Thoughts for Thanksgiving

The sum total of my sins is sufficiently great that I should have no time to keep track of the sins of others. The grace I have received is sufficiently and infinitely great that I have no need to question the quantity given to others.

A grateful heart cannot keep being grateful and keep score at the same time.

A joyful heart cannot be changed except by changing its focus from the Giver of Joy to circumstances.

Hope comes when we need nothing to change because we believe in the omniscience and omnipotience of the Giver of Life.

Love and grace are gifts that are given freely but received only when we are willing.

The Lord is my shepherd; the implication is that I am a dumb animal in contrast to God, and that is not just true, but infinitely and eternally true.

Freedom is not living without limits; it is living within the will of the Giver of Life and desiring nothing outside His will.

Thank you, Lord, for grace, for friends, for family, for loving us first. Amen

Regrettably, The Last to Come and the First to Go

If I.....have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 1st Corinthians 13:1 (in part)



As Paul in 1st Corinthians 13 points out, I can have many manifestations of my faith, but if I do not have love, then my faith, in expression at least, is empty and useless. The faith with which God gifts me gives me hope; the hope we have in Christ causes us to seek to be like Him, to seek to know His mind; and if we truly know His mind and seek to emulate Him, then we will love.

Talents such as great oration, eloquent writing, wise understanding of life and its intricacies are a resounding gong if they are not used in the context of love. In fact they are frequently misused if not used out of love, becoming weapons with which others are abused. This has been true in my life, and is notable in the lives of many who are public figures professing Christ as Lord.

Generosity, self-sacrifice, attention to tithing, all of these, if not motivated by love are just a clanging cymbal--noisy, drawing attention, but ineffective as witnesses to the love of Christ.

To know the mind of Christ requires we know how He loves. If we do not know how He loves, then we do not know His mind. We may have accepted the facts: God created us, man sinned and we along with everyone else are sinners, Christ came to redeem us out of obedience to the Father. But until we understand His love, we cannot really know Him and try to be like Him.

For some, love is a natural response to many circumstances. God has gifted many non-believers with the ability to love; that gift is part of His prevenient grace. But we may be, in our minds, committed believers, without being committed to loving like Him. If we are not naturally endowed with that gift, we have to cultivate it by asking God to shower us with His grace and love, asking Him to make us vessels of His love, to give us understanding of how He sees those around us. For many Christians, for me, loving in that way was the last thing I really understood and am still struggling with understanding.

More importantly, or as importantly, understanding and applying His love is the first thing I lose sight of when the stresses and struggles of daily life impact my emotions. I may still speak or write or read with comprehension about God and His Son, but as soon as I cease to seek to love as He loves, I become just a noisy nuisance to the cause of Christ.

For me, and I suspect for you, having the mind of Christ is an intentional act: praying in supplication daily in a quiet time; praying to act lovingly in circumstances that cause me to want to do anything but act lovingly; seeking to take an eternal perspective on things that seem so important now but that will have little significance in just a day or two except for the relational benefit or damage that can be done in the moment.

When Christ told us in Matthew to "seek first His Kingdom" I believe He meant the most significant aspect of that seeking was to know His mind, to view others as He sees them, and to change our conduct to so that we are vessels for His love. Do we risk being used by others if we do that? Absolutely. Will it matter in eternity? Well, yes, if we are self-protective and do not love for fear of being used, we will be ignoring the needs of others. Christ was used by all mankind; if He had been self-protective, we would have no hope at this point, Paul would not have had the Damascus road experience, would not have written First Corinthians, and I would not be writing this. Might we enable someone to be irresponsible and cause themselves harm? Yes, and we should guard against that; but first I have to check my motive: am I protecting another from harm or protecting myself from some imagined disadvantage?

Love, the last thing I really understood about Christ, after all the reading and studying, the thinking and writing, love was the last thing I got and am still getting. My goal now is to not let it be the first to go when life is not as I wish.


Pray that will be true for me as I pray for you.

Thank you, Jesus, for loving us first. Help us to love You and to allow our lives to be conduits of love to others. Amen.