Usually when I sit down to pray, after unloading all the things I am thinking about into my journal, I ask the Lord where I should start reading, usually opening my Bible as I do so. Sometimes my attention is immediately grabbed by something on the page I open to, more often then not I hear (internally) the Lord give me a book, chapter and sometimes verse. I guess its a bit like a master teacher sitting down one on one with their student and knowing their curriculum so well that they are able to jump the student around to the different things that need addressing. I feel like that is the sort of relationship we have, where sometime the themes are related to things I am dealing with presently, and other times the themes are new ideas or things I will be dealing with in the near future. There are of course consistent themes, that have run across years and years, and these I consider my life themes.
Ultimately my goal in all of this is to become as much like Jesus as I can, to allow His heart and mind to become mine. I am trying to think like He thinks and see the world as He sees it. I am trying to treat people as He would, and love them as He would. I certainly am a far cry from being like Him, but try to get closer every day.
All that being said, when I opened my Bible today, I popped it open to where I left off yesterday, which was in chapter 5. The first paragraph grabbed my attention and that will be my focus this morning. Here are the verses - 1 John 5:1-5 NIV:
[1] "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. [2] This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. [3] In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, [4] for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. [5] Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."
John's letters always seem a bit circular to me, not nearly as straight-forward logical progressions like Paul, with the exception of John's Gospel. Anyway, in this first paragraph, he covers several themes, including loving one another, loving God, obeying God's commands out of love, overcoming the world, belief and faith, albeit all of these themes are just touched briefly. Each of those thoughts could become major reflections, but today I am just going to focus on the first two verses.
John's first sentence is quite interesting - "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah) is born of God." This really is an explosive statement, in a good way. First, He says EVERYONE who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. We so often like to draw lines of division, separation, delineation according to our beliefs about certain words or themes, but John is cutting through all of that here. He is gathering us all into the same family, God's family. We are all equally born of God. The Greek word that was translated born is the word 'gennao', and its base definition is men who have fathered children. The root of the word would be genos - meaning offspring, family member, tribe and nation. Thus, no matter your denomination, your connection to the Body of Christ, Your earthly race, tribe or gender, if you believe the Jesus is the Messiah, you are part of God's family equally with everyone else!
Going back to the verses, John says our belief, our faith, in Jesus Christ is the point at which we are "born again" into God's family, born of God. Born of - means of His will, and that is not a spurious inclusion, but a very significant point. One of my favorite authors, Graham Cooke, says that God is always previous, as in He has already been in action prior to our getting to any point in our life. Our pastor, Randy Reed, said it well this past Sunday, "God is never surprised!" God is moving in all of our lives, even before we believe, just as a natural father is involved in the birth of their child in a very physical way, at least 9 months prior to their actual birth. In the same way parents await the birth of their child, preparing the house, getting the baby room set-up, visiting the doctor, getting regular checkups and tracking the progression of the development of their child, waiting for the day they are born, God watches over our lives even before we are born into His family! What a great thought! We are not accidentally added to the family of God, but are here because of God's will, purpose and loving preparation!
John continues this thought of being born into a family and adds that if we love our Father, we should love His other children as well!! This is likely where many of us will get stretched, for some of our brothers and sisters in God's family seem very different than us, and may even seem a bit unlovable. Regardless of our personal feelings, we are called to love one another. In fact this is one of the only commandments we have from Jesus. He said in John 13:34-35 NIV: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. [35] By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This command applies to us concerning all of our brothers and sisters in the family of God! Even if they believe differently about a certain topic, if they believe that Jesus is the Christ, they are in the family and we are commanded to love them.
This is actually a VERY big issue these days. We are so quick to disassociate ourselves with those who might differ in their thinking or teaching of one particular theme. We were talking last week, in a weekly men's breakfast that I attend, about the causes of many of the divisions in our Body of Christ. We were talking about the Protestant reformation, the reasons why that split happened, the reason the Church of England split from the Catholic church, the reason behind the great schism between the Eastern Church and the Western Church and all of them had nothing to do with the primary belief of Jesus being the Christ. We have allowed our little arguments and disagreements over much lesser issues cause division and even hatred in our family! What a sad and horrible reality!
I could keep on running down this line of thinking, but I will stop my reflection on this point. I am called to love God AND love my brothers and sisters in God's family. We are all here of God's will and Purpose and He loves us each as much as the other! If we love our Father and His Son, and His Holy Spirit, we must endeavor to love His children as well!
Lord I pray for a rising up of Love in Your family, the family that You begot here on earth! I pray that Your love would fill us and allow us to knock down walls of division that we have erected! Help us to learn to love, to embrace, to welcome all of our brothers and sisters!
Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment