Valentine's Day Love

In just a few more hours, the day the world celebrates love will dawn.  Valentine's Day.  As I am writing this, I am asking myself, "Who is this Valentine that has a day of celebration for love?"  The stores are over loaded with red hearts, chocolate and roses.  Stuffed toys hold hearts and corny one liners will line the shelves.  Hallmark will see a rise in profits from other halves of couples buying the words of love, written by another.  Yep, Valentine's day is all about the purchase and of course, the "luv".

I am not about to say that Christians should not take that opportunity to say I love you.  What I am proposing is that we take that day as a reminder of real love.  You remember don't you?  The kind of love that not only shows itself as words but as actions.

God showed us this love. John 3:16, For God so loved the world that He gave his only son that whoever will believe in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. 

Dear friend (s), love is an action.  It doesn't end on Feb 15, packed away until the next Feb 14th.  Love should never fail or fade.  Love is not about the getting, remember it is not self-seeking. Love is more than chocolates and roses.  Love is God.

1John 4:7 -8

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%204:7%20-%2021&version=NIV

Marriage is God Ordained

This morning as I drove into work, I heard the most shocking news report about marriages. There is a dating web site that is specifically designed for cheaters.  They did a survey and found that Ottawa and Calgary (Canada) had the highest number of cheating spouses.  I was left in open mouthed wonder that there was such a site in the first place.  How could someone facilitate something that is so wrong, so destructive and so hurtful?  Lives are involved; children, wives, husbands - real people that if the truth were exposed could be devastated in the wake of it.

I opened my mouth to pray, but nothing eloquent was uttered. I was heart broken.

A few days before, I found out that a co-worker was now separated from her husband.  Again, lives are affected beyond just her and her husband.  They have children.  Her parents are also affected as she moved back home.  The ripple effects are far reaching.


I don't know who I am speaking to at this time, but let me tell you that this is not how God planned this.  This perversion of marriage is not from Him.  God honours the marriage of a man and woman.  He says the bed is undefiled.  He instituted marriage, and even likened the church to a bride and His son Jesus as the bride-groom.  Marriage the way God intended does not cause hurt, it does not promote dishonesty and it is not self seeking, record keeping of wrongs, rude or unkind. 


The bible says husbands love your wives just as Christ Loves the church.  Wives submit to your husbands as the head of the house hold.  Is that what is happening today?  If you are married, is this your guide book for your marriage?


Listen to me, it is time to do things the way God intended. God hates divorce. He does.  He says instead what God has joined together let no man put asunder. 

I could go on and on, as I feel so passionate about this.  Loved ones, commit your marriage to the Lord and He will honour it.  He will preserve it. He will enrich it. He will mature it. He will refine it. He will protect it.

Please follow the link for verses on marriage as God intended.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/marriage-bible-verses/

It is time to change (featuring Nadine)

For the longest while I have been thinking about getting a new faucet.

I thought it would be too expensive to get installed and then time passed and I just didn't bother.

 

I tried asking friends for help to no avail.  I finally decided to investigate how much it would cost. It turns out it wasn't that expensive after all.

 

So when they took out the old faucet I took a picture of it and you could see the calcium buildup. It was gross.

Then I see my brand-new faucet installed. It looks great

 

I thought about it and realized something. The outside of the old faucet didn't look as bad as the inside of the faucet, and the water that flows through the old faucet,  is the same water that flows through the new faucet. The water is clean, but the faucet is not.

 

Is that not what sin does to us? Eventually, the inner unrepentant sin gets exposed.

 

The water , the Holy Spirit, still abides within us, even when the vessel is not clean. God never leaves us nor forsakes us, right?  He pours out His spirit on ALL flesh...

 

The question is, what is the quality mixture of the good water through a dirty faucet?

 

My advice? No matter the cost, get yourself a new faucet! You may have to give up something to get it, but it is worth it in the end.

Hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say.

 

My friend Nadine wrote the piece above.  In the end, she really isn't speaking about a literal faucet, but a new you.  Sin is like the build of calcium on the inside of the faucet. Eventually, it starts seeping out with the water, it defiles the water and makes it unclean to drink.  God is the solution. He says to you and me I am faithful and just to forgive you of your sins.  However, we must do as John the Baptist shouted out in the wind, REPENT!

 

Friends, the wages of sin is death.  Yes, Christ died and He paid it.  Yes grace abounds, but it is not so that we go on sinning.  We are a new creation and old things must pass away. We are born again.

 

It is time for a clean up.  It is time to rid ourselves of everything that hinders us from running this race of faith. It is time to allow the water to cleanse us. It is time to fall before a loving God and allow him to make us whole again.

 

It is time to change the "faucet" of waywardness and sinfulness.

 

 

 

Do What He Said

What is it that you have been afraid to do?  Where is it that you have been afraid to go?  I am speaking to you, the one that has heard the voice of your shepherd giving you instructions, but have allowed fear to immobilize you.  I am talking to the one that knows without doubt that God said thus, but have been reasoning it out, and trying to find the logic behind the request.  I am talking to you, and I am talking to me.

 

When God speaks, I often times wonder if it really was Him.  Those are the times when I am just afraid because what He has said requires me to step beyond the place where I can stand.

 

I know His voice, and so do you.  He told us that His sheep know his voice and they follow Him.  So the real issue is not whether it was Him who spoke, it is whether or not we are willing to obey.  There is an area of my life that I have been struggling with…TITHING consistently.  For some reason, I find myself missing the monthly amounts, or not having anything left to give by the time Sunday rolls around from Wednesday’s pay day.  It is something that bothers me greatly because I cannot claim ignorance to God’s word.  He says to tithe 10% of my income.  He says do not steal from Him.  Yet, month after month I wrestle, instead of rest in it. 

 

I hold back; I ask if God really did say that; I reason He is a merciful God; I do everything but what I am required to do because He said do it.  I allow fear to direct my actions, and I fall into sin. I doubt, and take up the stance of two minds.  James tells me that the double minded man should not think that he will get anything from God.  Deuteronomy lists out the curse upon the one who disobeys.  God Himself says, obedience is better than any sacrifice.

 

AM I not glad that Jesus obeyed Him 100%, even when He prayed that the cup of suffering would pass him?  Isn’t it wonderful that John, Paul, Moses, James, Luke, Matthew and all the scribes of the bible were obedient and recorded for me God’s very words?  Their obedience benefits you and me today.

 

In that same breath, I am saying to you and me Do what He says.  I am reminded of a song I wrote last year titled

 I’ll Do What You Say:

 

I don’t know where this road will lead

I can’t see Lord what’s right in front of me

But whatever may come

Lord whatever may be

 

Father I’ll do

Just what you say

Lord I’ll do

Just what you say

 

For you said to obey is

Better than to sacrifice (sacrifice)

And Lord if I will do what you say

I’ll have blessings all my life (all my life)

 

Father I’ll do

Just what you say

Lord I’ll do

Just what you say

 

DO I LOVE LIKE GOD DOES?

Not long ago I was talking to friend about love.  A man had professed love but when measured against God’s definition of love, his love failed.  It is easy for me to stop here, having thrown my stones against him.  Yet, I remember Jesus saying let he who is without sin, cast the first stone…I am not without sin.  I am saying this to point out that I also do not measure up to the definition of love.  Yet, I say I love, because if I have not love, I have not God, because God is love. 

The Pastor on Sunday challenged us to put our name in the well-known 1 Corinthians 13 verses.  Am I patient?  Am I kind?  Am I not envious?  Am I not boastful? Am I not proud?  Already I am squirming because I know that sometimes I am impatient, unkind, envious, boastful and proud.  Should I continue through the verses?  Am I not rude? Am I not self-seeking?  Am I not easily angered?  Do I keep no record of wrongs?  Oh my!  I know that I have fallen short of every single item listed here.  I don’t always want to hear the truth, nor do I rejoice in it.  I don’t always protect, trust hope and persevere. 

My “love” fades depending on who it is and what circumstances exist at the time. But God said Love never fails.  It never goes away. It remains, even when everything else will not – Love remains. It never fails.

How about you?  How have you measured up in your love?  If your score is like mine, then join me in this prayer of repentance and plea to the Father:

“Lord, I have read your word and realized how far I am from the mark – your mark of love.  Lord, you placed that definition in Corinthians not to beat me up with something that I can never attain, but to offer me guidance and direction.  Lord, this is your tool that you use to perfect me.  Lord I am glad that you will not allow me to continue in the wrong direction, but you turn me around.  Father, today I pray that you will remove all the things inside of me that is in contradiction to your word.  Remove impatience, mean spiritedness, envy and pride.  Lord, remove that self-seeking attitude and way of thinking that I have at times.  Father, please help me to say kind words so that I can deflect wrath.  Lord, help me to forget wrongs done against me as quickly as they arise, being instead quick to forgive just as you forgive me.  Lord, help me to truly love others as you love them.  In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”