faith for faith

What is the love of God? Is it a feeling? Is it an action? Is it directed toward all people equally, or is set upon a particular people? Is it based upon conditions, or is it unconditional? Is it free, or is it costly? All these questions must be considered when one speaks about the love of God.

The apostle John makes the declaration in his first letter that “God is love” (1Jn. 4:8). This declaration is an important one, for many have formed opinions about God based upon it. What this declaration is not, contrary to popular opinion, is a definition of God. For a definition by its very nature places precise parameters around that which is finite, and since God is infinite, he cannot be defined. Thus the statement, “God is love,” is a commentary upon the nature of love rather than upon the nature of God. Therefore love, as does everything else, finds its true identity in God alone.

Read more…

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand (Rm. 14:1-4).

What is an opinion? An opinion is a belief or conviction that does not have substantial support. When spoken of with regard to the church, it is a matter that is more often than not rooted in a particular culture and that has found its way into Christian practice but does not have Scriptural mandate. The examples of opinions are many, and it is opinions, not biblical doctrine, that has caused the most divisions within the church.

Read more…

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him (Rm. 8:16, 17).

K. P. Yohannan made a simple yet profound statement regarding suffering in the life of the Christian. He said that we as Christians are to seek actively our cross and carry it, for no one is going to throw it upon us; we ourselves must pick up the cross of suffering, deny ourselves, and follow Christ. And we must do it, for the cross we are to pick up is not icing on the cake of Christianity or a merit badge for the holier among us, but it is essential and salvific, for we, as the apostle declares in his letter to the Romans, will not be glorified with Christ apart from suffering with him.

For all who have been baptized into Christ share completely in his identity. For they who were baptized into him were baptized into his death in order that they might also share in his resurrection. And as Christ’s life and death did not come apart from suffering, so our lives and deaths (if we are indeed followers of Christ) shall not come apart from suffering with him.

Read more…

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law (Rm. 13:8).

While the interpretations of the apostle’s command to the church at Rome, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another,” are many, his purpose can be surmised in the verses that follow his exhortation. And though it is wise not to owe any man anything at all, e.g. lent money, etc., and to pursue such lack of indebtedness is a godly pursuit, that particular debt is not what the apostle is speaking about chiefly, though it cannot be discounted totally.

The debt about which the apostle is speaking particularly is the debt of sin or transgression. For the apostle’s command, “Owe no one anything,” is fulfilled by the command, “Love one another.” This is the same debt that Christ speaks about in his model prayer where he says, “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt. 6:12). The idea is the same as that which the apostle presented in the previous section of his discourse, namely that we as Christians have an obligation to our fellow men to obey the law, be it God’s law or a government’s law, and we are to pay our debts according to the law, be it taxes or honor (cf. Rm. 13:7). Therefore, the Christian is a debtor in this life to the laws under which he finds himself.

Read more…

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality (Rm. 12:12, 13).

The three–rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer–if any are to be fulfilled in the life of a Christian, each must rest upon the other. For patience in tribulation will not come apart from rejoicing in hope, nor will it come apart from incessant prayer. However, our hope will not come apart from tribulation, for the apostle says earlier in his letter, “We rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Rm. 5:3-4). And incessant prayer will not come apart from rejoicing in hope and patience in tribulation, for hope and patience are the wellspring of godly supplication. The three are a three-stranded rope, where together the three are strong and stay a Christian’s life, but remove even one, and the others’ strength is diminished.

And when these three are found in the life of the Christian, it overflows practically in the contribution to the needs of the saints and the showing of hospitality. For the one who rejoices in hope of his future Inheritance by necessity does not rejoice in the world’s temporal pleasures and thereby uses his resources for the needs of the saints rather than for worldly gain. Also, the one who is patient in tribulation, because of his own suffering, sympathizes with the plight of his fellow brothers and sisters and seeks to aid them in their need and suffering. And, finally, the one who does not cease to pray to the Lord, is constantly fixed upon doing the will of the Lord, which is to love his brothers and sisters in the same manner that Christ loved him, suffering even unto death for sake of the saints. Each of these–hope, suffering, and incessant prayer–hold the Christian fast and overflow in a wellspring of generosity to the needs of the Church.

Read more…

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection (Rm. 12:9, 10a).

The apostle Paul, in the twelfth chapter of his letter to the Romans, continues in the paragraph that begins in verse nine with the practical exhortations that are built upon his theological discourse that precedes this present section in chapters one through eleven. Having solidified the Roman church’s knowledge of God in Christ, he continues to demonstrate how that knowledge is to transform one into the image of Christ and to destroy his conformity to the world (cf. v. 12:2).

In verse nine, the true knowledge of God in the face of Christ by faith exhibits itself in genuine love toward those in the church. What is interesting in this verse, and yet so wonderfully applicable, is the first instruction given by the apostle to exhibit genuine love, namely, “Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” In other words, the first and primary step to loving the church genuinely is to despise evil and to love good. For if love toward Christ’s church is to be practiced truly and rightly, it must always be done in the context of holiness. For any love that attempts to demonstrate itself apart from God’s decrees and demands for holiness in his Bride is not love at all, but it is hatred. For true love is always concerned first with the glory of God and second with the state of a person’s soul, and to attempt to love a person without regard God’s glory or without regard to their soul, despite sentiment, demonstrates a cold callousness that is concerned more with ease and feigned peace than it is with pressing a soul unto godliness.

Read more…

In honor of James & Elizabeth Cooper and Paul & Meredith Bradley
who, by God’s grace, will be married tomorrow.

Marriage is indeed a gift from God. For marriage, from its consummation in the Garden, was created to be a shadow of the depths of the Messiah’s love toward his elect and of his headship over her. The depths of Christ’s love was demonstrated in that while his bride was yet comprised of sinners, Christ put forth his figurative heel to be bruised so that he might by that act crush the head of the Adversary for the sake of the church’s lawless deeds and for her righteousness (cf. Rm. 5:8; Gen. 3:15; Is. 53:12). Likewise, marriage was created to be a picture of the oneness that Christ shares with his bride the Church. Just as the church is one with Christ through her submission in love to him who is her Head, so too in marriage, when a wife willingly submits to her husband and to his God-ordained headship, a household that was once comprised of multiple wills becomes one. These realities, among many others, make marriage a holy bond that should never be entered into lightly nor abandoned for the sake of personal preferences or conveniences. For marriage is never merely about mere persons, nor is it about one man and one woman, but it is always about God and his faithfulness to his people whom he foreknew. Just a thought. Congratulations, y’all!

In a couple of weeks, many people will find themselves in a church building who have not been in one since Easter Day. They might do this traditionally, they might do this for the sake of a more religious family member, or they might do this thinking that they are honoring Christ in some way by showing up for two services during the year that are dedicated to his birth and resurrection. Those of us who are found in church services quite regularly will, as we do every year, criticize those who think that they can appease God with their two acts of annual service, and we will criticize them rightly for we know that Christ demands much more of his followers.

However, many of us faithful attendees who criticize the Christmas and Easter crowd do not seem to understand that Christ demands much more of his followers than just a full year of church services—he demands complete obedience to his commands. He said to his followers, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” yet many of us who claim to love him know nothing of his commands; or worse, we do know his commands and blatantly disobey them and therefore do not love him.

We look at the Gospels¹ much like the Chreasters² look at attending church services, for we know the Gospels’ beginnings concerning Christ’s birth and we know their endings concerning Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, but we know nothing of the rest. We might know their content—their “nice” stories and Jesus’ healings, but we do not really know them. For if we did know the Gospels, we would know that Christ commands his followers to love God and to love one another and that Christ clearly shows over and over and over that we love God by loving others and that we love others by surrendering our possessions and our lives for their sake.

His command and call to this joyful poverty is universal. He commands it of the rich man (cf. Matt. 19:21), he commands it of his disciples (Luke 12:32, 33), he commands it of the hearers of his Sermon (cf. Matt. 6:19), and he commends its practice in the widow who gave all that she had (Mark 12:41-44). Everyone of us falls into this spectrum, from the widow who gave all that she had to the rich young ruler who rejected Christ by keeping his wealth. None of us is excluded.

The question you must then ask yourself, you who are found in church services year round: do you find your comfort in being “better” than those whom you affectionately label Chreasters, or do you find your comfort in loving Christ and keeping his commandments? For if you are not selling your possessions, you should not be comfortable for you are not loving Christ.

1- i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John
2- “Chreaster” is a combination of the words “Christmas” and “Easter” and is used by some to label those who only come to church at those times.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matthew 23:23, 24).

There is something in human nature that strives to do as little as possible to appease one’s conscience. A classic case of this in many traditional church backgrounds is the act of tithing. It is this one act coupled with regular church attendance that makes some Christians feel as though they are square with God. They feel no guilt, and they feel that they are at peace with God in spite of the fact that God never once commands the Church to tithe and in spite of their utter neglect of the weightier call of God upon their lives.

Jesus Christ during his stint upon this earth also encountered a group who had clear consciences in spite of their disobedience to the law—the Pharisees. These self-righteous men thought that they could one-up God on his commandments so that they would be sure never to break them. They called this one-upmanship, “putting a hedge about the law.” For example, if the law commanded them not to use the Lord’s name vainly, the Pharisees would not speak the name of the Lord at all. If the law commanded them not to be drunk with wine, they would not drink wine at all. If the law commanded them not to work on the Sabbath, they would count their steps on each Sabbath and would even not save a man’s life if he were in need of rescue on the Sabbath.

Aside from not saving a man on the Sabbath, we might look upon the Pharisees’ practices quite favorably. Many of us do in fact choose not to participate in certain activities, not because they are forbidden by Scripture, but because we believe that those things are not profitable or might lead us into a certain temptation. Therefore many Christians choose not to drink, not to go to R-rated movies, not to listen to secular music, etc., all so that they might live lives that honor God. And all these are fine to practice so long as we recognize that they are not God’s law and that they are not a substitute for it.

In Matthew 23:23, this is exactly what the Pharisees had done, namely they had taken one part of God’s law given to the nation Israel, viz. tithing, and they had made it into a refined science of dividing herbs and spices. As the text indicates, this practice was not wrong in and of itself (in fact it was in accordance to the nation’s laws), but the Pharisees had put great weight and worth on tithing and regarded as worthless the truly weighty laws of God, viz. justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Christ’s condemnation of them is not light, for he declares that they not only will not enter into the kingdom of heaven, but they, by their teachings are blocking others from entering (cf. v. 23:13, 14).

Christ says elsewhere that the greatest two commandments are to love God with all our being and to love one another as we love ourselves. We should find no consolation for our consciences if we are not keeping these commandments every moment of our lives. If we are not and find satisfaction for our consciences in our tithing, our church attendance, and our G-rated movies, we are no better than the Pharisees and are just as likely to split hell wide open. And if you are wondering how loving God and loving others as we love ourselves looks, here is an example from 2 Corinthians 8:

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—-in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.

What if we in the American Church, when doing foreign missions . . .

Instead of living in houses like this and building houses like this

We lived in houses like this and built houses like this?

What effect would that have on the Gospel? Would our love for the Church abroad be better demonstrated? Would the world view Americans and American Christianity in a different light? We likely will never know.