LOVE GIVES

LOVE GIVES   (Inspired by our Pastor’s talk last night)

                “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”

                His Son, Jesus came into this world to show us what love is. He came from the Father as a gift to lost humanity. He came to give His life so that we could live. He had nothing to give to us, but Himself and so He gave Himself as a ransom… to buy us back from the tyrant that had lied to us and had trapped us in his hell-bound prison.

                Even in creating us, God showed forth His great love. He could have set us up with communist style government housing with a grey lump of something to eat that would keep us alive. But instead He placed us in a beautiful blue planet, lavishly decorated with an almost infinite variety of sights and sounds, tastes and textures and colors and beauty beyond description.

                All of creation is infused with a kind of love that gives. Everything was created to please human senses. It was created in such a way as to elicit love and worship from us in return. We see the wonderful things He has given to us and we instinctively understand that Someone very big loves us. He wrote that love into everything He made and He then placed us in the center of it.

                Then God created a companion for us so that we could love and give even as He had loved and given. He gave us the ability to procreate so that we could have children even as we are His children, so that we can love and give and teach them even as He loved and gave and taught us.

                But when mankind fell for Satan’s lies and joined the rebellion, this wonderful world became a prison planet, locked away from our loving Creator by our own sin and rebellion. We were without hope. We became prisoners of war behind enemy lines…doomed to the whims of a fallen race of angelic beings that hated us because we had been created in the image of God.  Their long term goal became that of erasing the image of God in us… to remove every trace of the loving God who had made us.

                So it was that into this dark prison planet the Son of God came. He came to give Himself so that whoever believed in Him should not perish but receive His everlasting life. That life is in Him, so that when we receive Him, we receive His life.

                So Jesus came here to create a kingdom for us that is no longer a part of the rebellion. We can enter by faith into His death and be born again into this new kingdom. We can become citizens of this new kingdom and we can once again serve our loving Creator and Savior. We can walk and talk with Him even as our first parents did.

                So, we are called out ones… delivered from that prison colony to love and to serve our Creator and Savior. As citizens of this new kingdom we become adopted into heaven’s family. We no longer belong to this world. So Jesus established something on this earth for us so that we could enjoy each other and love each other and to share the good news with others in the prison colony.

                Through Jesus Christ, God adopted us into heaven’s family and as such we have become brothers and sisters of Jesus and brothers and sisters of each other.

                Just as God said from the very beginning, “It is not good for us to be alone.” We were created for community. Love requires circulation. Love cannot give unto itself. Love must give to others or it is not love. So our citizenship on this planet is reflected in our membership in the body of Christ.

                God gave us the church, not as a repository of information, which it dispenses to its people from a chained up Bibles. No, each of us must receive the Word and the Spirit of Christ and then grow up into those things until “we all attain to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4:13

                But a part of that growing up into Christ involves unity with each other. It is a unity based upon faith and truth and the Spirit of God. So when we share those things in common, we are a family. There is a communion, or common union that we share with each other that binds us closer together than even blood can bind us. It is the blood of Jesus. It is the Spirit of Jesus flowing throughout the family.

                As members of the Body of Christ then we are called to become functioning parts of the Body in such a way that it is likened to marriage. So Paul said: “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5: 25-27

                So, if we are sons and daughters of God and brothers and sisters with Jesus and with each other, then we are much more than members of a church. We are members of the body of Christ and members of one another. We are a living temple, filled with His Holy Spirit and being glued together with bonds of love until we become a united Body of which Jesus Christ Himself is the head.

                If we understand these things, then we will also understand that our membership in the Body of Christ is not determined by a piece of paper in some office somewhere that says we are members. We are members because we share the same blood, the same Spirit and the same Word. We are member because we love each other even as Jesus Christ loves us. We are members because we give even as God gave Himself for us.

                It is not membership in the church that drives me to give and to serve. It is love for Jesus and it is love for His people that drives me to give of myself, both time and money and talent and service.

                One can often hear people say so sanctimoniously; “We are not here to socialize, we are here to worship God.” And while that may be true in a certain sense, as I look at the patterns that God set up in both Israel and the church, I see that everything was set up for community. There were feasts and gatherings of all kinds. The Old Testament church was made up of saints that celebrated many occasions, all of which were geared toward the called out community of God. Their music, their food, their festivals were all given as joint celebrations of God and of each other.

                Likewise the church shares in the communion of food and fellowship, in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and a common faith in God’s Word.  If we don’t socialize, then we are no longer family. In fact the early church broke bread together as a core meaning of church. They broke bread together from house to house. But they also gave to each other for the common good. If someone had a need, they all pitched in. No one should ever go hungry in the body of Christ. No one should ever go under financially, but with one stipulation: IF they want to eat they must also be willing to work. In other words this loving system was not set up so that some could choose to be lazy and irresponsible and then presume upon the Body for help. This charity was set up for the sick and lame, the widows and orphans, the helpless. James 1:27, 2:15-17

                Some people will say, “I love my church”, but they invest neither time nor money nor love nor service in the body. They come late and leave early and when help is needed they are nowhere to be found. No, they do not love the church, because love gives…. Neither do they love God; for if we love God then His blood is flowing in our veins, His Spirit is giving us life… His Word is guiding our steps. We are a family bound together by love and love gives.