Category Archives: Love

Love: Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

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In 1972 Eastern Airlines Flight #401 to Miami was using the most advanced commercial airliner in the world being flown by a pilot with 30 years of experience.  On their final approach the indicator light that the landing gear was in place had not illuminated.  While the pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer focused on the $12 burned out light bulb the airplane crashed into the Everglades killing 99 people because no one was flying the plane.  The moral of the story is: keep the main thing the main thing.

To be distracted from the main thing has consequences. Recently I was involved with a relational conflict between two church planters.  I asked one of the pastors when was the last time he had told his fellow pastor that he loved him, after an awkward silence he replied timidly “a couple of years ago.”   Meanwhile, I spoke at a church that has a history of interpersonal conflict.  After the service the pastor asked if he could walk me to my car to ask me a question.  He asked: “Do you think that it is important for me to tell the individuals in my congregation that I love them?”  At that moment I began to understand the reason for their church’s relational troubles.

Peter tells us our main thing: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 Our main thing is based on the truth that our God is love (1 John 4:16), our message is love (Romans 5:8), and our distinction is our love for one another (John 13:35).

In closing a quote from the poetry of Thomas Traheme:

You never enjoy the world aright. . .till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all; you never enjoy the world . . . [1]

[1] Thomas Traherne, Selected Poems and Prose (New York: Penguin Classics, 1991)

On Loving Well

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The guiding question for my sister Margie’s life and ministry is: “Am I (or are we) loving each individual well?”

We measure what is important to us.  An insight into American Christianity is what it does not measure.   Some noticeable questions missing from evaluation are:  How many of our children are following Jesus into adulthood? Do our people love one another?  How healthy are our marriages?  How many of our converts continue to follow Jesus after 5 years? What is our reputation in the world?”

Love requires us to consider at what rate we can effectively add people to our ministry.  If we randomly keep adding people then we put ourselves into a position where not only can we not love the new people but we also are unable to love those who are already in our ministry, which is to say we can love no one.

To love requires time.  If when I say “I will spend time with you” to a new comer, requires me to say “I do not have time to spend time with you” to someone who is already in my ministry, then there is the possibility that we have become too large.

I can hear some say, “But I thought disciple making and the gospel is about multiplication and expansion?!” Exactly! In order to multiply and expand we must love well.  To not love well is to hinder the replicating process.

False Advertising

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Making disciples of Jesus requires time.  We come dangerously close to false advertising when we declare that we are a church or ministry of “God’s love” and then the people in our ministry are too busy to spend time with one another or with outsiders.  It is hurtful to be told by someone “I love you” and then they do not have the time to spend with you-especially when you need them.  Who has not been stung by family or friends who were too busy to get together? Love cannot just be verbalized but it also must be demonstrated as seen in God’s love for us: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:6-8

It has been said that the gospel declared but not demonstrated is not heard.  Since the gospel is love, I would add that a love declared but not demonstrated is not heard.  The words “I love you” mean little without the action to accompany those words.  Action requires time.  If I have no time then I am not able to act and therefore not able to love.

This then begs the question: why am I so busy? I have wondered if my busyness is an attempt to avoid slowing down enough to realize that either (1) I am not loved, (2) that I do not know how to love, or (3) I understand the cost to love and I am unwilling to pay that price.  It is also less painful to blame the void of love in my life on busyness rather than having to admit that I am not loved or do not know how to love.

Love Limits to Multiply

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To love requires time.  To disciple is to love, therefore disciple making necessitates time.  To make a disciple is to say, “I will spend time with you.” When Jesus said, “follow me” to each of his disciples, he was saying to him, “I want to spend extended time with you.” He who is too busy cannot love and therefore cannot make disciples.

Jesus chose to spend three years with his small band because he was not only going to instruct them about love but he was also going to cultivate the group so that they could experience what it is like to be part of a group that loves one another.  (Notice that others came to Jesus asking to be his disciple but he kept the number at twelve.)

Here in Chicago we pace our growth based on how many people we can disciple and on how many people we can love.  We are surrounded by millions of people and tremendous need so we must be extra careful not to “swamp” our canoe.  At the moment that a group has more people to disciple than there are disciplers they become “swamped.”    The same is true with love, when there are more people to love than our group can love effectively; once again we have allowed the boat to be “swamped”.  Once the group is “swamped” with too many people I am convinced that there is no effective way to “unswamp” the canoe.

Love Limits

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Love limits.  When a man says “I do” to his wife, he says “I don’t” to all other women and when a couple decides to have children they choose a lifestyle that is limiting in comparison to their childless friends.  Recently I attended my nephew’s wedding. Both sets of his grandparents are still living whose combined years of marriage is 114.  I was moved at the sight of a room full of their direct descendants who all love and enjoy one another. We willingly set margins around our family so that love will multiply to future generations. To neglect a marriage leads to divorce and to neglect a child results in a wounded person, which both break the love continuum.

Christianity accepts the setting of boundaries to effectively love our families but for some reason we do not apply that same principle to our ministries.  I can only love a limited number of people, so to choose a disciple making approach to ministry (which in a word is love) means to limit the number of people to whom I can minister.  To not limit the number of people in my ministry is to actually hinder the gospel multiplication process, but if I can remain disciplined and love my few disciples well, in the long run there will be a continual multiplication of love for generations to come.

Disciple Making and Children #2

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Recently I was with a Jewish couple that had converted from Judaism to Christianity.  One difficulty in the transition was the home life.   Judaism had provided for them a template for a Jewish home (e.g., keeping the Sabbath, Passover, and feasts, etc.), whereas Christianity gave them little help on what a Christian home should look like.  (Other than they were told to be sure and get their children into Sunday school and youth group.)  As Voddie Baucham points out, Christianity’s approach to ministry communicates to parents: “leave the spiritual training of your children to the professions.” [1]

God gave the Israelite parent the responsibility for the spiritual training of their child.  To be an Israelite meant to train children for a lifetime-not only were they expected to teach their own children but also their grandchildren.  “…teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (Deuteronomy 4:9-10)

Since God is familial (Father-Son-Holy Spirit) the best environment for a child to learn and experience the nature of God is in a family.  Are there benefits for a child in attending Sunday school, children’s ministry, vacation bible school, and youth group? Sure.  But the best context for him to experience sacrificial love, belonging, grace, and a servant’s heart is in a home.  Here, day after day, year after year, a child learns what it means to belong in a family just as the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are in perfect union.

[1] Voddie Baucham  http://media.sermonindex.net/15/SID15607.mp3

 

When Your Disciple Dramatically Fails #4

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The story of Peter’s denial and restoration is given a significant place in the biblical narrative.  It presents for us the forgiving nature of Jesus, even after being blatantly betrayed by a friend, and provides an example on how we are to relate to and forgive our own disciples.   We are even allowed to witness an intimate interchange between Jesus and Peter after his denial. (John 21:15-19)

Disciple making is a love relationship between a discipler and his disciple. Intimacy is formed between individuals by a familiarity with the deepest nature of one another.   Your disciple’s failure is an opportunity to bind your hearts together because it reveals his heart to you and your response to his failure reveals your heart to him.

In some cases the failure could have happened years ago, but his sharing of that failure with you is a significant event and should be handled carefully.   Shame has a long powerful grip; therefore it is important that you respond with tenderness, forgiveness, and affection.  He probably has had a hard time believing that he is forgiven by God or others and an even more difficult time forgiving himself.

I am able to forgive others not only because God has forgiven me through the death of Jesus, but because Jesus has paid for the sins of others that were committed against me.  (Jesus has paid the punishment for all your disciple’s sins, even the sins against you.)  John writes:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:10-11)

The height of hypocrisy is to expect God and others to forgive me while I refuse to forgive others or myself.

When Your Disciple Dramatically Fails #3

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There is no simple formula for making disciples.  The Modern Western approach would like for you to think that to mix the right ingredients, at the right time, will result in a disciple.  I am humored at publishers trying to simplify the disciple making process into a step-by-step curriculum.  Disciples are made as a result of the triadic relational interaction between the disciple, discipler, and the Holy Spirit.  These relationships are complex, mysterious, and often risky; this is why many would rather choose a safe, non-relational approach to ministry.  Programs can be done without a relationship, disciple making cannot.

The bond of love between you and your disciple will not only draw you into his failures, but you may find yourself the object of his failure, even as Jesus was the object of Peter’s betrayal.  If Jesus’ disciples brought him pain, what makes me think that my disciples will not hurt me?  If Paul’s disciples brought anxiety and disappointment to his life, what makes me think that I will not experience the same questioning and betrayal?

Forgiveness is the nature of God and therefore an important lesson for your disciple to learn.    A disciple learns how to forgive by being forgiven by his discipler, just as Jesus forgave Peter after his very public failure.  (I can hear Jesus’ critics saying, “What kind of teacher is this Jesus guy anyway?  Look!  Even his own disciples have betrayed him!” ) To lay down your life for your disciple is to open yourself up to hurt, pain, and maybe even public ridicule.

Though we were an enemy of God, he took the initiative in seeking an adoptive relationship with us to become his children.  Paul writes: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). Your disciple’s behavior may not deserve your love, but that is beside the point.  Love reaches out to her enemies and to those who betray her.

A couple of closing thoughts:

  1. Your forgiveness of your disciple is an opportunity for him to understand the forgiveness and love of God.
  2. You are able to forgive your disciple because Jesus paid for his sin on the cross.  (Even his sin against you.)
  3. To Parents.  Children are a disciple of their parents.  Your child will fail somewhere along the way and bring you heartache, disappointment, and possibly public shame.  You are to forgive as Jesus forgave Peter.  (Be aware.  Your other children are watching how you handle the failure of their siblings.)

When Your Disciple Dramatically Fails #2

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Making disciples requires patience.  Not only is the process slow but your disciple will have setbacks along the way.  Often these failures do not occur until months or even years into the relationship.  I find encouragement in the fact that Peter failed even after spending three years with Jesus.  Here he had received life giving instruction, he had experienced a selfless love, he had belonged to a dynamic community, he had tasted personal ministry successes, and he was an eyewitness to many miracles.  If anyone should have “known better” it was Peter.

A disciple’s failure is not a disruption to disciple making, rather it is a crucial part of the process.  The Holy Spirit puts together perfect circumstances with precise timing in order to test the faith of your disciple.  As Fenelon wrote over 300 years ago:  “God’s way accomplishes His purpose quicker than anything you could think of.  God is able to seek out and destroy the roots of self love.  You, on your own, could never find those hidden roots…” [1] A discipler joins the Holy Spirit during these tests to instruct and demonstrate the grace of God in order to strengthen the faith of his disciple.

Rather than disqualifying your disciple, his worst failure serves as a reference point for the grace of God throughout his life.   I doubt the sting of his denial of Jesus ever left Peter.   The grace of God does not erase the memories of our sin rather it uses memories to channel our thoughts and emotions to the love of God.  A disciple’s failure gives him a benchmark of the depth of the mercy God.  No matter how deep his failure the love of God goes even deeper.

It was out of his experience of failure and restoration that Peter could write 30 years later:

“…You may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith…may be proved genuine…” (1 Peter 1: 6 &7)

[1] Fenelon, Francois The Seeking Heart (Jacksonville: Christian Books Publishing House, 1992) p. 10.

 

Generational Love

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Lois Synder died this year, she was 96.  Mrs. Synder taught my 2nd grade Sunday school class and directed our Christmas pageant each year at the Christian Fellowship Church. I attended her memorial service with my mom and dad in the same auditorium where in 1952 Lois had decided to follow Jesus.  When the Synder family walked into the service that afternoon I was moved.  Before us stood 3 generations who follow Jesus nearly 60 years after Lois’ conversion.

In the service family and friends shared their memories of Lois.  It was in these stories that we discovered the reason why her family still follows Jesus today: Lois loved well.  She so loved her children and grandchildren in their formative years that this love overflowed to her great grandchildren.  Not only did Lois love her family, but each week she would load her car with teaching materials and go share the gospel with children living in the inner-city.

Lois’ seemingly endless ability to love others flowed from her understanding of God’s love for her grounded in the cross of Jesus.  God’s love for me will not be found in my circumstances, my heritage, my abilities, or my position, rather it is anchored in the truth that Jesus died for me.   “. . . God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

God shows me how to love others in Jesus’ death for me.  John writes: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 1 John 3:16-17” Once I begin to grasp the depth of God’s love for me, I am then able to love others in sacrificing my life for them.  It will cost me to love my mate, my children, my friends, and my disciples.

How silly a question it would seem if we could ask Lois today, “Was it worth it?”  I can only imagine the joy in her heart in seeing 3 generations loving God and loving one another.