No more self-condemnation

All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God... God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So... we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers. (I John 4:15-21)

Fear of judgment - what might that look like? Constantly trying to 'do' better, but never really trusting in the work of Christ in your life. Thinking you must 'clean up your act' in order to approach the throne of God. As I said yesterday, you don't wash up before you take a shower - you let the shower do that work! Do you declare Jesus to be the Son of God, trust in his love for you as a sinner? This is the first step toward no longer 'fearing' judgment. Have you confessed your sins to him, acknowledging that you are indeed a sinner, in need of forgiveness? If so, you are on the path of right-living. Does that mean you will never make any mistakes again? Not hardly! We are human, facing many trials and temptations, and we will mess up on occasion.

The good news is that when we do, we have a path back through confession and what we call 'repentance' (turning away from that sin and turning toward God's help to overcome it). Don't live in fear of judgment just because you 'mess up' from time to time - go to God with it and let him wash you clean. Then move on - don't belabor the fact that you messed up. That only serves to bring you under the burden of self-condemnation and shame. These two don't belong in the life of a forgiven child of God.

Maybe this is how we learn to love each other in this world - forgiving as God so graciously and lovingly forgives us each time we mess up. This world might be a better place if God's love was practiced a bit more, don't you think? Love might just begin with the act of forgiving someone who has wronged you. It could begin because you have wronged another, and they lovingly restore you with open arms. Either way, we are making a good start at being ambassadors of God's love in a hurting and messed up world.

We might find the path of forgiveness hard to accept because we have lived for so long under the condemnation of our misdeeds. I have been guilty of doing that on occasion - remembering all the things I did wrong and how many people were likely hurt by my misdeeds. Condemnation of this sort is 'self-made' - it is not God inflicted. God doesn't leave us under a load of guilt and shame - his grace unburdens us from both, but we have to let go of the burden in order to be free of it. We might just help another see the immenseness of God's love when they see that transformation occur within our lives! Just sayin!

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant. In that day and time, a very taboo thing. We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God. Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated. We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar. The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish. Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,

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