VIDEO Can Only Christians Love Others?

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7

 

In 1 John 4:7, the apostle John, who is known as the apostle of love, makes a shocking statement. Only the followers of Jesus, among all the people on earth, can truly love another person. He said that we should love one another, for this comes from God to those who are born again and have a relationship with Him.

Other people can experience and convey affection and compassion and attraction and physical intimacy. There can be non-Christian philanthropy and altruism. But the selfless agape love that characterizes God Himself can only be experienced and conveyed by those who know Him. If God abides in us, His love is being perfected in us (verse 12).

How are you doing with this assignment? The love that reflects Jesus compels us to do things for others without any expectation of something in return. It puts the needs and interests of others first. Ask God today to help you love others the way He does, and let’s show the world we are Christians by our love.

May the love of Jesus fill me as the waters fill the sea; Him exalting, self abasing, this is victory! Kate B. Wilkinson

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1 John 4:7-13, Love In Every Way

Seeing a Future of Hope

I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. Isaiah 41:18

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans worked to slowly rebuild. One of the most hard-hit areas was the Lower Ninth Ward, where for years after Katrina, residents lacked access to basic resources. Burnell Cotlon worked to change that. In November 2014, he opened the first grocery store in the Lower Ninth Ward after Katrina. “When I bought the building, everybody thought that I was crazy,” Cotlon recalled. But “the very first customer cried cuz she . . . never thought the [neighborhood] was coming back.” His mother said her son “saw something I didn’t see. I’m glad [he] . . . took that chance.”

God enabled the prophet Isaiah to see an unexpected future of hope in the face of devastation. Seeing “the poor and needy search for water, but there is none” (Isaiah 41:17), God promised to “turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs” (v. 18). When instead of hunger and thirst, His people experienced flourishing once more, they would know “the hand of the Lord has done this” (v. 20).

He’s still the author of restoration, at work bringing about a future when “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage” (Romans 8:21). As we trust in His goodness, He helps us see a future where hope is possible.

By:  Monica La Rose

Reflect & Pray

When have you witnessed renewal after devastation? How can you be a part of God’s restoring work?

Restoring God, please help my life be a witness to the hope I’ve found in You and the future You’re bringing.

When God Answers Us

Our good God gives us the answers we need—not necessarily the ones we want Job 42:1-16

At the end of the book of Job, God grants His servant peace and more than restores his fortunes. We see that the Lord has been paying attention to him all along, even when the opposite seemed to be the case. In Job’s questions, we witness the man’s faithfulness in turning to God with his doubts. But more than that, we see God’s faithfulness in answering those questions with His presence.

The story of Job raises an interesting question of its own: When we ask for God to answer us, are we content if He answers only with Himself? It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing God hasn’t answered us unless we receive everything we’ve asked for. But Job’s example teaches us that how we respond when we feel ignored by God is the true test of our faith.

Whether the Lord directly answers our questions or not, what can we learn about His character? Simply what Job learned: “I know that You can do all things, and that no plan is impossible for You” (Job 42:2), a truth reasserted by the angel Gabriel in Luke 1:37.

God is never absent, never overwhelmed or powerless. Though we may lose sight of this truth, we must remember exactly where He is when we suffer: He is with us.

Paul at the Finish Line

“Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:21-22)

These are the final words of the apostle Paul, written shortly before he was beheaded. Despite his faithfulness and fruitfulness in the Lord’s service, he was now penniless, lonely, and cold. Yet he was not complaining. “I am now ready to be offered….I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (vv. 6-7).

He did yearn to see Timothy, his beloved son in the faith, before he died. “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me” (v. 9). “Without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy” (1:3-4).

Paul made one especially touching request of Timothy. “The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments” (v. 13). Paul didn’t even have a coat in the cold prison, and winter was approaching. Yet, even under such miserable circumstances, he still desired to keep reading and studying, preparing himself better for any future service the Lord might still have for him.

What a contrast there would be between his present circumstances—abused by his enemies and forsaken even by most of his friends—and the glorious reception awaiting him in the near future! “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day” (v. 8).

Paul has left us a worthy example. He kept the faith, gladly suffered the loss of all things for Christ (Philippians 3:8), and was still studying, witnessing, teaching, encouraging, and exhorting, even to the day of his death. HMM

Busy At Church, Sterile In The Workplace

The true test of your walk with god is not necessarily determined by how involved or dedicated you are within the confines of your local church, noble as your service there may be.

Rather, the test may center in the rough and tumble climate of the “marketplace“where greed, seduction, power games, and Machiavellian pragmatism commonly prevail. It is into this environment that the Master Strategist has undoubtedly placed you to affect lives for His glory.

“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one… I… pray for those who will believe in Me through their word.“(John 17:15, 20)

If you happen to be a hands-on achiever who is bent on getting “results” (profit, efficiency, visibility, image, timing, etc.) you daily face the temptation of using people as pawns and bending ethical and moral absolutes.

In this high voltage setting of the marketplace, Jesus can easily be pushed into a servile role at the fringes of your operation, only to be called upon in moments of crisis.

If, in this environment you still entertain aspirations of fruitfulness among your colleagues, there needs to be a funeral.

Yours!

“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.“(John 12:24)

Only then will you be able to allow the very life of Christ to help you achieve your professional goals in a manner that is compatible with Biblical values.

One way many business and professional men and women rationalize their ineffectiveness at ministering in the marketplace is by busying themselves in service behind the less threatening walls of the church.

Ironically, the folks at work may see scant evidence in them of the life of Jesus, while the brethren at church may view them as dedicated saints!

QUESTION: How do you think your marketplace colleagues view you?

“Forgive if ye have aught against any.”

Mark 11:12-26

Mark 11:14

Fig trees put forth their fruit before their leaves: it was not yet time for figs, and yet this pretentious tree was covered with leaves. It promised far more than other trees, and then deceived those who came to it for fruit. It was meet that a blight should fall upon this type of hypocrisy, this symbol of boastful falsehood. Proud professors of religion, whose actions are not right in the sight of God, should tremble lest the like curse should light on them.

Mark 11:15-18

Though purged so short a time before, the temple was foul again. Nothing is so hard to make clean and keep clean as a degenerate church. It should be the daily prayer of all who love the pure gospel that in these degenerate times the Lord Jesus would by his Holy Spirit, and the power of divine truth, cleanse out of our churches all false doctrines, Popish practices, and worldly fashions. May the Lord also purge the temple of our hearts and make our inmost nature the house of prayer, the palace of the living God.

Mark 11:19

Seeking again the quiet of Bethany, so refreshing to his devout and gentle spirit.

Mark 11:20-23

When faith concerning anything is given to us, by the Lord, it is the shadow of the coming event and its prayer is always heard; but faith is not in all cases bestowed, nor can we always pray in full assurance, and in such cases it would be base presumption to pretend to have unlimited power in supplication. The limit of prayer is the will of God, our guides as to that limit are the promise of God and the faith which we are enabled to exercise.

Mark 11:24

This of course is to be understood as taking for granted that we pray for right things, otherwise we shall ask and have not, because we ask amiss. What latitude is here given us in prayer! How slow we are to use the power thus entrusted to us!

Mark 11:25, 26

Remember this when anger tries to hold you in its evil power. Flee from it as from your mortal foe.

Thy mansion is my cleansed heart,

O Lord, thy dwelling-place secure!

Bid the unruly throng depart,

And leave the consecrated floor.

Devoted though I am to thee,

A thievish swarm my soul annoys,

They grieve my Lord away from me,

And rob my heart of all its joys.

O Lord, what bliss thy presence gives!

What peace shall reign when thou art here!

Thy presence makes this den of thieves

A calm, delightful house of prayer.

The Spiritual Essence

By the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ. (Titus 3:5-6)

We who are the disciples of Jesus Christ often need to be reminded that God is allowing us to live on two planes at the same time.

He lets us live in this religious plane where there are preachers and songleaders and choirs, teachers and evangelists—and that is religion. It is actually “religion in overalls”—it is the external part of religion and it has its own place in God’s work and plan.

But beyond that and superior to all of the externals in our religious experience is the spiritual essence of it all! It is that spiritual essence that I want to see enthroned in our communion and fellowship in the Church of Jesus Christ!

We need the caution that much theology, much Bible teaching and many Bible conferences begin and end in themselves. They circle fully around themselves—but when everyone goes home no one is any better than he was before. We sorely need this caution about holding truth that begins and ends in itself. The danger is that we teach and live so that truth is given no opportunity of moral expression!