“Do You Love Me?

Pride is often considered the foremost vice among Christians, since it is contrary to the love of God. As Christian thinker and writer C.S. Lewis stated... "According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."

Christianity teaches that there are many different manifestations of pride. They include "boasting of men (1 Corinthians 3:21)," doing something "from selfishness or conceit (Philippians 2:3)," and refusing to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21)."

God clearly commands Christians to be humble, not proud and boastful.

Sometimes, we Christians may be tempted to self-righteously look down on unbelievers who lead immoral lives, and even other believers whom we deem “less worthy” but we need to remember that we are saved by grace, not by any good thing we do, and all our blessings come from God, because of His mercy, and love for us.

Every time a Christian is proud of himself or boastful about something he has done, he is sinning and breaking a command of God.  We are told to be humble instead.  Pride and boasting can be problems for Christians and non-christians alike. The Bible warns people about being proud and boastful.

Jesus taught a powerful and valuable lesson, we should all remember, on the last night of his life and ministry, before his destiny with the cross.  He taught the lesson to one of his own... Peter.  The lesson is recorded in the gospel of John and several questions emerge as we read this passage at John 21:15-17...

15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” 16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” 17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.

There are several things in this passage we do not often consider.  For example... Why did Jesus ask Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Maybe it was because Peter denied him three times, although at this encounter, the last supper, Peter has yet to be confronted with his denials of Jesus.

Why did he make his point publicly? Because Peter denied him publicly. Maybe the other disciples needed to hear Peter openly declare his love for Christ. Without hearing those words, the doubts would linger forever.

The man who had been so boastful, so sure of himself, so confident of his own courage, is now thoroughly humbled by such a simple question. Jesus’ first question – “Do you love me more than these?” (v. 15) – was a subtle reminder of his previous boast to be more loyal than the other disciples (Matthew 26:33). In his reply Peter declares his love for Christ, but he refuses to compare himself with anyone else. As painful as this question was framed by Jesus, it was absolutely necessary to make his point, not only with Peter but all the disciples. It’s as if Jesus is cleaning an open wound so that it might properly heal. He is getting rid of Peter’s guilt and shame by dealing with it openly.

Consider what Christ doesn’t do. He doesn’t try to make Peter feel guilty. He doesn’t humiliate him publicly. He doesn’t ask him, “Are you sorry for what you did?” He doesn’t make him promise to do better. He just asks one question: “Do you love me?”

Once we have hurt someone we love, it is hard to look them in the face and it is harder still to be questioned about our true commitment. “How could you have done that? What were you thinking? Do you even love me at all?” But the questions must be asked and the answers must be given.  And they must be repeated if the truth is to be fully told and understood by all parties.

If you think about what Jesus accomplishes in asking that simple question, he is setting the stage, the criteria for emotional and spiritual growth that enables everyone who professes Christ to really be engaged with Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit.  There are three qualifications for those who would serve the Lord... The first is love.  The second is love.  The third is love.  Anything else needed? Nope.

And, it works out in our lives like this... First we love, then serve.  First we love, then speak.  First we love, then lead.

When Christ asks the question the third time, Peter’s heart is grieved and he blurts out, “Lord, you know all things” (v. 17). With those words Peter renounces all his self-confidence.  He is saying that he cannot do anything with love for Christ.   

On that fateful night in the Upper Room, he thought he knew himself, but he really didn’t. Now he’s not so sure of anything. He doesn’t even trust his own heart; instead he trusts in the Lord who knows all things, especially his heart. This is a mighty step forward in Christian growth. It is a great advance to come to the place where you can say with conviction, “My trust is in the Lord alone.” Sometimes we have to hit bottom and hit it hard before we can say those words.

No doubt Peter loved Jesus more after his fall, his denials, than before.  No one loves like the one who has experienced God’s grace firsthand.

I love you, Lord Jesus, but not as I ought. Purge from my heart all pride and grant me a good memory of my past so that I might love you more when I remember how much you have loved me and forgiven all my sins. Amen. 

Is God in Control of... Everything?

Which way should I go? Maybe left... maybe right?  Could go straight, but how will I know which direction is best?

What about shocking events?  Someone you know, 42 years of age, dies suddenly from a heart attack. Was it in God’s plan? 

I don’t believe that God plans for any life to be cut short. I don’t believe that God wants anything like that to happen to anyone, even bad people. I don’t believe that a premature death is punishment for some sin.  I don’t believe that violent storms, tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis in southern Asia are by the hand of God to punish people for not believing in Him.  Think about this...

Does God plan that every 4 seconds, a child dies of preventable diseases? Did God plan for half a million people die in an earthquake in Haiti? Did God condemn 400,000 Vietnamese boat people to drown at sea while seeking a new life in a better country?

What kind of God would He be, if He did these kinds of things to innocent and defenseless humanity?

Some might argue that God is sovereign and in control of everything, and therefore everything that happens is all part of God’s master plan. We should all be sickened and frankly terrified by such a thought. The sort of God who could minutely plan bad things for the people he created, simply does not exist!

We all hear platitudes such as... “It was all in God’s plan for our lives.” “God is in control.”  “Everything happens for a reason.” “God wanted another angel when someone dies.”

No argument that for God to be God, he is all-powerful and could do anything, but that doesn’t mean he DOES everything. If he planned out our lives in minute detail, we would be mere robots, puppets at the end of a string being controlled and manipulated, helplessly doing what we were never meant to be doing and having no control over our own lives.

As human beings, we have free will. We can make choices, some small, some big and profound, some not so good that have long lasting consequences.  The power of free will affects every person in the world. We are all affected, not just by ones personal choices, but by other people’s choices as well.

Things which happen to all of us can be a result of choices or random happenings. (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12) Random events of nature which no human can either predict or control.  Choices we make, either consciously or unconsciously, can result in actions which adversely affect ones life.  Choices other people make, can result in actions which affect my life.

Most natural events are random and unpredictable. We do not know when a volcano will erupt.  A family living in a fishing village in Sri Lanka had no way of knowing that a movement in the earth’s crust over a thousand miles away in Indonesia would cause a Tsunami which would destroy their lives, homes and livelihoods.

But we do have some choices to make when it comes to natural events. A volcano eventually produces very productive soil. Living on a volcano’s slopes can be very profitable, or disastrous. If we build our house on a flood plain of a river, we can take advantage of the soils deposited by previous floods, until the next big flood ruins what we have built.

There might be economic choices to make. An earthquake in Japan may not result in great losses because many buildings are earthquake-proof, whereas in Haiti an earthquake caused enormous loss of lives and homes.

We have some control over our own health. A fatal disease might be unpredictable and unavoidable but might have been prevented if we looked after our health and immune-system as a healthy living choice.

When God created all things he gave humankind a special ‘gift’ of free will. In nature, this makes us unique. An animal has some, but very little free will. They are mostly controlled by basic instincts. Material objects have no free will but act according to the laws of physics.

Having “free will” has its costs. If we accept that God gives us free choices, we have to accept that he cannot then interfere with those choices. It also means that he doesn’t interfere with other people’s choices either. That means that if someone drives carelessly, we might be involved in an accident through no fault of our own.  Unforeseen events can and will affect all of us at some point in life.

The choices we make may be good choices, bad choices or neutral. But even a neutral choice can turn out to hurt us. We may decide to take the scenic route home, rather than the fast route. That is not a bad choice, or a good choice – but either could result in disaster or nothing at all.

We make hundreds of tiny choices every day. Most have no noticeable effect, but we have no way of knowing that. If we were to agonize over every tiny decision, then our lives would be unbearable. That is where faith come in. Faith is an assurance that whatever happens in our lives, that God will guide our choices, if we know what He expects of those who love Him and cause all to ‘work together for good’.  All of God’s Word is a guide to living well in a dangerous sin-filled world.  Knowing what we should do, does not guarantee that our choices will always be perfect, but it does assure us that we can cope with whatever comes...  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)  A person who endures hardship, and bears up under life’s unforeseen events without caving under the pressure, will be a glorious example of faith and trust in God.  

The greatest confidence Christians can have is to know that God is at work within your life and that, no matter what happens, in the end God’s love wins and you will be glorified with eternal life!

God does not control our choices but he can, and does guide us in our choices.  He does not do it by pulling our strings as a cosmic puppeteer.  He does it by engaging us in his Word.  Some choices need little, or no guidance. 

We all know that murder is a bad choice. We should not go through life asking God about every little thing: “Is it your will that I have a cup of tea”. That’s where faith comes in.  Trust that God likes “tea” after all, He made it!

When we give up our lives to follow Jesus, follow His plan for Salvation, the Holy Spirit lives within us and help us in our choices. Making the right choices can benefit us – and those around us whose lives are impacted by our actions.

God does have a plan for the life of every man and women. His plan involves reconciliation, restoration and love. His plan is to make us all complete. He has made us all in His image. That means that HE has a free will too and freely gives of himself to the human race in love.

If we do not have free will, we cannot love. God loves us and we can love Him. He put us in a world which is seemingly random but can be overcome if man’s efforts go into making the world a better place. He gave us free will knowing we would often abuse the power by making wrong choices. But God also revealed himself in Jesus Christ and invites us to:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  and: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Mark 12:30-31)

So, it is not about God controlling every detail of our lives... IT’S ALL ABOUT LOVE.

Truth, Choices and Consequences

People are defined by the choices they make and the consequences of those choices. In fact, the Bible is a book about people just like us whose choices determined their future. For example Adam and Eve, Cain, and Noah all made choices and lived with the consequences – good or bad.

Whenever the Bible talks about people and their choices, the Holy Spirit faithfully shares with us the negative consequences of their poor choices as well as the positive consequences of their wise choices. The “family portrait” of God’s family which the Bible presents shows the bad as well as the good and makes it clear that God gives us freedom to choose – but we have to live with the consequences of those choices.

So, along with the freedom to choose comes the responsibility for our choices. If we will allow Him, God will help us make wiser choices so that the consequences of our choices will give us a better life in Christ.

However, at times God lets us gain experience and wisdom from the pain of poor decisions we make. So, good decisions are the product of wisdom. Wisdom is the product of experience. And experience is the product of poor decisions.

The choices we make as children shape our future and influence the decisions we will make as adults. It’s like laying bricks for the foundation of a building. You may be only a sixteenth of an inch off when you begin the wall, but if you don’t make some kind of correction, your error will be magnified as the size of the wall grows. This is how some people wreck their lives. They make small decisions that incrementally over time put them on a path of expanding and sometimes tragic consequences.

And being indecisive can produce negative results as well. Look at the man who received one talent in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents. He became frightened that he might lose the one talent he had, so he dug a hole in the ground and hid it. For not investing it wisely he was severely reprimanded (see Matthew 25:14-30).

The passivity that cripples a person’s ability to make decisions often results from being criticized too severely and praised too seldom for the choices they made while growing up. This is what you will find in the history of many adults who shy away from making decisions, and even refuse to face realities and emergencies in their lives that demand choices.

The secret to overcoming your fear of making choices is to realize that everyone’s life is full of risks. Not making choices carries an even greater risk... losing control of your life. 

Like any other skill, your ability to make good and wise decisions improves with practice. You learn from the pain of your poor decisions how to make better ones.

Look on life as an adventure. Face the daily risks. Learn from your right decisions as well as your wrong ones. Reflecting on the consequences of our choices not only helps us not to repeat our mistakes it increases the number of our wise decisions and the good consequences they bring.

The mental process by which we make decisions is spirit-driven... either a good one or a dangerous one. There is a constant spiritual warfare being waged “between our ears” as Satan and the influences of this world try to distract us from making good decisions.

Choices are not made in a moral or spiritual vacuum. If you are “in Christ” the Lord, His Word, fellow believers, and all the positive influences that emanate from fellowship and worship are available to you as you contemplate your next choice.  That said, His enemy Satan and the allures of a wicked self-focused world are bombarding your mind with urges, fantasies, and ideas that will seem good but will take you down a path to sadness and despair.  Knowing which of these comes from whom is essential if you are going to express Christ’s life and deny expression to His enemy. Committing Scripture to memory will help you develop the necessary discernment for this task.  If you are not one who easily memorizes Scripture, then keep a Bible handy at all times, wherever you happen to be.  Fill it full of yellow sticky notes with important passages and refer to them daily!

Jesus Christ has a wonderful future for you that the devil doesn’t want you to discover. Today your life may be a disaster because of the consequences of bad choices. So align your life with Christ and He will help you discover creative ways of dealing with the crises in your life.  Just don’t expect him to solve your problems, or make the consequences of bad choices go away.  He doesn’t work that way.   You did it, you made it... you live with it.  He will however help you learn ways to make better choices and deal with the consequences of the not so good choices you have made.  The best guide for joy-filled living comes from His Word the Bible.  Immerse yourself in its wisdom and you will begin to see the “helps” he offers!

Ever since Adam and Eve, people have tried to make others responsible for their bad choices . . . tried to put the blame on others. Accepting the responsibility for poor choices and their consequences is the only way a person can grow. Look at the life of Moses. Although he made the right choice in identifying with the Hebrew people of his parents, rather than the Egyptians, he didn’t always make wise choices. Remember, he slew an Egyptian who was oppressing the Hebrews (see Exodus 2:11-25). When he was leading God’s people through the desert, Moses chose to disobey God by striking the rock for water when God told him only to speak (see Numbers 20:1-12). And not even Moses was given immunity from the consequences of his bad decisions – the murder of the Egyptian cost him 40 years on the backside of the desert and striking the rock cost him entrance into the Promised Land.

Wrong choices in small things are quite likely to be insignificant, but it’s important to seek God’s help for making the right decisions in the major things, the crossroads decisions of life. It would be wonderful if we always knew when we were making the life-changing, crossroads decisions. Unfortunately, that isn’t always true, but there are decisions we all face in life that we know are these kinds of major crossroads issues.

For example, whom we choose as our friends in junior and senior high is a crossroads decision. In high school our friends wield more influence than parents. This is why parents should monitor their children’s friendships and not fear to direct them away from friends that will have a bad influence on them.

Certainly dating, marriage and career are key crossroads choices. Young people need guidance and courage to keep sex reserved for marriage. Anytime that one engages in sexual behavior outside of marriage he/she is not only disobeying God, but also complicating his/her life. Parents have a responsibility to help their children make godly choices in this crucial area of their lives. And, of course, along with dating and marriage come important choices about having children and raising families.

Making wise choices is not just for young people, it applies to all ages.  Are you facing a major decision in your life right now? Jesus wants to meet you at that “crossroads” and help you look far enough down the road of your future to discover those options that represent His highest and best for your life.  You can discover what he expects of his followers in his Word... The Bible.