.

Think

There are few more difficult relationships to navigate than the relationship of husband/wife. And there are few more touchy subjects than divorce. We all have relatives, friends, and old classmates who have experienced divorce, if we haven't been directly affected ourselves. The last thing we want to read is Jesus tightening the rules on this one, as well.

Let's think about it this way: When God created Adam and Eve, they were married in the ideal setting. It was the world the way it was intended to be. When they went after their own way, they lost sight of God's best. They went after a counterfeit of the knowledge of God. What they assumed would make them like God only served to mar His image in their lives. They were deceived into thinking that they could be like Him without drawing closer to Him.

What does this have to do with divorce? Because we are blind to God's best for us and so often go for counterfeits, God gave us the definition of His character in the Law. What is right matches what God Himself is, or what He would do. In the area of marriage, God always keeps His oaths and commitments, so the Law communicates that to us. God's best for us is to live in committed marriage relationships, in it for life. In divorce, we violate God's best, His intended ideals, which is the definition of sin.

But, just like the other sections of this part of Jesus' sermon, the focus here is not on the Law, but on our capacity for getting it wrong. The fact that there is divorce in the world lets us know that we are not like God, that something is not quite right. It shows us our need for a Savior to get us out of our mess.

Marriage is often used in Scripture to picture God's relationship with His people. My marriage to Misha is an imperfect picture of God's commitment to us. I get it wrong so often, but God never does. Only in remaining steadfast in my love and commitment to Misha can I remotely see God's best for my life.

Pray

Ask God to give you His own steadfast love for your spouse, present or future. Pray that your marriage will be a picture, however imperfect, of His own commitment to us.

Do

If you are married, make a list of all the ways your marriage mirrors God's steadfast love for us, then talk about how you might be more like God in your marriage commitment. If you are not married, make a list of the character traits of God and how you can more closely align yourself with them.

On Purity

Chastity: it is one of those unabashedly churchy words. It is one of the words the church uses to call Christians to do something hard, something unpopular...Chastity is one of the many Christian practices that are at odds with the dictates of our surrounding, secular culture. It challenges the movies we watch, the magazines we read, the songs we listen to. it runs counter to the way many of our non-Christian friends organize their lives. It strikes most secular folk as curious (at best), strange, backwards, repressed.

Lauren Winner, Real Sex

Before we start today, take a moment to be introspective. Where do you stand on the purity continuum? Are you pursuing purity in all areas?

Read

Today's Scripture is Matthew 5:27-30.

Think

Remember that Jesus is highlighting the impossibility of the Law to save us. The Scribes and Pharisees followed the Law as well as any human could, and Jesus still said, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." So do you look at someone of the opposite sex with lust in your heart? Only you can say. I know that I do. It's kind of part of our human condition.

The difficult thing for me is that he seems to say that if we lust we will be thrown into hell. Wow. That's harsh. But what is it worth to you? There are few things that distract me from my relationship with Christ more than my own lack of sexual purity. In fact sexual temptation is the only temptation the Bible tells us to flee. It is such an all-consuming, all-encompassing thing that it takes radical, decisive action to keep or regain purity.

Jesus isn't saying that if you lust you will be thrown into hell. He is saying that if you lust, you have broken the commandment and are guilty. Just like the other paragraphs in this section, the impossibility of keeping the Law is the key, and our dependence on an outside source is necessary. So, purity is worth whatever radical, decisive, even countercultural action you might choose to take. But I would stay away from chopping off body parts to achieve it.

There are few better ways to truly be countercultural than to pursue purity at any cost. But it's worth it.

Pray

Ask God to reveal to you ways that you are not fleeing sexual temptation, and to help you to take action to remain pure. Ask Him to send you friends who will help you in your pursuit of purity.

Do

Find one or two friends that you can trust and share your struggles with them. Ask them to challenge you on your choices and to keep reminding you to remain pure.