Let's Get Wild!

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 

with all your soul, with all your mind, 

and with all your strength.

[Mark 12:30 (NKJV)]

 What does it mean to "Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength?

Some have tried to define it as obeying. Obedience is surely part of loving God.[John 14:23-24; John 15:9-10] However, obedience is not loving God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your strength. You can obey someone - a superior officer, employer, or ruler - without loving them. Obeying God without a passion for Him is not love but discipline.  If discipline is all we have, it will fail in the end, while a man or woman in love will never give up. 

Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to Love God with passion, prayer, intelligence, and energy. A lukewarm, loveless version of Christianity may succeed in propagating a little religion here and there, but it will never capture the heart of a dying world.

A.W Tozer writes,

“God dwells in a state of perpetual enthusiasm. He is delighted with all that is good and lovingly concerned about all that is wrong. He pursues His labors always in a fullness of holy zeal. No wonder the Spirit came at Pentecost as a sound of a rushing wind and sat in tongues of fire on every forehead… Whatever else happened at Pentecost, one thing that cannot be missed by the most casual observer was the sudden upsurging of moral enthusiasm. Those first disciples burned with a steady, inward fire. They were enthusiastic to the point of complete abandon."

In a vision, Jesus told John to write a letter to the Church at Laodicea and tell them:
'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth." [Rev. 3:15-16]

Why is it that most Christians have lost their passion and have become lukewarm? Maybe because it's not cool! So often we are too cool to be passionate. It may be the result of rationalism and modernism. Many of the early reformers worked hard to take emotionalism out of Christianity and make religion rational.

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, everyone had to have a nickname. Mine was “Wild Bill,” because I would try anything once. In the 4th Grade, Suzanne Schmitz’s mother would not let her play with me because I was too “Wild.” She was the first non-relative I ever kissed. 

Down the street from our house were three tall elm trees spaced about twenty feet apart. They were great climbing trees. We watched squirrels playing follow the leader as they went out on a branch of one tree and jumped across to a branch on an adjacent tree. The thought came to me, "That looks like fun, I’ll bet I can do that." 

There was a large branch that could hold my weight, the limb was strong enough for me to walk out and get within eight feet of a substantial limb on the next tree. So I shinnied up the first tree, stepped gingerly out on the limb. The limb was strong and supporting me. This was going to be easier than I originally thought. The branch in the opposite tree was there waiting - just a short leap away. I lept but had made a serious miscalculation and fell. As I grabbed for a large limb, all I caught were leaves and skinny branches. Holding on for dear life, I quickly fell twenty feet to the ground landing hard and breaking my tail bone. In my mind I will always want to make that leap and prove that I can do it, but the memory of the pain in my butt keeps me from making another attempt.

When we get hurt we tend to be more careful. Getting hurt makes us more cautious. If we get hurt often enough, we give up because we don't want to become vulnerable. That’s the way it is with love. When we love someone with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength we become vulnerable to the object of our love who then has the ability to hurt us. When a human being hurts us, we often transfer our distrust to God.

The Early Church was  wild, they lived in wild abandon trusting God for all their needs. They expected God to act on their behalf. They prayed and saw people healed. They raised people from the dead on a regular basis. Andrew the brother of Peter was strolling along the seashore and came upon as tragic shipwreck. The dead bodies of the sailors had washed up on the shore. Overcome with sadness and compassion, Andrew prayed and asked God to raise them from the dead. God obliged.

This wild abandonment for God lasted for a few hundred years. Then the church became more respectable as Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion. As Christianity became “Safe,” the wild ones moved out to the deserts of Egypt and Arabia. 

Much of the Church has become “Functional Atheists” A “Functional Atheist” is someone who says he believes in God, but lives his life as if God did not exist. A functional atheist is afraid to commit his life to God’s leadership. He attends church but does not expect God to show up. He believes God can heal but doesn’t expect Him to act. He may have God as his co-pilot, but never allows Him to take the controls. He relies on his own logic rather than the Holy Spirit. 

These are Christians in name only. They try to live the Christian life, but their life is dull and without fire or power;

“… if the Holy Spirit were completely removed from the world today, 90% of the work of the church would go on as if nothing at all had happened.”  - [R.T. Kendell]

Every generation has a group of wild ones in the church.

My fear is not that our great movement, known as the Methodists, will eventually cease to exist or one day die from the earth. My fear is that our people will become content to live without the fire, the power, the excitement, the supernatural element that makes us great. [John Wesley]

“The great sin of church is not that we’ve lost the power of God, but that we’ve become content to live without it.”   - [Charles Finney]

OUR nation was founded by “Wild Ones.” Now we are apologizing for believing in the one true God.

WOULDN'T YOU LOVE TO BE FREE TO BE WILD AGAIN?

iT STARTS BY LOVING GOD WITH ALL OF YOUR HEART, SOUL MIND AND STRENGTH!

Are you happy with yourself?

Are you happy with yourself?

• Do you wish that you were older or younger? 
• Would you rather have been born in a different era? 
• Do you wish you were born of a different sex? 
• Do you wish that you had different parents? 
• Do you wish that you had a different body?

As I pass the remarkable age (for me) of four and a quarter score, I wonder how I made it this far. In 1955 as a student at Georgia Tech, country singer Faron Young's hit song became a favorite of mine. 

"I want to live fast, love hard, die young,
and leave a beautiful memory.” 

That song became my battle cry! Thank God, the third item of my plan failed.

That leads me to an important personal insight. I have always been most happy to be the age that I was at the time. 

• I guess in college, I was having so much fun - almost flunked out – that I was not looking forward to growing older. 
• It was fun in my late twenties to be the Young Turk fighting to change the status quo in an institutionalized company that was dying. 
• In a mid-life crisis, I was happy with a less stressful job and a supportive family. 
• I am still happy at my present age even though my body is wearing out and I can’t do the things that earlier I thought I could not live without. Now there are exciting new things to do. 

Don't believe that you are too young or too old to do what you are called to do.

Just because I can no longer play golf it isn't the end of life.

Am I happy with myself?

No! I fall short of God’s target so often. A quick review of my past reveals any number of regrets, some as a direct result of the plan for my life - sung by Faron Young.

• I wish that I had learned how to love at an earlier age. 
• I wish that I had spent more time with my wife and children rather than chasing fame and fortune. 
• I wish that I had learned to sing. 
• I wish that I was better playing the guitar. 

But all in all, I am pretty content.

Getting back to the questions that started this issue, I am content with my age today with all of its pains and medical issues. 

My lifetime has seen tremendous progress:

• from crystal sets to flat-screen TV’s - 
  
• from Ford Tri-motors to supersonic intercontinental transports 
• from 4th of July Roman Candles to ICBM's, landing men on the moon, and exploring the moons of Uranus 
• from mechanical adding machines to microcomputers and the internet - 
• advancements in medicine and medical devices which helped me live this long. 

Not only did I watch this progress but was actually able to participate in some.

What an era to be alive!

My parents were far from perfect, but I could not imagine having any others, they made me who I am today. 

While my body was never perfect, it has taken me where I needed to go, not as a professional athlete, but good enough to not embarrass myself on the golf course or bowling alley - that is until I got too old. I would never have made it as an underwear model, but my body has been good enough for what God has called me to be.

Are you happy with yourself?

Do you realize, that God created you the way you are?

• He wanted you born in the era in which you were born. 
• He created you as a male or female based on His plan for your life. 
• He gave you the parents that you had. 
• He gave you that body.

If you are unhappy with your present age, the era in which you were born, your sex, your parents, or your body, then your problem is with God. He created you for a purpose by putting you in this world in this place, with those parents, and gave you the body for a reason:

To fulfill His purpose in your life.

Do not rebel against  God’s plan for your life!

What is Love?

What is Love?

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. [1 John 4:7-8 (NKJV)]

What is Love? A simple four-letter word that confuses. Because of its misuse, it can result in conflict, heartbreak, and disaster when it should be ushering in peace and joy. The word love, itself, may be the most misunderstood word in the English language.  

What does it mean to you? 

It depends upon your experience. How do you explain a rainbow to a man blind from birth? The rainbow is more than a colorful arch in the sky. When you hear the word dog, what images come to mind? Some will imagine a cute puppy with

a wagging tail, while another might be stricken with fear as they imagine an angry vicious animal prepared to attack.

Words are merely symbols - elements of a language - that we use to communicate. Communications is a two-way street. One person - the sender - wishes to express an idea to another - the receiver. Each has a secret code ring. The sender encodes his idea or thought into words he feels express his thoughts accurately, but then the recipient must decode those words into his own thoughts. If the sender’s idea is to be interpreted accurately by the recipient, they must both be using the same code book. This seems like a simple process, but just look at the political climate in the world today.  Different people seldom use the same codebook. Codebooks are learned through experience and  personal history. A simple act of a gentleman opening the car door for a lady may become an utter disaster. While the gentleman believes that he is showing love by his actions, an emancipated woman may see it as an insulting stereotypical action of a male chauvinist.

So it is with the word love. We have attempted to define love in popular songs, motion pictures, and romantic fiction. But, if we are truly honest, most of us would define love in terms of getting our own needs met. Even generous acts of giving to others are often based upon an expectation of what we will receive in return. When someone offers us attention, significance, or pleasure, we eagerly give with the expectation that we will get what we so desperately need. But that is not love - that is selfish and manipulative. How can you understand love if you have never experienced it?

Early church monastic, St John Climacus, examines the means of ascending to the highest degree of religious perfection by a series of thirty steps, which recall the thirty years of the life of Christ, the most holy example of religious perfection. From step thirty we read;

"The angels know how to discuss love, but even they are only able to do this according to their level of understanding. God is love, so the one who desires to describe this, attempts with dim eyes to weigh the sand in the sea. Love, from its very essence, is the likeness of God. As much as it possible for humans, in its action it is intoxication of the soul, and through its unique characteristic it is a spring of faith, and abyss of long-suffering, an ocean of lowliness. Love is fundamentally the exile of all opposing thoughts, for love thinks nothing evil."^[1]

In the Gospel of John,^[2] Jesus reveals the Father's love as He encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. Jesus asks the woman for a drink. Jewish religious leaders were not permitted to ever speak to women - especially women who were immoral. This particular woman had had five husbands and was living with a man that was not her husband. She had failed utterly in her search for love.

Jesus initiates a relationship with her for the purpose of showing her real love. He describes His loving presence as "Living Water" that will satisfy and become her spring of love welling up to eternal life. As they talk, Jesus reveals that He knows her sin. But more importantly he knows her hunger for love. He points out her five failed marriages, and her current live-in boyfriend, but does not use her sin and brokenness against her. He sees her as a person with a true and deep hunger for a love that won’t fail her. Jesus knows the true desires of her heart. He seeks to satisfy her desire with a love that comes from heaven. That love from heaven is more real and relevant to her needs than any human could provide.

Jesus declares, "I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will never be hungry, and He who believes in me will never be thirsty.

The Apostle, Paul, wrote letters of instruction, encouragement, and correction to the churches to which he had oversight. To the church at Corinth he wrote on love;

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails^[3]

If you dare to assess your ability to give and receive love insert your name in place of “Love” and read this passage.

 _______ suffers long and is kind; ______ does not envy; ______ does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. _______ never fails.

A good definition of love is "Giving to someone beyond what one is getting in return." Love involves giving beyond oneself. It means putting another's needs ahead of our own. Love is "the freedom to see beyond oneself in order to see another." not to see them as an object to meet my personal need. Love sees another as a person worthy of love.

Growing up in a family with stoic Northern European ancestry, there was little outward manifestations of love. Showing emotion or affection, while not discouraged, was not modeled. The word “Love” itself was reserved for things like chocolate cake and ice cream. Acceptance was given when you worked hard, obeyed, and stayed out of trouble. You worked hard to gain acceptance. I do not recall hearing the words, “I love you.” addressed to me, and I don’t recall speaking them to someone else.

The first time I said, “I love you” was to my future wife. Recently on the occasion of our anniversary, my wife asked me if I remembered when I first told her I loved her. It would have been an outstanding event because it was the first time I said those words and meant them. But, I still had no idea what love really meant. 

How can you understand love if you have never experienced it?

If our idea of "love" is restricted to an unhappy, dysfunctional or abusive relationship, then the fact that "God is love!" presents a false image of God. However, understanding true love presents a more realistic vision of God. 

Jesus, as God, presents us the reality and true definition of love!  

[excerpted from my forthcoming book, "Love Like Jesus."]

---

^[1] The Ladder of Devine Ascent, St John Climacus

^[2] John 4:1-26

^[3] 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NKJV)

Ditch that Red Nosed Reindeer!

Christmas is the time of year when we celebrate the love of God who loved us so much that He sent His Son into the world that we might have eternal life. But the world has changed the meaning of Christmas to a celebration of conspicuous consumption.

Lest you think of me as Grinch, out to rob you of that merriest of Christmases, think again. I love a party and giving and receiving gifts as much anyone. I just want to make sure we celebrate the right things.

John 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

It is important to understand what it means to bask in the love of our Creator. It means you have intrinsic value, not as a result of your performance, but because you are you.

The world’s concept of love is often an insatiable craving, conditional upon benefits received. I love chocolate, coffee, the Chicago Cubs and pizza.

Romantic Love is shown in our so-called love songs,

·        You make me feel good

·        I want you, I need You

·        I can't get along without you.

We accept others if they become like us. Love in today’s world is conditional on our performing.

Kids are taught this from a very early age, especially at Christmas. Even the beloved cowboy star, Gene Autry, became an unknowing accomplice when he introduced his song about a strange-looking reindeer:

“Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very funny nose. 

And if you ever saw it you would even say it glows.

All of the other reindeers used to laugh and call him names. 

They never let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games.”

Then Something Happened!

“Then one foggy Christmas eve, Santa came to say.

 ‘Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight.’”

And then!

“Then how the reindeers loved him, and they shouted out with glee. 

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, You'll go down in history.”

The other reindeer changed how they felt about Rudolph, because he performed a needed function. They loved because of what he did. God’s love for all humanity is unconditional love. You are not loved because you are lovable, but because you are loved you are lovable.

The object of love may have no value, but value is created by the fact that an object is loved. Take as an example a Child's Blanket - dirty, tattered and torn – but try to take it away from the child. That’s how God loves you.

God loved us while we were unlovable. 

After Rudolph saved Christmas, someone might care enough to die for him. But God demonstrates his own love for us - while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8

God loved us before we responded to Him.  Like a newborn infant, who cries, eats, sleeps and messes up diapers, our value is not based on what we do for God or others. Our value is based upon the fact that we are loved by God.

I do not want to “dis” Rudolph - I have loved him since childhood - but I want you all to realize how pervasive is our misunderstanding of the awesomeness of God’s love.

Let us all enjoy this season with knowledge that we are loved by the Creator of the universe. It does not matter what others may think about us, we have value.

Feel free to share how you have been affected by God's love.