We Might As Well Get It Right…This Time!
My hope is that each of us will come to appreciate the way God designed us. We are people who are ultimately dependent on Him for any and all resources to meet our needs, but we are also built with the capacity to meet needs for others. Another way to think about it is through Jesus’ words: “Freely you have received; freely give.” (Matthew 10:8) In this passage Jesus was sending His disciples out to do miracles that He had empowered them to do. I believe the application to us is personal and real.
God is the source of “every good gift and every perfect gift” and the One Who supplies “everything we need for life and godliness”. He is also the One Who supplies “everything we need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus”, as well as, the One Who “give us life and breath and everything else we need”. (James 1: 17, 2 Peter 1, Philippians 4:19, and Acts 17:25)
Since Jesus empowered the early disciples to do miracles of healing and resurrection and showed a skeptical culture the power of God at work, why wouldn’t He demonstrate His miracle power through us today? Answer? He does! A skeptical culture may be awakened by miracles. But not all miracles involve physical healing. Maybe the miracles of changed lives in born-again believers, who live increasingly in the love and truth of Jesus, are the miracles God has “freely given” so we can “freely give” real-time examples to a world where love is growing cold.
Seems consistent with scripture, doesn’t it! If you have time this week among all the other things you are doing, would you take some time to listen to or read this article by Henry Drummond, a 19th century author, scientist, and Christian leader:
https://librivox.org/the-greatest-thing-in-the-world-and-other-addresses-by-henry-drummond/
Let’s face it! Our world is starving for authentic love. Oh, there are plenty of examples of “reality shows” all right, but they are not the reality most of us want to experience. We need to demonstrate the reality of people who love the way Jesus commands and illustrates.
You are welcome to challenge my logic and my conclusions, but every day I live, I see a world desperate to find answers to a few simple questions. So many search for so long and come up empty. We ask questions such as the following:
Will my spouse and yours see the authentic love of God “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” as we do life together?
Will our children see a father who loves their mother as “Jesus loves the church and gave Himself up for her”?
Will younger women watch wives respond in faith to God and respect to husbands in ways that illustrate the way the Church is to respond to Jesus Christ Who is the Head?
Will younger men watch husbands respond in faith and obedience to God loving their wives as Christ loved the church and “gave Himself up for her”?
Will we give to the current and future generations another failed illustration of the most wonderful, the most important human relationships of marriage and family or will they finally see a revived Church filled with wonderfully real examples of couples and families actually doing what Paul told Timothy – I Timothy 4:15 – “let the people see your progress”?
We may never show the perfect love of Jesus, but we can by God’s grace show a much more authentic love than many of us have seen up to this point.
Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what your spouse wants? Isn’t that what your children and a waiting world actually need most? Let’s fulfill the Great Commission from a position that actually synchronizes our message with our example. Let’s live a Great Commission life from a Great Commandment heart….starting at home.
