Forgiveness, by Peter Enns

 

Forgiveness

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/10/forgiveness/

by Peter Enns
October 22, 2012
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Followers of Jesus are commanded by him to forgive others, even those…especially those…who have wronged us. He commands us to do so, because, when we forgive, especially those who have wronged us terribly, we are most like God.

 

Forgiveness does not mean that we make believe the injustice never happened, or make light of it. It does not mean we leave ourselves open to abuse. It means we cease harboring ill against the other. We let it go.

 

Forgiveness does not depend on our ability to bring the other to the same realization. Our forgiveness must commence regardless of the other. We can only make the decision for ourselves to move to the center. We cannot force the other to take that same step. We cannot control the other. We can only control ourselves.

 

Forgiveness is not for the weak, for it means letting go of our need for justice. It is easier to forgive if we feel some guarantee that justice will be delivered in the near future. But that is not forgiveness.

 

Forgiveness looks only within, what we can do. It does not think of what should be done to the other.

 

When we focus on the injustice that has been done, it will become the dominant thought, and so we might be tempted to be God’s instrument of justice, to help things along. That makes forgiveness impossible.

 

If we call upon God to bring justice, he will begin with us, not with the other. So, we should not call down justice upon the other. The role we have been given is to forgive. Justice is what God will do, mercifully.

 

When we forgive, we are reminded of the mercy that has been shown to us. When we forgive even the most malicious of acts, we begin to see–only then can we see–how we have been forgiven.

 

When we forgive, we know God more clearly.

 

Even when the wrong done to us carries with it such an overpowering sense of malice, when we are filled with disgrace, humiliation, isolation–even then we forgive. Especially then.

 

Because,

 

When we feel this way, we have the privilege of experiencing something of what Jesus felt–disgrace, humiliation, isolation.

 

 

Jesus forgave, and when we forgive, we are most like him.

 

Following Jesus means forgiving.

 

Forgiveness is about deciding what kind of person you want to be, what path you will walk, what kind of life you want to live. It is a decision to conform to the image of Christ. That decision is before us moment by moment, and more often than we might think.

 

 

 

N.T. Wright: "Love Is the Name of the Game"

 

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/10/16/love-is-the-name-of-the-game-rjs/

by RJS

October 16, 2012

Comments

 

As I was preparing last week’s post A Conversation About Genesis, I came across the YouTube video of this extended reflection by Tom Wright put out by World Vision as part of a Faith Effect campaign in Australia. This is an excellent clip – well worth the 11 to 12 minutes or so it takes to watch it. In fact, it is well worth the 20 to 30 it takes to listen more than once and mull over some of the ideas.

 

The reflections here draw on the ideas in Wright’s book How God Became King as well of many of his earlier books. (I’d say his latest book, but it is already seven months old – so I am sure there are several since.)

 

NT Wright - extended interview for The Faith Effect

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iTAO74i0eW0

 

 

A few quotes to whet the appetite:

The vision which we find coming into full focus through Jesus actually goes right back to the beginning. It’s there in Genesis. When Jesus talks about what God is doing right now he is constantly invoking the sense of the ancient human vocation. God calls human beings to be his image bearers. (1:40-1:58)

This is how the Kingdom of God comes to earth. Wright goes on to reflect on the way Jesus approached the world and the people around him. The way of Jesus was …

…showing that God is running the world by healing, by bringing hope, by transforming, by bringing justice, by challenging the people who were doing the oppression and the wickedness and then by his own death taking the problems and the pains of all that into himself so that then these people who follow him can be the world transformers. (3:58-4:14)

 

The spread of Christianity …

The way Christianity spread over the first three centuries when the Romans were doing their best to stamp it out, was not simply by people going into the market place and saying Jesus is Lord you must believe in him, they did that too, but by people seeing that here was a community of people who lived in a totally different way. The Christians were known for going and helping people who were not their kith and kin, who were not part of their ethnic group or part of their business interests. If somebody was sick, if somebody was poor, the Christians would go and look after them. They’d say “why do you do that you’ve got nothing to gain by it” and they’d say “well, its because we follow Jesus and this is the way that Jesus does stuff”. So that it is what you do that generates the question to which the answer is Jesus is becoming king through his death and resurrection etcetra. (5:40-6:32)

As we are living as Christians we need to remake our categories and realize that heaven and earth really did come together in the incarnation, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We are not pinning our flag on God’s map – God did it. Grace transforms us so that we can be transformers. Wright uses this to go on and suggest that we should all be thinking about what God is calling us to do in the whole body of Christ.

 

But it all comes down to Love.

One day, in God’s new heaven and earth reality, Love is the language that we’ll be speaking, and we get to learn it and practice it in advance. It is like learning the songs that they will sing in God’s new world. We learn them and sing them here because we are supposed to people through whom a taste of the new world comes into the present. And again, if you think that that is just private and not something that goes out into the wider world you’ve missed the whole point. The whole point of love is that it is generous and outgoing. And so for Paul and for the other early Christian writers love is not just as it were one virtue among others. Love is almost the name of what it means to be a Christian. (11:24-11:36)

I don’t think Wright goes far enough in that last statement. He leaves some “wiggle-room.” But love is the name of what it means to be a Christian. No qualifier, no "almost." Wright doesn’t use this example – but I will: Living as though God is king means living in and reflecting out love. Love is the name of the game. Love God, love others. This theme runs through the gospels, it runs through Paul and the other New Testament writers. This theme gives a whole new perspective on the entire Old Testament. This isn’t the soft and wimpy approach, diminishing the gospel, it is the whole game. As God loves us so are we to love others.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

 

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

And on, and on, and on (see something of a compilation in this post).

 

Wright’s reflection on the spread of Christianity is particularly important here. Scot put up a graphic on Saturday afternoon that illustrated a Decline in Religion. Some may doubt the reality of this trend – but it is self-evident in my world. Religious faith is viewed by most as unnecessary at best, irrational and dangerous at worst. We will not make a difference by having a better Sunday morning service, by serving better coffee, by having a more extroverted and energetic staff, by avoiding the hard questions, by keeping things shallow and palatable. Nor will we make a difference by focusing on precision in theological expression or the glory and sovereignty of God. We will make a difference by being the people of God such that his love is evident in us and through us. We must first care for the family of the people of God in our local church (why would any one join a family that rejects or marginalizes its own?) and we must also care for others locally and globally, not as an evangelistic gimmick to reel people in and keep churches stocked, but out of genuine love as a reflection of the very love of God. It is what we do and how we reflect God’s love in the world that will generate the questions to which the answer is Jesus is Lord. I am not a pessimist, I think that the Church will thrive through the power of the Spirit, but Christendom is behind us, and if it forces us to focus on the essence of being the people of God, that may be a good thing.

 

Is Love the name of the game?
 

If not, why not? Is the “almost” a justified qualifier?

 
 

If you would like to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

 

Open Theism for Dummies, Parts 1-2

 

 

Guest Post: Open Theism for Dummies – Part One – What is the Open View of God?

http://jeffkclarke.com/2012/08/29/guest-post-open-theism-for-dummies-part-one/

 

by Tom Belt, guest post

August 29, 2012

 

I’m going to risk a very brief explanation of open theism in laymen’s terms. The advantage of a brief explanation is that it requires us to find the core, defining claim of the open view in contrast to positions that often get attributed to it but which aren’t essential per se. In this post I’d like to focus on the core, defining claim of open theism and in the next discuss three supporting convictions that all open theists hold to. Now, the disadvantage of using popular lay terms is that they tend to be imprecise while philosophical terms can be extremely precise, and with brief explanations we need precision. So we’ll have to make use of just a couple technical terms, but they’re easily understood along the way.

PART 1

 

The defining claim of open theism states that the future is epistemically open for God so far as it is in fact causally open; and epistemically closed for God so far as it is in fact causally closed. Now, that’s a mouthful, so let’s take it a step at a time. Some things about the future are presently ‘settled’. That is, given everything at present that has anything to do with influencing or bringing about the future, some things about the future are presently determined to be. You might say they’re inevitable given the present moment. That’s what’s meant by saying the future is causally closed. The causes and influences that presently exist limit future to a single possibility.

 

 

To say the future is causally open on the other hand is to deny that what occurs is inevitable or in some way determined by the past. That is, it’s to say that some event “might” happen and that it “might not” happen. A good way to think of this is to imagine the future in terms of a tree that branches out as you move up the trunk. We’re essentially saying there are a number of ways the future could turn out given the present moment. With a closed future we face a single branch or path that the future can take whereas with an open future we face a branching of possibilities. Lastly, it’s important to remember that open theists think the future is partly open and partly closed, not entirely one or the other.

 

Saying the future is partly (causally) open and partly (causally) closed isn’t very controversial. In fact, many non-open theists would thus far agree with me. The controversial, defining claim that open theists make is to say God’s knowledge of the future reflects the truth of the future’s being closed or open, whatever the case might be. So when we (and the Bible) describe the open future in terms of what “might” and “might not” be, our language doesn’t just describe what we don’t know about the future, as if we have to say it “might” turn out this way or that way because we don’t know the truth about the one path it will in fact take. Open theists attribute this “might” and “might not” to the way the world really is and how God knows it.

 

So to say the future is epistemically closed for God in some respect is to say God’s knowledge of how the future will turn out is also ‘settled’. For some (e.g., Calvinists), the future is exhaustively closed, so there’s only one determined route the future takes because God determines all things and determined that one route our world is to take. In this case God knows the future exclusively in terms of what “will” or “will not” occur. There aren’t any “might’s” and “might not’s” so far as the future is concerned. But for open theists who don’t think God determines everything and who think human beings exercise a certain freedom to choose (a freedom that’s incompatible with its determined by God), the question is: How does God know the open future? And here is where open theists make their unique claim mentioned above—where the future is in fact open, God knows it as open, and where the future is in fact closed (or settled), God knows it as closed. It’s really that simple. So for open theists the established belief that God eternally has a snap-shot or a single blueprint of exactly how the world’s history unfolds is false.

 

Is what we’re calling God’s epistemic openness (his knowledge of the open future in terms of what “might” and “might not” be) incompatible with divine omniscience? No, not if omniscience means God knows all truths, which is the established understanding of omniscience. The question is: What is the truth about an open future? Open theists differ on which theory of truth and semantics (which can be mind-numbing to study) they think best answers this question. One popular view (the one I hold to) claims that statements of what “will” occur where the future is in fact open are all false, for it is false to say of what “might not” occur that it “will” occur and equally false to say of what “might” occur that it “will not” occur. So on this view “might and might not” expresses the truth about the open future, the truth that an omniscient God would know. The thing to remember is that for non-open theist believers, God’s knowledge of the truth is expressed exclusively in terms of what “will” and “will not” occur. That’s the settled view that open theists challenge by arguing that God’s knowledge of the future should also include statements of the “might and might not” sort if in fact the future is open. For us, open theism is the only way to maintain that the future is in fact open and God is in fact omniscient.

 

In my first post I focused open theism’s defining claim: the future is both “partly closed” and “partly open” and God’s knowledge of it is accordingly closed or open. And I suggested that to say God knows what is closed about the future is to say God knows what “will” or “will not” occur while to say that God knows what is open about the future is to say he knows what “might and might not” occur. Both types of statement express the truth about the way the world is. In the end, God isn’t presiding over the unfolding of a blueprint eternally known to him and whose contents contain the world’s one pathway from creation to consummation.

PART 2

In this post I’d like to share three core convictions which open theists share. These convictions express what open theists believe about God’s purpose in creating, how God acts in the world providentially, why there is evil, how biblical prophecies are understood, what prayer is and how it works, and what trusting God looks like in a risk-filled world.

 

Love with respect to divine purpose

 

First, it’s no exaggeration to say that at the heart of open theists’ understanding of God is the belief that he is love. We might say that all the distinct attributes of God we discuss (truthfulness, justice, holiness, etc.) are just the ‘differentiated truth of love’. Like the colors of light that are split into an observable order when dispersed through a prism, so the attributes of God are essentially just the observable acts of a single reality at work in the world and that reality is ‘love’. The triune God is essentially (and apart from any created order whatsoever) the eternal act of self-giving-and-receiving love the fullness of which is the fullness of God’s own necessary being and existence, and it’s this God who has purposed us to know and reflect his love in the fullness of all our created capacities.

 

Freedom with respect to creation

 

Secondly, our "being persons who love unfailingly" is not something that even God could have created—poof—from the get-go. As created beings, we have to ‘become’ loving, and we become so through the free and responsible exercise of our will. So with a view to our becoming persons who love unfailingly, God endowed us with the capacity to determine ourselves through responsible choice. And not only must we be free in this required sense, but many of us argue that the material, created order must also be in some sense free and self-determining to be an appropriate stage upon which our choices play themselves out.

 

Risk with respect to providence

 

By “providence” we mean God’s administration and maintenance of the universe in the achieving of his purposes. And this is where things get complicated because many will agree that God is love and that because God has purposed us for loving relations he gave us the capacity to decide whether or not we will enter into such relations. But open theists embrace a third conviction they believe follows from these first two, namely, that in endowing us with this freedom God takes a certain ‘risk’, namely, that we would misuse our freedom and corrupt ourselves in ways God neither intended nor decreed. Traditional views of providence are ‘risk-free’ in the sense that whatever evils occur they are precisely what God decided must occur in order to bring about the good God is after.

 

It is reimagining the world to be in some respects a ‘risky’ venture (risky even for God in terms of his always getting the outcomes he wants) which is perhaps the thing that makes open theism most unlike the traditional understanding of God we Protestants grew up with. It means essentially that God doesn’t always get what God wants and that it’s not the case that every particular evil represents the ‘necessary means’ to some specific good that God is after.

 

Once we accept that our universe is a sometimes risky place of intersecting and often competing divine, angelic, and human wills where much of the good God desires to achieve is by God’s own loving plans is conditional upon our partnering with God, we gain a new and sobering appreciation of all those acts of devotion and obedience that we are called by God to engage in—prayer, missions, counseling, etc.

 

We can never comprehend how all these relevant factors combine on each occasion to determine outcomes. But we can enjoy profound assurances.

 

First, we may know that God always does all God can do given his purposes and the context in which the world finds itself to maximize good and minimize evil. A second assurance is knowing that however grave may be our suffering, God is resourceful enough to redeem our circumstances when we cooperate with him (Rm. 8.28-29). A third assurance we possess is knowing that those who trust God with the well-being of their souls cannot possibly be disappointed whatever else may occur in this life, and in the end no present evil will be worth comparing to our final state.

 

Let me end with a few suggestions. There’s no better way to study open theism than along the lines of three sorts of evidence: (i) biblical/theological, (ii) philosophical, and (iii) existential/practical:

•  The best place to begin investigating the biblical evidence is Greg Boyd’s God of the Possible (Baker, 2000). Have your Bible open and keep a journal of questions and observations. Take your time.
 
• A second type of evidence for the open view is philosophical, and for the brave at heart I suggest Christian philosopher Alan Rhoda’s articles (http://www.alanrhoda.net/papers.htm).
 
• A third type of evidence is existential, that is all the practical implications of believing this or that view. You’ll find some help in sorting through these issues in my MTh thesis on petitionary prayer and open theism (http://www.scribd.com/doc/23300607/A-Critical-Evaluation-of-the-Religious-Adequacy-of-Open-Theism-Toward-an-Open-Theistic-Theology-of-Petitionary-Prayer).
 
• Lastly, you’ll eventually want to work your way through John Sanders’ The God Who Risks (IVP, 2007 edition). It’s a treasure trove of all three sorts of evidence.

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Tom Belt and his wife Anita live in Minneapolis, MN where he is Spiritual Life Pastor at Emmanuel Christian Center. Among other things he directs their Recovery Ministries. They were Assemblies of God missionaries in the Middle East for over 20 years. Tom has also been a frequent adjunct instructor in Bible/Theology and has his MTh from the University of Wales.

 

 

 

R.E. Slater - Expressing Love (poem)



The quiet beauty of black-lit roses



Expressing Love

by R.E. Slater

From the fullness of the Father,

From the heart of the Son,

From the help of the Spirit,

Comes Love without end.

From the lips of broken hearts,

From the sufferings of torn lives,

From the tears of sin-stained souls,

Comes Love without end.

From the joys each day begets,

From the quiet support of friends,

From the many gifts of grace,

Comes Love without end.

Each day is a new beginning,

Each past a future promise,

Each yesterday my tomorrow,

To Love without end.

R.E. Slater

July 26, 2012

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

  

Love, Hell, and Trampolines: In Conversation with Rob Bell

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2012/07/05/love-hell-and-trampolines-in-conversation-with-rob-bell/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

July 5, 2012

Comments

A couple weeks ago, I was alerted to the fact that the Rob Bell Reader for Kindle was selling for just the right price on Amazon. Which is to say, of course, that it was free (as it still is today, as it is also at Barnes and Ignoble for Nook and in the iTunes store for whatever people read on when they buy at the iTunes store).

Having never read anything Bell has written prior to this, I figured this was as good an excuse as any to see what he’s up to. The book is forthrightly offered as a teaser for the books Bell has published with HarperOne and Zondervan (both part of the same parent company). Each of the five chapters is a selection from one of Bell’s earlier books: Love Wins, Velvet Elvis, Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and Drops Like Stars.

Here’s my bottom line: Bell offers a compelling overarching theological vision, peppered with various detailed exegetical and/or theological claims that make me wince.

The book’s selection from Love Wins is Bell’s exposition of the Prodigal Son parable. It contains some vivid, beautiful insights about our lives as they stand in relation to God:

Hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story. We all have our version of events. Who we are, who we aren’t what we’ve done, what that means for our future. Our worth, value, significance. The things we believe about ourselves that we cling to despite the pain and agony they’re causing us.

This description of the brothers, each needing the father to retell their stories as stories of beloved sons, each refusing in their own way to believe it at different points in the story, is packed with insight. The brothers both have skewed visions. And the father offers them each a new story of acceptance and love.

But one wonders whether this metaphorical description of “hell” is really to the point when reading an author who is claiming to make a point about “hell” as a potential destiny for human beings who reject the work of God on their behalf.

We believe all sorts of things about ourselves. What the gospel does is confront our version of our story with God’s version of our story.

Yes. That.

Toward the end, Bell comes around to a stronger argument about Hell. If this God we serve is the one who is constantly rewriting our stories of guilt and shame with his story of peace and grace and forgiveness and love, then how can this same God turn on a dime and cast into Hell those who refuse?

What sort of grace and forgiveness and love are those?

What kind of God is that?

This is an important question for us to wrestle with.

How one understands the gospel they claim, and the God who offers it, will inevitably impact how a person lives. Bell joins the ranks of those who call us away from a gospel that’s too small: a focus on “getting in” that does not entail a whole new life, is a truncated gospel at best.

We’re invited to trust the retelling now, so that we’re already taking part in the kind of love that can overtake the whole world.

Bell presents a captivating vision, and it is not without its challenge to us to examine our shortcomings. This is not just about “inclusion,” but calling us to repentance as well. He writes these challenging words:

The second truth, one that is much more subtle and much more toxic as well, is that the older brother is separated from his father as well, even though he’s stayed home. His problem is his “goodness.”

His rule-keeping and law-abiding confidence in his own works has actually served to distance him from his father.

The parable is, in fact, told in Luke 15 to a bunch of older brother types who are grumpy about the folks Jesus is celebrating. Bell does a great job of bringing this back around to us, the presumed insiders, to challenge how we posture ourselves toward the rest. Ok, so that was just one chapter of the reader.

But perhaps its illustrative: Bell has a penetrating theological vision that is worth learning from, even when we find ourselves disagreeing along the way.

Love is Always Louder

Bible Verses About Love:

25 Awesome Scripture Quotes

http://www.whatchristianswanttoknow.com/bible-verses-about-love-25-awesome-scripture-quotes/

by Josh on May 26, 2011

The Bible is full of great verses and passages about the topic of love. God’s love for us is a perfect example and starting place to study on love. There are also great verses about love in relation to marriage, brotherly love or friendship, and loving your neighbor. Here is a collection of some of the greatest love quotes from the Bible. What is your favorite love Bible verse? Share it with us in the comments!

God’s Love

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Love One Another

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

Galatians 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Ephesians 4:2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

1 Peter 1:22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

What Did Jesus Say About Love

Matthew 5:43-48 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 6:24-25 ”No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Mark 12:28-30 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

John 14:21-24 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

John 15:9-17 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Bible Verses About Love for Marriage or Weddings

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Ephesians 4:2-3 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Philippians 2:2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

1 John 3:18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Love Scripture Quotes from Proverbs or Psalms

Psalm 23:5-6 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 31:16 Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love!

Psalm 63:3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Proverbs 17:17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Christian Love Quotes

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. ~Mother Teresa

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost. ~G.K. Chesterton

God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus. – Max Lucado

The Shalom of God, Restorer and Healer of All Things

God on a Mission—Freedom and Love

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/god_on_a_mission_--_freedom_and_love/

by Thomas Jay Oord

May 1, 2012

In this, the final installment of my missional theology series, I look to the liberation and love a missional God provides.

Free, Free, Set Them Free

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” said Jesus. Standing in his hometown temple, he continues reading a passage from Isaiah: “he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Lk. 4:18-19).

Among the many ways biblical authors talk about God seeking and saving, the themes of healing and freedom from oppression appear often. Healing and deliverance are part of the well-being/abundant life/favor the Lord generously offers. And we desperately need the well-being – shalom – of God’s salvation.

In a world of brokenness, wholeness breaks in. This wholeness is evident in the local church I attend, in which a robust Celebrate Recovery ministry has emerged. Those in this group believe God empowers them to overcome hurts, habits, and hang-ups. God is their deliverer. Through this and other avenues in the church, many find God’s healing and deliverance.

The Apostle Paul says liberation comes from the Spirit and becomes effective through Jesus. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death,” he says (Rm. 8:2). In this liberation, we see God again empowering us in ways that provide salvation from destruction.

A look at the overall scope of Scripture leads one to believe humans are the focus of God’s seeking and saving. But the Bible also says God cares about nonhumans. [1] In fact, Scripture says God intends to redeem all things. “The whole creation” hopes to be “set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rm. 8:21-22).

We play a vital role in this mission. We can be co-laborers with God’s work for the redemption of all things. God acts first to call, empower, and guide us in love – prevenient grace. But God seeks our cooperation. This becomes clear in the Revised Standard Version’s translation of Romans 8:28: “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (emphases added).

We can work for good with God. The healing and deliverance God has in mind involves our participation.

Love is On the Move

A God on a mission is a God on the move. And love is the primary and persistent intent of our God-on-the-move. A robust missional theology is a theology of love.

To love is to act intentionally, in response to God and others, to promote overall well-being.[2] God’s initial and empowering action makes response possible. We live in community with others to whom we also respond. We are not isolated individuals, and God desires the common good.

God’s love establishes God’s kingdom – or what I call God’s loving leadership. Here again, it is through Jesus we believe such things. Jesus preached God’s loving leadership as both possible and actual here in this life. And he proclaimed its fulfillment in the life to come.

As a young child, I learned a chorus I now sing to my kids. It derives from 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God, and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. The one that doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.” John says our best clue about what love entails is this: God sent Jesus.

The God who seeks and saves is revealed best in Jesus Christ. This God of love desires that all creation live shalom. God works powerfully through love to fulfill this desire, and we are invited to join in this love project. The result is the healing, restoration, and liberation of all held captive to sin and death. This holy God revealed best in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is on a mission of love.

John takes these truths about God, love, and Jesus a bit further and concludes with this logic: “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another” (4:11). Thankfully God makes love possible, says John: “We love, because he first loved us” (4:19). The empowering God enables us to love.

A missional theology supporting the endeavor to seek and save the lost is not based primarily on an evangelistic canvassing strategy. Nor is it based primarily upon duty and obedience to God. It’s not even based primarily upon worship. Strategies, obedience, and worship are all important. But missional theology is based primarily on love.

We ought to be “imitators of God, as dearly love children, and life a life of love, just as Christ loved us...” (Eph. 5:1, 2a). This missional ethic emphasizes generosity, listening and speaking, both influencing and being influenced by, enabling, mutuality, and community. It’s a strategy that cares for the least of these and all creation.

Conclusion

In short: God loves us, and we ought to love one another and love God. We ought to imitate God’s full-orbed love – agape, eros, and philia as we cooperate with God’s mission to seek and save the lost.

The God on a mission invites us on an adventure of love.

---

[1] For an exploration of a Wesleyan doctrine of creation, see Michael Lodahl, God of Nature and of Grace: Reading the World in a Wesleyan Way (Nashville, Tenn.: Kingswood, 2003).

[2] I explain the details of this definition from philosophical, scientific, and theological perspectives in my book, Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010).

Of God's Love & GateKeepers of Another Sort - How Does God Love? "...If Not More"

Three little words about how we are loved raises a bigger question

http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2012/04/three_little_words_about_how_w.html

Published: Friday, April 27, 2012, 9:37 AM

By Tom Rademacher | The Grand Rapids PressThe Grand Rapids Press

Photo Courtesy Art: Kathy Higbee

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Some powerful voices shared the air at a breakfast this past week to help extend the reach of Hope Network's pastoral services.

But it was a three-word interjection from a woman in a wheelchair who stole the show, or at least helped drive home a point that perhaps all of us should stop to consider from time to time.

"If not more," said Kathy Higbee, just loud enough to be heard, but in a tone so reverently put that it raised both mild laughter and goosebumps.

Kathy was listening to Chuck Ely describe how God loves us all, and how that includes the likes of Kathy, people with special challenges whom we too often relegate to a back burner.

Because they look or sound or feel different from the rest of us "normal" people, we consciously or unconsciously tend to subjugate them to second-class status, and that's dangerous territory, especially from a spiritual standpoint.

Chuck was reminding those at the breakfast that Our Lord loves those with limitations just as much as everyone else.

And that's when Kathy piped up with "If not more."

You can slice and dice this a lot of different ways, of course. You could blame Kathy for a haughty attitude, daring to assume that the Creator plays favorites, that his chosen ones use wheelchairs and crutches and braces. That they require special therapies, feeding tubes.

But maybe he does. And wouldn't that be a wonderfully startling thing, to see Heaven's gatekeepers adorned in halos of another sort?

I first met Kathy last year, while writing profiles of people who make Hope Network the force that it is for people both struggling and soaring. It's an organization that works tirelessly to help 23,000 people a year harness their gifts, to reach their potential, no matter their lot in life.

We're talking ex-offenders and kids with autism and people fighting back from traumatic brain injury. People with needs the rest of us could only imagine, elements capable of humbling us each and every time we sweat the small stuff that makes us look, well, small.

Kathy Higbee is part of a prayer group that Chuck Ely helps direct at one of Hope Network's many sites. And I still have in my notes the first words I heard her utter, responding to the prospect that handicapped people raise their voices in song:

"The Lord doesn't mind how we sound."

How profound. Although that's not my first impression of Kathy, because I am ashamed to say that when I first laid eyes on her, my mind registered "Gal in wheelchair."

Kathy Higbee never asked for that. If it weren't for a motor vehicle accident some 20 years ago that robbed her of the ability to walk and talk without a slight slur -- that caused injury to her brain at the age of 19 -- I might have met her and thought "Engaging woman in her late 30s…nice hair."

With three words, though, Kathy helped me to see well beyond that and wonder if those with so-called limitations have a special place in the Savior's heart. And why not, given Jesus' propensity to break bread with the untouchables of his time on earth.

With three words, a woman who's been ignored and passed over and misunderstood raised the consciousness of a roomful of men and women who didn't come to hear her speak.

But I'm guessing that, thanks to Kathy's impromptu lesson, more than one of us walked away to question how warmly we embrace all God's children.

If not more.

Feel moved to help advance the mission of Hope Network? Visit them online.

Email: rademachertom@gmail.com

http://www.hopenetwork.org/

Love Beyond Existence

http://peterrollins.net/?p=3560

by Peter Rollins

February 14, 2012

This is a repost of my Valentines message from last year (sorry, currently traveling so can’t write something new)…

Love is so humble that it seems impossible to ever really catch anything but the briefest glimpse of her. She is like a tiny field mouse dwelling in the dark. Should we hear her scratching in the corner and shine a light she will, quick as a flash, scurry away so that we catch sight of only the tip of her tail. Indeed love is so bashful that we often forget about her entirely. For love, to change analogies, is like light. When we are sitting with friends we do not think about the light that surrounds us but only of the friends that the light enables us to see. Likewise love illuminates others and so our attention is focused on what she illuminates rather than with the illumination itself.

Love, in a very precise way, enables us to see. For in daily life we perceive others in much the same way as a cow gazes at cars. We walk past thousands of people without really seeing anyone. I was reminded of this recently when a friend of mine told me of something that happened when she took a train from Connecticut to New York. As the conductor, a large and imposing man, approached she realised that she had left her purse at the house. When he got to her seat and asked for her ticket she, with much embarrassment, explained the situation and braced herself for the worst. But the conductor just sat down in the seat opposite and said, “Don’t worry about it”. Then, for the remainder of the journey they talked. They shared photos of their family, they exchanged jokes and they spoke of the ones who meant most to them. When the conductor finally got up to continue his rounds my friend began to apologise again, but the conductor stopped her mid sentence and smiled, “please don’t pay it any thought, you know its just really nice to be seen by someone.”

This might initially seem like a strange thing to say as the conductor was being seen by thousands of people every day. But only in instrumental terms, only as the extension of a function he performed. In this brief conversation with my friend he felt that he had actually been seen as a unique individual and that was a gift to him.

This is what love does. It does not make itself visible but rather makes others visible to us. Love does not exist but calls others into existence: for to exist means to stand forth from the background, to be brought into the foreground. Love does not stand forth but brings others forth. When we love our beloved is brought out of the vast, undulating sea of others. Just as the Torah speaks of God calling forth beings from the formless ferment of being so love calls our beloved from the endless ocean of undifferentiated objects.

In this way love is not proud and arrogant. She does not say, “I am sublime, I am beautiful, I am glorious”. Love humbly points to another and whispers, “they are sublime, they are beautiful, they are glorious.” She does not tell us that they are perfect despite their weakness and frailty, but that they are perfect in the very midst of their weakness and frailty.

Love does not want our hymns of praise or prayers of adoration. She does not want our sacrifices or seek our time. One cannot and should not even try to love love. For love always points away from herself. To honour love is to be in love, to swim in the world illuminated by her.

That which love illuminates means everything to us: a reality that can be exquisitely pleasurable or devastatingly painful. As such we will always experience the one we love as the most sublime existence in the universe. This experience however hides within itself a deep truth, a truth that we would do well to forget as soon as we learn of it (for it works best in darkness). Namely, that the most sublime presence in the universe is not our beloved but the love that exposes them as our beloved. The love that stands beyond existence, raising our beloved to the level of existence.*

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

*After reading Peter's column go back and re-read it again from God's viewpoint about how He would think about us... That because of God's love we now stand out expressly as God's only beloved in the midst of our weakness... And because we are loved of God it enables us to better see ourselves in Him and those around us that consider themselves unloved, or haven't recognized their value and worth.

Real love, true love is active love built upon a Savior's love expressed for us from the very Godhead itself. Love is because God is. Without God there is no love. Without love there is no God. We know God is there because His Love is there. We feel it. We know it. We bear it. We give it. We are immersed within it, carried upon it, lost without it, re-purposed and driven because of it. Love is. And because it is we are. Thanks be to God for His great Love. It is a mystery we do not understand but yet must give back to Him through sharing it, being it, trusting it, to those around us, including allowing it within ourselves. We are loved. We are fully, completely, eternally part of God's all-consuming Love. Be at peace then and allow God in no more refusing this quiet, selfless selflessness. Be loved. And Be love.

- R.E. Slater

February 18, 2012

Give Me a God Who Raises the Living!

Your God Raises the Dead? Give Me a God Who Raises the Living!

http://peterrollins.net/?p=3522

by Peter Rollins

posted 19/1/12

No matter how great a song is it cannot raise the dead, cure cancer or make your lost lover return. Music does not change the world you live in, reverse time or change history. It does not promise snake oil solutions to life’s woes. But music is anything but impotent; indeed it can be experienced as one of the most potent forces in our universe. For music can assist us in changing the way that we interact with the world we live in.

Great music can help us to affirm life, embrace it, face it and sublimate it. In other words music can help sensitize us to, and celebrate, the life that we participate in.

The poet is one who helps us experience life as inscribed with a rich and sensuous texture. S/he helps us to call forth, confront and confirm our existence. Inviting us to find the courage that might enable us to say “yes” and “Amen” to life in the midst of its complexity and in spite of our anxiety.

In light of this we might begin to understand how a divine miracle is not something that simply raises the dead but one that is able to raise the living to a place where life is not experienced as death. For without the latter the former would appear to be nothing more than the work of an evil demon.

I guess that is why I was never that interested in gods who raise the dead. The real power lies in raising the living: something that is testified to in the act of love.

Love is that which experiences another as worth more than the mundane matter of which they are composed. In love we find a cause for which we would be willing to die, and it is there that we experience life as worthy of living. In love we find a world worth dancing in and celebrating.

The claim that “God is love” testifies to this miracle. It points to the idea that, in the act of love, we encounter a transcendent depth and mystery that sets our world ablaze, a depth and mystery that we cannot grasp, but which renders our world worthy of being grasped. In other words it hints at the idea that the highest good is not some object that we should love, but a reality we participate in through the act of love itself.

Love is then the true miracle; it is in love that the living are raised from death to life. In love we do not run from our world, but learn to embrace it and raise it to the level of the sacred.