Ecclesiastes 12:10

  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love . 1 st John 4:7-8     If you are a painter, you have to know how to paint. If you are a runner, you need to be able to run. If you are an author, you need to be able to write.   That is the basis to do that thing.   What about a child of God?  John spells it out to us very clearly. If we want to be born of God and know God, we must love. That is who he is and what we must do.   To follow Him is to learn how to love. It is the defining trait(1 st John 3:10). It’s how the world will see we are his (John 11:35). It's the top of the traits that will always be (1 st Corinthians 13:13).   Love is why we follow his commands (2 nd John 1:6). Love fulfills the law (Romans 13:8-9). It is how faith works (Galatians 5:6).   So, we'd better know how to love. Wha...

  Do we love too many things? Love is something they say you can’t have enough of. In some ways that is right, but we also understand that sometimes love needs to be singular.  If your spouse loves another person chances, are you not going to be too happy.    That is why we need to consider 1 John 2:15 which tells us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Here we are told that our love for the world is a contradiction to loving God. The analogy of an unfaithful spouse is used time and time again to show the relationship to God and his wandering people. When we love the world, it keep us from loving God.   So how do we know if we are flirting with the world?  It works the same as any relationship. When we spend more time with them, we seek to please another rather than the one we should love, when we focus our love elsewhere. When we take for granted the one that has done so much...

     The Los Angeles Dodgers spent some money in the last off-season. The team committed to more than $1 billion in future salaries, signing superstar Shohei Ohtani to a ten-year contract that will ultimately pay him $700 million. They also came to terms with pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million pact. And they signed outfield Andrew Toles to a deal worth, almost certainly, $0.   You might think that means that don’t value Toles but you would be wrong.   Toles started playing for the Dodgers in 2016 and was pretty good for them. But in the next several years his play dropped off till by 2019 he was playing for the team at all.  It wasn’t injury or decline but a disease that ended his playing days. Toles was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The disorder left him unable to play and even care for himself. This burden of his care was left to his father and it was clear that Toles was going to have a hard time paying for the tre...

   Let’s be honest, there is somebody who you can’t stand.   You may not even have a goat but somehow, they got it. Just the way they walk and breathe irk you. Even when they are being nice, you want to punch them in the face. There’s just something about them that is like fingernails on a blackboard.   So, what do you do about it?    You love them.   I know, I know, you’re thinking that don’t deserve it. You think about the way they wronged you, what they said, how they act as if your feelings were unimportant. Yet it’s not about them. You need to heal.  That grudge you’ve been carrying has been there so long it has worked its way into your skin. It’s an infection that’s not going anywhere easily. That is why you need to love them.   In 1 st Peter 4:8, we read, “ Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins .” It’s thought that Peter here is making a reference to Proverbs 10:...

   It's almost Valentine’s Day. Fellows, if you are just now realizing this you are in trouble. What could you possibly get at this moment that would be an appreciated gift?   Maybe this could help…   In a 2014 study dubbed “The iPhone Effect,” researchers paired up 200 participants and invited them to sit down in a coffee shop and chat with each other for about ten minutes. Research assistants observed the conversations from a distance and paid special attention to whether a mobile device was used, touched, or placed on the table during the conversation. When the time was up, participants were asked to respond to a series of questions designed to measure feelings of connection, empathic concern, and the like. These included, “To what extent did your conversation partner make an effort to understand your thoughts and feelings?” and “I felt I could really trust my conversation partner.” The results? If either participant pulled their phone out or placed ...

Can people tell that you are a disciple of Jesus? If someone did a background check on you, went thru your social media, and interviewed your neighbors talked to your coworkers, what would they say? What are you know for? What did Jesus say would make people realize that you were a disciple of Jesus? Before we answer that let look at something he didn’t say:   They will know you are my disciple by how… You always vote for the right candidate, love your country and support the schools. You have a fish sticker on your car and Bible verse plaque on your desk and wear your church T-shirt every casual Friday You make your opposition to moral political issue well known to all. You can quote scripture with the best of them. You share all the religious memes, like all the faith-based pictures and forward the prayer chain to 10 friends every time Your name is in the directory, your face is on the picture board and address is on the contact list You keep your n...

  You may have seen the recent commercial by the Ad Council  that tells us love has no limits.  It shows people behind an x-ray screen embracing only showing their skeletal outlines.  The people emerge from the behind to reveal they are a same sex couple, to a cheering crowd.  The scene is redone with people of different races, religions and ages.  Each one is accompanied by the lines; love has no gender, love has no race, love has no disability, love has no religion, love has no labels.  The ad campaign claims to combat what is seen as bias in our world today.   It got me to thinking about how the world is trying to redefine love. We hear the argument in our world to today; How a person can be against two people who love one another? To try to put limits on love is wrong.   But how does the Bible label love? Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbe...

  There was a church where the preacher and the song leader were not getting along. As time went by this began to spill over into the worship service. The first week the preacher preached on moving forward and letting go of the past. The song leader led the song " I Shall Not Be Moved ". When he preached on how we should pay our debts, the song leader led " Jesus Paid it All ". When he preached on gossip, the song leader led the song " I Love to Tell the Story ."  With all this going on, the preacher became very disgusted and told the congregation during the evening sermon that he was considering resigning. The song leader led " Oh Why Not Tonight" ? As it came to pass, the preacher did indeed resign. The next week the preacher informed the church that Jesus was leading him elsewhere; the song leader led " What a Friend We Have in Jesus" .   This may be a funny story but in reality when brothers bring their personal differe...

  If I’m the greatest speaker anyone has ever heard, on all the lectureships, could be doing a meeting every week if you wanted, If people hang on my every message and consider it as close to the “Word of God” as you can get… But don’t have love; I’m just making a bunch of meaningless noise   If I’m on the cutting edge of every new thing, incorporating all the latest technology, If I have a bachelors, a masters, and a doctorate, I am published in all the brotherhood works, have a bestselling book, a must read blog and thousands followers on twitter and if I stand on the right side of every issue, confront every wrong and win every debate… But don’t have love, it doesn’t really matter   If I have out worked everyone else, done more than all my critics, been the better man, took the bullet for the eldership’s mistakes, been the sacrificial lamb   But don’t have love, it wasn’t really worth it Love is that important .   So I better figure ou...

Rick Reilly recently had an article on the oddest game in high school football history. It occurred last month down in Grapevine, Texas when Grapevine Faith hosted Gainesville State School. What made it so odd? Well for starters, when Gainesville came out to take the field, the Faith fans made a 40-yard spirit line for them to run through. They even made a banner for players to crash through at the end. It said, "Go Tornadoes!" Which is also weird, because Faith is the Lions.  As the game got under way, more than 200 Faith fans sat on the Gainesville side and kept cheering the Gainesville players on—by name.  You wouldn't expect another parent to tell somebody to hit their kids but they did. What is even weirder is the coach for Grapevine Faith Kris Hogan is the one that gave the idea for the fans to do it. Why? It’s not because Gainesville is a great team. They were 0-8 for the year and had only scored 2 TDs all year. Faith has 70 kids, 11 coaches, the l...

The youth minister and I were discussing sermons, specifically how long they should be. We were both curious at how two different preachers could preach a lesson of the same quality for the same amount of time but one would be well received and the other criticized.  As we talked, I remarked that I knew a preacher that was known for his bouts long-windedness but that people didn’t complain rather they were cheerfully amused.  I said it was because he was such a loving part of the lives of the congregation, a little bit of extra time on Sunday didn’t seem that bad. His love overrode his mistakes .  I don’t think that phenomenon is just related to preachers. We all have foibles and flaws.  We talk too much.  We forget to say “thank you”.  We get lost in our own little world and ignore others.  We interrupt. We are selfish, judgmental and just plain hard to be around (Well at least those are all true of me).  But when we show love in what we do...