2021-11-19
Good Morning Dear Ones,
We must bear in mind that our Lord never lies. 1 COR 13: 3-10, “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” In other words, agape love always protects!
People who never do a kindness to others without thinking first, “what’s in this for me,” may win the psychological battle, but never the war. Someone I knew ideated this way. God is omniscient and thus, sees this pattern of behavior. If it is habitual, He will bring punishment upon this way, e.g. allowing the person to die of a terrible disease. That is what happened to the person I knew; he was incapable of agape love and gained nothing. Alternatively, people who mimic the love God shows us gain eternal life with Him. Nothing is better than that! Think about God’s grace (undeserved merit or favor) as it is described in EPH 2: 8-10. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ---and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Truthfully, the only boasting we can do is to trumpet God’s love, which blesses mankind. Pride and envy are ugly human traits, ones which keep us from wanting to emulate people who exhibit it. I was once told that “evil begins with coveting.” A lady I knew must have been reared in a way that made her feel worthless. She was a natural leader but acted officiously and with outward pride in her “accomplishments.” She made everyone in her group feel micromanaged and unimportant. She couldn’t have been very happy.
Rude, destructively angry, grudge-holders seem to delight in the evil they cause. Foul language is a way of disrespecting those who hear it. Grudge-holding is never constructive and often causes huge rips in relationships that are permanent or at least, long-lasting. In all fairness, there is such a thing as constructive anger, e.g. when Esther’s cousin, Mordechai and the other Jews of Susa in Persia begged Queen Esther to tell her husband (King Xerxes in Persian--Ahasuarus in Hebrew) that she was Jewish. The second in command of Persia, Haman (a descendant of Agag--the evil king of Amelek--Israel’s first enemy) had plotted to exterminate all the Jews [ES 3: 5-6, 9; ES 4: 12-14]. It was Mordecai’s hope that Esther’s revelation to her husband would thwart this plot. In this case, constructive anger was demonstrated as sadness, mourning, and courage. Protection, trust, hope, and perseverance are features of God’s agape love; surly[P1] [P2] we should emulate them. Sadly, anti-Semitism and anti-other faiths, ethnicities, sexual lifestyles, etc. has been rampant throughout mankind’s history. No single group has endured as much of this evil than the Jews. More of society’s contributors have come from that group than one would ever imagine. This subject is personal to me, because so many of my own ancestors were wiped out in the pogroms of the 1880’s in central and eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust during WW II. I’m the family’s genealogist, which is how I have uncovered so much of this evil; it is illogical, despite the long-held prophecy of the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland (Israel) on May 14,1948 arose from it. Thankfully, a few courageous relatives escaped it, or I wouldn’t have been born. The hatred of Hitler and Mousseline was borne out of destructive anger.
We humans think we know a lot; If my experience is any teacher, the more we know, the more we realize how little we know! In comparison to our Lord, we know hardly anything at all. IS 55: 8-9, [God speaking], “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your thoughts.” From what is said in the end of the first citation (above), we can assume that our loving God will “replace imperfection with perfection.” And, what a blessing that will be!
PRAYER: O Lord, humility before You is something to be desired. You have the power and love us enough to use it to chip away at our sinfulness and replace it with perfection. These words from 1 PET 5: 5b-10, can be held precious. “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers [and sisters] throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, Who calls you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.” All of what You do is out of Your perfect agape love. We thank and praise You for Who You are and what You do, in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I’ve been commanded to write about a few Greek definitions, the rest of what the Holy Spirit has to say about agape love always protects, and if space permits, about how agape love always trusts. I mentioned that my parents were always well-meaning people, who had little idea how to parent effectively. Lack of emotional protection was always an issue between my mother and I. As a three-year old, she had trouble with me wandering off to investigate my environment. I remember keenly one day when she threatened to drive off without me far from home in the city. Sure enough, I wandered off leading to her scolding me and appearing to do this, scaring the daylights out of me. (In reality, she drove two blocks down from where I was walking and around the corner. But I didn’t know it). I began to cry and cry, until she finally drove to where I was and collected me. After that, she strapped a halter on me with a leash attached. I was more embarrassed than I had ever been! On another occasion years later, one of my brothers, a ninth grader, was having trouble with his algebra homework. My father tried to help him, but the whole event was a study in frustration for them both. It ended with my father yelling and slapping my brother’s cheek so hard that this student wore an imprint of my father’s hand for a week! My parents weren’t trying to be abusive; they just did all they knew. That was parenting in the 1940’s and early 50’s. I’m sure that in both these examples, my parents were loving and thought their love was being protective. Somehow, my brother and I eventually matured, both have steady long-term marriages, and have raised families of our own. He became an accountant, and truthfully, I’m still a wanderer always wanting to investigate my surroundings. J Praise and thanks be to our God!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2021. All Rights Reserved.
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