Loving the Unlovely

We all have people in our lives who are easy to love. It is easy to give and show love to these people because it is a give and take relationship. We know that when we show love to them, they will in turn show love to us. Perhaps you can think of a person in your life right now like this - maybe your best friend, a parent, sibling or someone in your church.

It is natural for us to love those who love us. Even those of the world will love those who love in return. Jesus spoke of this in Mt 5:46, "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" There is no reward for this kind of love. True love is giving without expecting anything in return.

Jesus talked of loving the poor, loving those who could not return the favor. When He says poor, I do not think this necessarily means in a physical sense. Who is there in your life that is difficult to love? Someone that may not necessarily love you back? What about the awkward person who always seems to say the wrong thing at the wrong time?

Being a teacher, sometimes I am often faced with students that are difficult to love. A student once asked his teacher, "do you love all your students?" Honestly, there are some of my students I don't "feel" like loving. But, wait a minute! Love is not just some fuzzy feeling we get from being around a certain person. Love is a decision. I must make the decision to love that student who tries every possible way to wear out my patience. I must make the decision to love that awkward person others may see as a misfit.

True love is putting others needs ahead of my own. This may not be as difficult to do for some people, but what about the people I really don't like or care for? When we reach this point, we are beginning to show Christlike character. For it was Him who first loved us - just the way we were - poor miserable sinners with nothing to offer.

a price above rubies. 1

this is the first post of a series from 

[God's Gift: becoming the woman my man needs]

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her...  Proverbs 31:11a. 

Safely trust means to be secure or have confidence in.

While I have heard and read and agree that this entire passage [verses 10-31] is a collection of the Virtuous Woman's entire life's work, this one thought is the crux of her virtue and can only be achieved through daily dilegence. 

All the days of her married life, 

her husband's heart is safe in her hands. 

~~

There is so much that could be said here. Indeed, I have read several books on this subject. 

But I will suffice it to say that if I, as a wife, 

Getting to the Heart of the Matter

By Pastor Dave Peterman

We need to let the reality of what is read hear to sink in. Joshua represented the generation of people that were led out of the land of Egypt under the leadership of Moses. This was the generation that witnessed the plaques upon Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea. The Generation of the elders that outlived Joshua, these were the children of them that died in the wilderness, these are the ones that crossed the Jordan into the Canaan land THESE WERE THE MEN OF WAR! God gave them that land! Who was this generation that knew not the LORD neither the works of the LORD?

Judges 2:6-12 And when Joshua had let the people go, the children of Israel went every man unto his inheritance to possess the land. 7 And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD, that he did for Israel. 8 And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. 9 And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. 10 And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. 11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: 12 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.

Note: who it was that saw the walls of Jericho fall, saw the inhabitants of AI defeated, stood on the necks of their enemies… The generation of the elders were men of war, and they warred well! But what about the “other generation”? They were too young to be present at the battle and had to stay at Gilgal!

Joshua 4:13 About forty thousand prepared for war passed over before the LORD unto battle, to the plains of Jericho.

Joshua 6:3 And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days.

Joshua 8:1 And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land:

Joshua 10:7 So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valour.

Joshua 10:24 And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon the necks of them.

Joshua 11:7 So Joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly; and they fell upon them.

They were mighty men of valour but were not men of vision for the generation to come!

I. The Tragedy of a lost Generation

Some Observations:

I do not aspire to be a great leader in “fundamentalism”, nor should I! I believe the greatest thing I can ever aspire to be a good PASTOR! I thank God tonight, that He has called me, and enabled me to be YOUR PASTOR! As pastor, I can’t help but to take notice of some tragic things, not in fundamentalism, not in Christianity as a whole, but IN THIS CHURCH. Those are the tragedies of losing and weakening of a generation of young people! We have lost many, and some that remain are weak. We must ask ourselves WHY?! If we do not come to grips with what has happened, we are doomed to repeat it is subsequent generations! It is not enough for us to WAR WELL, but we must also WALK WELL and WIN THE HEARTS OF THE NEXT GENERATION!

How to Help a Wounded Person

How to Help a Wounded Person
By Cary Schmidt (published by permission)

One of the most difficult circumstances of life and ministry is to try to help someone who has been deeply hurt. These are hard moments. More than anything, you want to take away the hurt, undo the pain, and fix the problem. But it’s just not that easy. Woundedness—regardless of how it occurred—requires time and God’s grace in order to heal.

Here are a few thoughts (not exhaustive by any means) that you might be able to place in your tool box to encourage and help those who are wounded.

First—Teach through Hebrews 12. Much of life’s pain is not disciplinary in nature—but all of it is allowed of God and is intended to be used by Him to produce good in our lives (Romans 8:28). Hebrews 12 deals powerfully with how Christians should respond to wounds and chastening—by claiming God’s grace and turning away from bitterness. As I study this passage it seems that chastening can be both disciplinary and nurturing in nature. In other words, it’s not always about discipline, but it is always difficult and painful.

Second—Emphasize God’s Desire to Heal. (vs. 13) The focus of Hebrews 12 is the peaceable fruit—the outcome of grace. Help the hurting person find hope in looking forward. In time, God’s grace can work all things to our eventual profit. Satan wants the hurting to only focus on the past—the hurt. After all, it’s difficult to imagine how the abuse of another can produce something good in me! God calls His child to “lift up the hands which hang down.” He offers hope in what is yet to come by His grace.

Third—Call the Hurting to Pursue Peace with All Men. (v. 14) For God’s healing, the wounded must have a right heart toward the relationships of life—even the broken ones. This is a bit different for each situation, and forgiveness is always a journey—a process of forgiving over and over again. But one condition of God’s healing is that the hurting must have an agenda of peace not revenge or resentment.

The Great Affirmation

August 23

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you— Joh_14:2

Christ Knew about Death; Socrates Only Speculated - It is not by any amplified detail that these words so appeal to human hearts. It is rather by the quiet, assured confidence with which the Savior speaks of the beyond. In the whole of literature there is but one scene worthy to be compared with this. It is where Plato tells of the last hours of Socrates in prison before he drank the poison. I know few things more admirably fitted to reveal the preeminence of Christ than a comparison of these two incidents. Like Christ, Socrates is going to die. Like Christ, his thoughts run on immortality. He discusses it with the friends who come to visit him; he speculates, he argues, and he wonders. What a perfect and stupendous contrast between that and the attitude of Christ. Socrates speculates about a life unknown. Christ speaks of a life that He has known, a realm as real and familiar to Him as my study is to me. It is not what He says so much; rather it is the tone in which He says it that has reached the heart and comforted humanity and given it an anchor for the soul. Where others speculate, the Savior knows. Where others question, He is quietly sure. Where others see but dimly in the shadows, He sees with the certainty of God. And all this on the night of His betrayal, when all that He had lived for seemed in ruins, and nothing seemed to lie before Him but a grave.

Man's Instinct for Immortality - These great words of Jesus corroborate the longings of the heart. All that we crave and hope for in the deeps here is countersigned by the Lord Jesus. Deep and ineradicable is the instinct of man for immortality, witnessed in every age, in every country, in every religion. Even when men deny it with their lips, still do they confess it with their lives, for life has its arguments no less than intellect. By the powerlessness of the whole world to satisfy the poorest heart; by the cargoes we all have on board of things that are not wanted for the voyage; by the passion for truth, the craving for perfection, the glimmering of ideals we never reach, man stretches out his hands to immortality. Whoever loved without longing for forever? Deep affection postulates eternity. Love does not want a year or a millennium. Love cries for immortality. And now comes Christ and looks upon mankind and sees the secret hunger of their souls and says, "If it were not so, I would have told you."

There are beliefs that influence life but little, like the old belief that the sun went round the earth. We may cling to them, or we may give them up, with little difference to conduct. But there are other beliefs that touch and mold and color every action of the common day, and among these is the belief in immortality. In the light of it everything is altered. Altered is our outlook on the world. Altered is the discipline of life, and the import of the chastisements of heaven. Love is different, and hope is different; duty gains august and awful sanction if that instinct of immortality be true. Changed is the face of suffering, of infirmity, of weakness, and of pain. Changed is the loneliness of dying; changed the horrid darkness of the grave. And Christ says, "Children, do you think one instant that if that were an error I would let you keep it? If it were not so, I would have told you. Believe if you like that the sun goes round the earth. That does not matter. I shall not interfere. You may be Mine; you may be washed and sanctified though you believe that the sun goes round the earth. But that deep instinct for immortal life affects profoundly everything you do, and if it were a deception I would have told you."

"I Would Have Told You So" - He would have told us because He loves us and cannot bear to see His own deceived. He would have told us though it almost broke His heart to see the vanishing of hopes and dreams. He would have told us because He was the Truth and refused to let His people live and die under a hope that was the devil's falsehood. Christ corroborates our deepest longing for an immortal life that shall be personal. And He does it in His own quiet way, confidently, with perfect, full assurance. No wonder, then, that this is the favorite chapter with millions of the human race. No wonder that when Lockhart read it to Sir Walter, his big heart was rested and was comforted. No wonder that in Margaret Ogilvy's Bible the pages would fall open at this place, and when she could not read, she stooped and kissed it.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart

Song of Solomon 8:6 Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

This beautiful verse tells us about our sealing by the Holy Spirit, what our love should be for Christ, what Christ's love is for us and ends with a stern warning for us. Let's break this down:

>Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm

The seal shows that we are God's, and on the Heart and Arm symbolize the emotions (heart) and actions (arm). A few other places this symbolized in Scripture we find this is:

Revelation 7:3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.

Revelation 13:16 And he (antichrist) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: (hand symbolizes what they do, forehead symbolizes what they think)

Deuteronomy 6:6,8 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

>for love is strong as death

Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

>jealousy is cruel as the grave:

Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

Zephaniah 1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

God is a jealous God and expects us to be loyal as in a marriage, demonstrated here in Song of Solomon and throughout the Bible. We are the Bride of Christ.

Isaiah 54:5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

Ephesians 5:31-32 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

> cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Fire and flame refer to the grave of those that have provoked God to jealousy.

Deuteronomy 4:24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.

Mark 9:45-46 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

Now we see our duty clearly. God spoke it through

Moses: Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Paul: 1 Corinthians 13:2-3, 13 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing. ...And now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Christ: Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love is how we can tell who is Christ's and who isn't. Love is “as strong as death” my friends, and, in the case of Christ: stronger, He overcame death for us. But do we love Him enough to die for Him? Do we love Him enough to treat the His sheep with love? Our enemies?

“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”

Spurgeon Today

“The upright love thee”
- Son_1:4

Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection then they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with Christ. They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they carry him fast locked in their bosoms. They voluntarily deny themselves for his sake, but they are not to be driven to deny him. It is scant love which the fire of persecution can dry up; the true believer’s love is a deeper stream than this. Men have laboured to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honour, now frowns of anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot. This is no every-day attachment which the world’s power may at length dissolve. Neither man nor devil have found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been more at fault than when he has exercised it in seeking to rend in sunder this union of two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot out the sentence, “The upright love thee.” The intensity of the love of the upright, however, is not so much to be judged by what it appears as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, “Oh, for as much love as would go round about the earth, and over heaven-yea, the heaven of heavens, and ten thousand worlds-that I might let all out upon fair, fair, only fair Christ.” Alas! our longest reach is but a span of love, and our affection is but as a drop of a bucket compared with his deserts. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed; ‘tis thus, we trust, our Lord doth judge of it. Oh, that we could give all the love in all hearts in one great mass, a gathering together of all loves to him who is altogether lovely!

Charity Is Failing

No, charity itself isn't failing; Christians using charity in their daily lives is failing. During these hard times true Biblical love needs to keep us and give us focus.

You know, when it gets right down to it, how much do you and I really love the Lord? Actions do speak louder than words. I see more of an unwillingness to forgive between the saints than to forgive. Instead of having the backbone to restore a brother, let's 'church' him. You know what it means to 'church', right?

I guess we need to love His Word more. If we learn to love the Bible then maybe we'd know it better so we would show it better.

I say that we have a responsibility to forgive the saint and try to restore. How dare we not forgive a brother or sister after what Christ did for us on the Cross!