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God loves us and wants us to be happy. This is the great truth that Paul wants his readers to know and take to heart, and he prays that this reality will grip all believers in Christ in the book we know as Ephesians. He specifically prays that followers of Jesus may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. I teach a Bible class at a local drug and rehabilitation center in Tlacolula, Mexico, and we studied this passage on Monday. I suspect that many of them had trouble believing that God could love them when they consider the terrible things that they had done under the influence of drugs and alcohol, the people that they hurt and the relationships that were destroyed. The apostle Paul could understand these doubts. Before he experienced the incredible love of God, he hated Jesus, wanted to kill his followers and destroy the church. So it didn't make any sense that God could love him. He is right. It doesn't make sense that God could love any of us. Scripture says that we are all rebels, enemies and sinners against God. That is probably why Paul writes in verse 19 about this love that surpasses knowledge. It is impossible for us to wrap our minds around the fact that God loves us. And not just a little bit. His love for us is incredibly wide and long. Unbelievably high and deep. It will take us a lifetime to begin to “grasp” God's great love for us. In this passage (3:14-21), Paul mentions the word “power” three times. It is only with the power of God, through the Spirits indwelling of our hearts, that we can appreciate his love for us and be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Imagine that, you and me, filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now that should make us happy!
God loves us and wants us to be happy. I discussed this with the men at a drug and rehab center in Tlacolula, Mexico, yesterday. I am leading them on a study of Ephesians, and in this book, especially chapter two, Paul makes the fact of God’s love for us abundantly clear.
Ephesians 2:4 says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions.
Ephesians 2:7-8 talk about two other aspects of God’s great love, that is his “incomparable riches of grace” and his “kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
The result of his great love is that we are happy!
We are happy because we were dead spiritually, and are now alive.
We are happy because God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms (6).
We are happy because we have been saved by grace through faith (8).
We are happy because we are God’s work of art created to do good works(10).
This Valentines Day we can enjoy pink hearts, red roses and dark chocolates, emblems of the love humans have for one another, but we should celebrate, rejoice and be glad in God’s great love, rich mercy and incomparable grace that will never fade away.
“Mejor de lo que merezco.” That was the answer Enrique gave me when I asked him, “How are you?”
“Better than I deserve.”
Enrique was the leader of prison ministry here at the Home For Needy Children in Oaxaca, Mexico, where we minister to a lot more than needy children. He was in his late sixties and in good health. In his seventies his health began to deteriorate and he started to have a lot of physical problems. They got so bad that he had to dramatically cut back his visits to the prison.
My wife and I went to visit him a few weeks ago. Now, in his early eighties, he talked about blood in his urine, prostrate cancer, recent surgeries and showed us a swollen leg. Yet, when we arrived and I asked him “Como esta?” (How are you?), he gave me the same answer he always gives anyone who asks him that question, “Mejor de lo que merezco.” (Better than I deserve.)
I love that answer and use it myself on occasion. It is a very biblical answer. No matter how good or bad we feel, behave, or think, we are always treated by God way better than we deserve.
We deserve punishment. We deserve condemnation. We deserve eternal fire and the worm that does not die. We deserve a crown of thorns on our head and nails piercing our hands.
At least that’s what the Word of God says. God commands us to “be holy as I am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2) God commands us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourself. (Matthew 22:37-39).
We dreadfully fail to obey these commands and thus deserve to suffer the wrath of God. Paul, in Romans three pours gas on the fire by exclaiming:
There is no one righteous, not even one.
There is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away, they have together become worthless.
There is no one who does good.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Most people look at themselves and think that they are pretty good. They compare themselves with others and declare, “I’m not that bad!” I do a lot of good things to help people so I deserve a reward from God and man.
But when we compare ourselves with the Judge, God Almighty, we fall dismally short of what he wants from us and deserve to be punished.
Lamentations 3:22-23 happily tells us that “Because of the LORD’S great love we are not consumed, for his mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Mercy means not getting what we deserve. Mercy means not being punished. Mercy means not suffering the wrath of God. Mercy means not being condemned. Mercy means not being consumed. Jeremiah comforts God’s people by letting them know that God’s mercies are new every morning, which is great news because we sin and disappoint God every morning, every minute, every moment, and we desperately need his mercy!
So, “How are you?” I bet you are better than you deserve. I certainly am.
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Have you experienced complete joy lately? Full joy? Today is Memorial Day. Maybe you are hoping for a day full of happiness with a big barbecue with friends and family or a day at the lake relaxing and playing with the kids.
Jesus tells us how to get and keep complete joy in John 15. It is simple. “Keep my commands” he says. Ok, maybe not so simple, especially when Jesus elaborates and declares in verse 17, “This is my command: Love one each other.”
Well, that explains why there is so little joy in the world. There is an extreme lack of loving one another. We are so busy loving ourselves that we don’t do a lot of loving one another and so we don’t experience a whole lot of joy, not to mention complete joy.
Complete joy. We all like the sound of that. Not partial joy. Not a little taste of happiness and pleasure (which is one definition of joy), but an unending feast of complete joy. We all have different ideas about how that might be attained and how we might possibly keep it. Most of our ideas are wrong.
Jesus describes what love looks like in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Love is sometimes extreme inconvenience and interruption. Sometimes it’s costly and dirty. It is always helping someone in need. Sometimes it’s someone we don’t agree with and don’t really like. Love isn’t liking someone. Love is helping someone who really needs help.
That kinda love sounds kinda crazy. Sounds a bit difficult, or a lot difficult. It is, but it is well worth the complete joy that comes with it, or after it. What Jesus endured on the cross while suffering shame, pain and rejection, didn’t give him a lot of joy. But Hebrews tells us that he endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. Sometimes we have to endure a lot in loving others so that we can experience the complete joy that Jesus is talking about it John 15.
I came to Mexico 14 years ago to help needy children. Children that have been abused, abandoned, neglected, rejected and left to die on the roadside of life. I work with a group of like minded Christians who are cooperating with God and Foundation For His Ministry in making this world a better place by helping the poorest of the poor in Oaxaca, Mexico. It’s not always easy. We don’t always get along or agree on the best way to help the least of these in this part of the world. We fail in some way everyday, but because of the grace and mercy of God we can experience complete joy. I have never been happier in my life.
Jesus promises complete joy, full happiness, when we love each other as Jesus loves us. Sometimes it hurts. Many times it can be unpleasant, but in the end it is worth it. Take a chance on that kind of love, and see what happens.
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Miriam-Webster Definition of Cretan – a stupid, vulgar, or insensitive person:clod,lout
At church on Wednesday nights we have been studying Paul’s letter to Titus. Most of
the letter talks about what is good. Love what is good. Teach what is good. Be an example of what is good. Be eager and ready to do what is good. Learn what is good.
At the end of chapter one, Paul writes about a group of people who are incapable of doing what is good. Those people would be the Cretans. Paul quoted a Cretan philosopher who, talking about his own people, says that Cretans always lie, are brutes and lazy gluttons.
This is somewhat unfortunate for Titus as he is on the island of Crete, ministering to said Cretans.
I have been doing some thinking about those Cretans. I have come to love the Cretans. Why? First of all, God did not take a pass on the Cretans. He didn’t say that those good for nothing Cretans are hopeless and that it’s a waste of time, effort and resources to share the Gospel with those people. No, he had Paul doing some evangelizing there. Some were converted and became followers of Jesus. When Paul had to leave the island, he put his trusted companion and son in the faith, Titus, to continue the work. Then Paul wrote him this letter instructing him what he needed to do to establish a strong church there.
The take away here is that no matter how bad the Cretans were, God loved them and wanted them to be happy by radically changing the way that they thought about right and wrong, good and bad, God and man.
The second reason I love the Cretans is that I was a Cretan, and sometimes still act like one. In fact, according to Scripture, we are all cretanish until we start walking in the Way of Christ and with Christ. Colossians 1:21 says that “once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” Until our spiritual eyes are opened and we are illuminated to the Truth of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we are all just a bunch of Cretans. Ephesians two says that we were all dead in our sins, until Christ Jesus made us alive. Another way to say that is that we were all Cretans. We were all liars, brutes and lazy gluttons.
We were all liars, and mainly lied to ourselves. We told ourselves that we were pretty good people and deserved to go to heaven.
We were all brutes. The dictionary says that a brute is a cruel, unpleasant or insensitive person. In one way or another we all acted cruelly in that we were insensitive to those that were different from us. To those that offended us we wished in our hearts pain and destruction on them. Sometimes we could even feel that way toward our own family members. Jesus said that as we think in our hearts, that’s the way we really are. While we may not have killed anyone, we have hated and cursed others and acted unpleasantly toward others.
We were all lazy gluttons. We were lazy in that we made no effort to know God, to serve God, to follow God. We were gluttons in the sense that we continually fed our pleasures, feasted on what we thought was good for us, with little or no concern for others. We dined without stop on the lusts of our flesh, the lusts of our eyes and the pride of life.
We were all just a bunch of Cretans, until the day that God rescued us from that slimy pit of existence, and forgave us, redeemed us and adopted us as his dearly loved children who could now live joyfully in right relationship with the Father.
Thank you God for not giving up on Cretans!
The most significant aspect of the Happy Kingdom of God is LOVE. I read in my morning
devotions Psalm 147. Verse 11 says, “the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” It all starts with the Kings love for his subjects. For his children. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1). The King is a merciful Savior. “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4,5).
When our spiritual eyes and hears are opened to this marvelous love, our natural inclination is to attempt to love God back with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We know we will be happier if we do that. We fail at that attempt everyday, but the fact that we desire to love God with all of our being is what sets Christians apart from non-Christians. Jesus teaches us to pray to our loving Father everyday, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. And in great love and mercy he does forgive us.
What about hate. With our loving God is there room for hate? Actually there is. The Bible tells us that God hates! What does he hate? Proverbs 6:16-19 says, “There are six things that God hates, seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes
a lying tongue
hands that shed innocent blood
a heart that devises wicked schemes
feet that are quick to rush into evil
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”
Also Psalm 5:4-6
“For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness;
with you, evil people are not welcome.
The arrogant cannot stand in your presence.
You hate all who do wrong;
you destroy those who tell lies.
The bloodthirsty and deceitful you, LORD, detest.”
Some people say God loves the sinner but hates the sin. According to these passages God hates some people – A false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. I live in a Christian community and I can understand why God would hate these two types of people.
He also seems to hate all who do wrong, according to David in Psalm 5. Then he must hate me, because sometimes I do wrong. But David goes on to say in verse seven, “But I, by your great love, can come into your house; in reverence I bow down toward your holy temple.” He seems to be saying that what is your hearts desire is important. In fact it makes all the difference. If your heart desires to do wicked, evil, wrong things, then God hates you. If your heart desires to fear and show reverence to God, then he loves you.
We should love the things God loves and hate the things God hates, if we want to be Godlike, if we want to honor and glorify Him and enjoy Life in the Happy Kingdom.
“Because they love me”, says the LORD, –
I will rescue them
I will protect them
I will answer them
I will be with them in trouble
I will deliver them
I will honor them
I will satisfy them with long life
I will show them my salvation
Psalm 91
God, open the eyes of our hearts to get a glimpse
of the height and depth and length and width of your
immense love for us,
and then help us to spread it around.
God loves us and wants us to be happy –
Christmas season and all year round!
To Enjoy God 