Burunche’s Blog

1 John 4:18-21 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.

Isn’t that a weird photo to use for a lesson on love? A small branch breaking off from a larger one, exposing a hollow spot in the process. But ask yourself this: why did the branch break off in the first place? If the branches had been perfectly united, would this smaller branch have broken off? And why is there a hollow space inside?

Many of us have come from families where love was completely conditional: You do this, you achieve this, you become this, and I will love you. But if you don’t live up to my expectations, then you are not worthy of love and I am free to break off relationships with you. These relationships are not based on love but on fear of punishment or rejection. Sometimes parents adapt the “You got an A when you should have had an A+” approach, leaving children to feel that there is no hope of ever pleasing their parents and leaving them feeling hollow inside.

Sadly, this process can even begin when children are infants. An emotionally healthy mother will begin cooing at her baby, who will then respond. As the interchange continues, the mother and baby keep increasing their responses until finally the mother hugs the baby and continues her routine chores. But a severely depressed mother does not have the emotional energy to sustain such an interchange. Instead, a depressed mother may interact once or twice with her infant but then stop. If the baby attempts to get the mother’s attention again, the mother will turn away. After awhile, the baby will learn that interactions with its mother are painful and will cry whenever the mother is around. Rather than realizing that the problem lies with the mother herself, a depressed mother will blame the infant and even label the infant as a “touch me not” baby. Little wonder if later in life such a child will find social situations difficult. Early conditioning can be very good or very terrible!

Sometimes children coming from families where love was based on performance find themselves competing with their peers wherever they go. If you have been taught that there is a limited amount of love, then the only way to earn that love is to out – perform someone else. Corporations are full of such people. Sometimes, so are churches.

Many of us are broken and splintered branches. We want to believe in a God who loves us unconditionally, but our early conditioning and a host of bad experiences get in the way. We might even feel rotten and hollow inside. But praise God, it’s not all up to us!

The first thing to know is that God loved each of us before we were ever created. God chose the color of our eyes, our hair, and our skin. God dictated how short or tall we would be and all the other wonderful things about our bodies. Unlike a depressed mother whose attention cannot be captured by her infant, God is a loving Father who has already given us life and breath and who wants a relationship with us.

The second thing to know is that if we will pray and ask God to come into our hearts and allow Him to guide our lives, He will give us His love immediately. Our biggest problem is our own inability to believe that God would really do something so wonderful. And this is where a simple prayer I have mentioned before becomes so important. The only question you have to answer is this: do you WANT to believe in a loving God? If your answer is “yes,” then take this next step. Tell God you want to believe in Him but that you are having a hard time doing so. Tell God that you are willing for him to make you willing, to change your heart and your mind so that you are able to believe. God will never force Himself on you, but if you give Him permission, He will do exactly as you have asked.

It is impossible to truly love someone else without loving God first. We can LIKE someone, but to truly love them through everything is a different matter. But when God comes into our hearts, He begins to change us and the longer we spend with God, the more loving we become.

“But,” you say, “I know people who claim to be Christians who are some of the most judgmental people going! The operative word here is “claim.” Remember, John has said, “If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” Any of you who are parents know that at any given moment, your kids can do something to embarrass you! Right then, you might like to pretend those are someone else’s kids. You might worry that others will think you are a wretched person because your kids can’t behave well. Guess what? Sometimes God’s kids don’t behave very well either. Don’t misjudge God because some of His kids misbehave.

PRAYER: Father God, we want to believe in your love. Help us to truly believe that you love us. Come into our hearts. We give you permission to clean us up in every dimension – spiritually, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Help us to love others as you love us. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1John 4:15-17 “If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him. In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him.”

“Abide in love? John, you are crazy!” Many of us reading these verses might be tempted to have this reaction. We know ourselves well, and we know that many if not most of our thoughts are anything but loving. What are we supposed to do with all this love talk anyway?

Here is the thing: if God was asking the impossible of us, He wouldn’t have allowed these verses to be recorded in His Word. But since God has made sure that these verses have stood the test of centuries, then there must be a way for these things to come true. The problem is us!

The whole matter of loving as God loves is a process, and it begins with Jesus. The first thing we must do is to believe that Jesus really is the Son of God and that Jesus really did live as a man and die for our sins and then be resurrected. “But I don’t know how to believe that!” you might say. I want to believe, but I just can’t do it.

I had a disaster recently! My beloved cell phone took a plunge into some water, and now I am trying to dry it out. Meanwhile, I am attempting to transfer data from an older phone to my current one. Most of the transfer programs demand that you give permission for them to access phone numbers, photos, or other material. You can do the same thing with Jesus. You can pray and give Jesus access to your heart and mind.

 Here is the question: do you really want to believe in Jesus Christ? Belief is not a matter of pulling yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps. You can pray a very simple prayer: “Lord Jesus, I want to believe in you, but I am having trouble doing so. I am willing to be made willing. I give you permission to change my heart and my mind. I thank you for loving me so much that you were willing to die for my sins. I turn my life over to you and ask you to guide me. Amen.”

Once you have asked Jesus to come into your heart and your mind, He will do so. And you might be surprised about the things He begins to show you, things that you need to get rid of. My husband was a foul – mouthed factory worker until the day he asked a fellow worker who was a Christian how to get the Lord into his life. And the very first thing that happened was that God cleaned up my husband’s mouth! No more cussing. Not too long after that, God quietly convinced my husband to stop smoking after 22 years of 2-3 packs a day.

Nobody can predict what God will do when you begin to believe in Jesus Christ His Son, but you will begin to see changes. When God abides in your heart, that means He comes to stay forever. And the longer God lives in your heart, the more loving you will become. The speed of light is the speed of darkness; light drives out darkness. And the speed of love is the speed of hate. Love drives out hate because they cannot exist in the same place.

What do you have to lose? Take a chance and pray, asking God to forgive your sins and to help you believe in Jesus. And then invite God to live in your heart. You will never regret it.

PRAYER: Father God, help everyone who reads this to be encouraged and to take the chance to invite you into their hearts and minds and lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 4:11-14 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.”

Venture onto social media these days, and the hatred and venom will soon overwhelm you! Insults of all kinds appear to be the order of the day – name calling, labeling, reacting to name – calling and labeling – the cycle appears endless and depressing. There is nothing difficult about hating someone; we begin as small children and continue as we grow. (Notice, I did NOT say “mature.”) Hatred begets more hatred.

But God has a radically approach! God loves us! God loved us from the time we were conceived, and that love has never stopped.

Ever watch a little boy following his dad? If the dad takes big strides, the little boy tries to as well. If the dad has a certain way of walking or certain mannerisms, that little boy is going to copy his dad because he wants to be just like him. In the same way, little girls copy their mothers. Of course, this puts an enormous burden on parents! Do an eye roll once in front of your three year old daughter, and when she’s thirteen and challenging you, all you will see is your eye rolls coming back at you! Children copy their parents, for better or for worse. If you live in a small town, people might even guess who your father or mother are just from the manner in which you behave.

If we know God and if we truly want to follow Him and to be known as His children, then we must love as God loves. Remember, light and darkness can’t occupy the same space at the same time; neither can hatred and love.

“But,” you say, ”I am not a naturally loving person!” News flash: NOBODY is a naturally loving person! Some of us are superficially more cheerful than others, but sometimes that cheer is a cover – up for resentments seething below the surface. That is why we all need God to come into our hearts, to clean us up, and to change us.

Cleaning up a human heart is a lot like cleaning up a toxic waste dump. Eliminating all the hatred and resentment, the pride, the anger, and all the other heart sicknesses is a work only God through the Holy Spirit can successfully do. That’s the bad news. The good news is that God is in the spiritual toxic waste clean up business and He has a long track record of success.

As long as we continue to try to do things on our own, we will continue to struggle under an ever – increasing load of sin and despair. That load can crush us and make life meaningless. But if we will ask God to come into our hearts and change us, He will answer those prayers and will begin a work in our hearts that will continue until we go to be with Him in heaven.

We all have choices: we can struggle under a crushing load of sin and death, or we can turn to God, confess that we are sinners, and beg God to help us. God is a good Father, and He can handle anything we throw at Him. If Jesus could forgive the thief on the cross and promise that man eternal life, Jesus can give us eternal life as well.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for loving us and for sending Jesus to die for our sins. We confess that we are trapped in our sins. Please come into our hearts and lives. Save us from our sins. Fill our hearts with your Love, so that we will be able to love all those around us. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 4:9-10 “This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

“BLOOD!!! EWWW!!! HOW GROSS CAN YOU GET???”

 In an earlier age, many people raised their own animals and did their own butchering, and blood was no big deal. These days, many people hate the sight and smell of blood.

In case you haven’t’ noticed, the Bible talks a lot about blood. Read through the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament, and you will find page after page describing blood sacrifices for various kinds of sins for various groups of people. What’s so important about blood sacrifices?

The Bible and medicine both tell us that there is life in blood. From the beginning, God commanded that anyone who sinned should confess their sin and offer a blood sacrifice as atonement for their sins. But how can the death of a lesser animal such as a sheep or a goat or a bull or a dove pay for the sins of men? Only a sinless man being willing to shed his blood could pay once and for all for the sins of other men. Hebrews 2:9 says, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.”

Being an only child is both wonderful and incredibly strenuous! My dad was an only child, and all his parents’ expectations were bound up in everything that he did. My dad was the only hope of his parents, for they had no other offspring.

Jesus is the only Son of His Heavenly Father. God the Father willingly sent Jesus to earth to live as a man and to die a shameful death by crucifixion so that anyone who would believe in what Jesus had done would be saved from their sins. It was the perfect Love of the Heavenly Father that made this opportunity for all mankind to be saved, provided they would accept what Jesus had done for them and would turn away from their sins.

When people risk their lives to save others from accident scenes, from burning buildings, or from drowning, many times those being saved don’t know those who are rescuing them. The rescuers are people of compassion who don’t want to see others suffer. God is a perfect Father and the Source of all love and compassion. If even mere humans are willing to risk their lives to save others, doesn’t it make sense that God the Father would take a risk to save as many of the human race as possible from their sins?

No. Sacrifices aren’t pretty. Crucifixion scenes aren’t pretty. But sin and the evil that motivates it are black beyond description. There are no safe places. Now even in small town America, families are being warned not to allow their children to be in stores by themselves for fear those children will be kidnapped and trafficked. The world is full of unspeakable evil.

When we confess our sins and choose to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord, God sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Romans 8:10 “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.”

No matter how we feel, no matter how far we try to run from God, God is still there and His Love is still available. Jesus went to the cross for each of us. Even if you had been the only person in the entire world, Jesus would still have died for your sins alone.

PRAYER: Father God, we cannot possibly understand the height and depth and breadth of your love for us! All that we can understand is that you offer us freedom and pardon from sin and eternal life, if we will only accept what Jesus has done for us. We confess that we are sinners and cannot free ourselves from anything we have done. We confess that nothing we do is good enough to earn our way into heaven. Father, forgive our sins. Help us to completely turn away from our sins and follow you. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

If you are a Christian, your first reaction to the title of this devotional might be, “Well, DUH! OF COURSE! Why wouldn’t someone want to know God?” But there are those who not only don’t want to know God but who also don’t want to have anything to do with God! A recent post on Facebook showed two smirking people holding a sign that read ” Keep God Out Of California!” Obviously, these people do not know God, nor do they want to know God. They hope that waving signs and performing rituals and other ceremonies will keep the Creator out of His Creation. The fact is that God created California, that He was in California long before these people were ever born, and that after they become old and die, God will still remain in California. The sad thing is that the one place God will never be is in the hearts of those who reject Him.

God by His very nature is omnipresent (present everywhere), omnipotent (all – powerful), and omniscient (all – knowing). God is eternal and unchanging. God’s ways are perfect and just. We humans by our very nature are imperfect and sinful. We may start out the day with the best of intentions, but within a short time, we have already done something wrong or thought something wrong. Without God, we are incomplete.

WHY SHOULD WE WANT TO KNOW GOD? To know God and to love God means that we have a Friend who has promised to never leave us or abandon us. (Hebrews 13:5) No matter how close our friends are to us, on any given day, they might disappoint us or fail us. How many of us have had to learn the hard way that we cannot trust friends with every confidence. We might tell a friend something, assuming they will be discrete, only to find out later that they have already blabbed our problems to several other friends, who have then spread it to their friends, etc., etc. Any human friend can have a bad day; God never has a bad day.

The Apostle John, who probably knew Jesus better while He was here on earth than any of the other disciples, confidently states that God is love, that God has always been loving, and that God will always continue to be loving. What human friend can guarantee love and acceptance?

Some of us were raised in dysfunctional family situations. One common problem is the statement, “Oh, you don’t really think that!” or “Oh, you don’t really feel that!” It has taken me years of prayer, meditation, and learning to grow beyond the statements I heard as a small child. Why do people say such things? People deny the validity of your thoughts or your feelings because they are afraid of them and wish to control their environment as much as possible. Guess what? You can’t frighten God!

Psalm 139:1-4 says, “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD”.

Many of us had parents who had lots of problems themselves. Perhaps our parents were abused as children, so their idea of discipline was quite harsh or totally unreasonable. Perhaps our parents had no good role models, so they were uncertain in their parenting. Perhaps our parents were raised in unloving environments, so they never learned how to be affectionate with their children. But God is the perfect Father. Everything your heart has longed for – to be understood, to be accepted, and to be loved for who you are – God the Father is well able to love you.

You cannot shock God. You can tell God anything, and He will listen and understand. There is nothing wrong with being angry with God and telling Him about it; He is not going to become offended and leave in a huff. You can go to God when your heart is breaking, and God can comfort you. But above all else, GOD IS LOVE.

PRAYER: Father God, many of us have never known a father’s love and we aren’t sure if we can trust you. Please help all who read this to open their hearts and minds to the unfailing eternal love you have for them. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 4:4-5 ”You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are of the world. That is why they speak from the world’s perspective, and the world listens to them.”

Satan is out there and Satan is attacking! Anyone who was cherishing any fuzzy ideas to the contrary has had a rude awakening over the last few months as violence has erupted in many parts of America. Such things are frightening and cause many people to want to hide in a corner. But hiding accomplishes nothing. It has been said rightly that “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for men of good will to do nothing.” No! Hiding is not an option.

But if we can’t hide, what must we do? Ron Kenoly is fond of saying that “Today we are in a spiritual war, and there is no demilitarized zone.” There is no neutral territory; we are either part of the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light.

Once we have chosen to follow Jesus as our Lord and Master, we become part of the kingdom of light. As citizens of that kingdom, we have certain rights, and one of them is the Holy Spirit who comes to live within us. Dean Sherman, who has taught on spiritual warfare for Youth With A Mission for years, says that ‘There is more power in one drop of the blood of Jesus than in all the forces of hell.” While this is true, confronting evil can be terrifying. And that’s where 1 John 4:4 comes in.

Once you have chosen to follow Jesus, you need to read the Bible and to memorize scriptures so that you will have them when you need them. By ourselves, none of us is able to defeat Satan. Throughout the world, there are those involved in the occult who claim that they are controlling Satan, but in reality Satan is controlling them. But when you choose to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills your heart and the Holy Spirit IS greater and more powerful than Satan.

Through the Blood of Jesus, we have the assurance that our sins have been forgiven and that we are new creatures in Christ. Before we chose to follow Jesus, we were actually following Satan, whether or not we realized it. But when we receive Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes to live in our hearts, we have a sure defense against evil. Does this mean that everything is going to be easy and we will just quote one verse and Satan will run away? Not exactly. We must pray, asking God for help and then believe God’s word.

Some spiritual battles take minutes, some take hours, some take days, and some take even longer. But the one thing of which we can be certain is that “if God is for us, who can stand against us? St. Paul put it this way in Romans 8:31-39

“What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God—and He is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The Holy Spirit is greater than any demonic power! Once you are following Jesus and have the Holy Spirit, no matter how much you must suffer, NOTHING can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! Be at peace.

PRAYER Father God, thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to live inside us! Thank you that you ARE all – powerful and that nothing can separate us from your love. Lord, let everyone who reads these words be encouraged to put their trust in you. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 4:1-3 “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and is already in the world at this time.”

There have always been lots of spirits in the world. The Bible tells us that one third of the angels joined Lucifer in his rebellion and fell from heaven to become demons. Some of these demons are territorial; they remain in one area. Other more important demons may range a wider area. There are also angels at various levels of authority. Psalm 103:20 says, “Bless the LORD, all His angels mighty in strength who carry out His word, who hearken to the voice of His command.”

 Who is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity. Just before Jesus was betrayed, he told his disciples, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocatef to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you do know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you.” John 14:16-17 We all are influenced by spirits and have spirits living inside us. If we are following Jesus, if we have confessed our sins and repented, and if we are striving to do God’s perfect will, then God has promised that He will send the Holy Spirit to live inside each one of us. But if we are going our own way and feel that we don’t need God, we have laid ourselves open to evil spirits. We have left ourselves wide open for Satan to manipulate us, and he will!

Some people would like to believe that there is such a thing as neutrality in the spirit world; however, the Bible does not support this idea. Jesus destroyed this concept in Matthew 12:30 when He said, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” This was at a time when religious leaders had accused Jesus of driving out demons by using satanic power. Jesus pointed out that a house divided against itself could not stand and that Satan could not drive out Satan.

How can we tell if we are hearing the Holy Spirit? First, does this advice follow Scripture or not? God honors His Word above His Name and will not go against His Word. Second, does this advice bring peace or confusion? The mark of the Holy Spirit is peace. Third, who does this spirit say that Jesus is? Does this spirit say that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, or does this spirit try to say something less? John lays out this test when he says,
“ Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”

Why must we test the spirits? We are leaves on a tree, easily blown in every direction according to the wind. It is not enough to have a “spiritual” experience; such experiences can easily come from Satan. We must even be careful about our dreams for not every dream is of the Lord either.

In James 1:5 God promises to give us guidance. “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” When we are perplexed as to whether or not a spiritual experience or a spiritual leading is from God, we can stop and pray and ask God to reveal it to us. One of two things will happen at that point: either the choice we have been considering will suddenly begin to recede at the speed of light, or we will receive the peac of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds that this leading is of the Lord.

PRAYER: Father God, help all who read this devotional to seek your face and to ask you for guidance. We thank you that you are a good Father who does not play games with His children, but that you will give us your wisdom if we will only ask. Thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to everyone who believes on Jesus Christ. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 3:21- 24 “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us. Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.”

It was 1521 and Martin Luther was answering a question from Melancthion, one of his friends. It had only been several months since Luther’s trial in Wittenberg and he was hiding out in Wartburg Castle to avoid execution. Melancthion was asking to know which of the traditional Catholic practices were sinful and which were not. Luther answered by replying, “If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach the imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true and not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner and let your sins be strong[or sin boldly] but let your trust in Christ be stronger and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” (The Gospel Coalition)

Here Luther was not encouraging us to “behave anyhow,” as some of my Ghanaian friends would say. Rather, Luther was stressing the fact that no matter how hard we try, we are going to sin, but that God’s mercy and grace are far greater than our sins. We should do our best, realizing that we still will sin but aiming at following God’s will as found in his Word.

In Deuteronomy 6:5 God tells us, “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Now John is advising us to believe in the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another just as He (God) commanded us. Can we love perfectly? No. St. Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 that even the “good stuff” we do such as prophesying, giving words of knowledge, etc., is still imperfect. Only God’s love is perfect.

How do we know if we love God and His Son Jesus Christ? Jesus told his disciples, “If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.” John 15:10 When I was a child, I was very close to my Dad and I worked with him a lot on the farm. Our farm was not particularly safe; there were large animals that could run over me or chase me. I worked a great deal with farm machinery, some of it quite dangerous. If Dad told me to do something, I would follow his instructions because I loved him and I trusted that any orders he gave me would be for my good. Did I always carry out everything Dad told me perfectly? No. There were times when I tried and couldn’t make it happen.

Once we were attempting to give a sow, a mother pig an injection of antibiotic. We thought we had this huge animal safely confined in an A house and Dad was reaching through the back window of the A house to inject the sow behind the ear. I was supposed to hold a slatted gate over the door of the A house so that the sow couldn’t escape. At that time, I weighed 115 pounds soaking wet, and the sow weighed 300 pounds. I nearly got flattened when the sow decided to escape. Eventually, we did succeed in giving the injection; however, it took a wild dash across the field with me holding onto the left ear, Dad holding onto the right ear, and one of my brothers holding onto the tail! And somehow I was the one who wound up plunging the needle into the fat pad behind the sow’s ear!

Why is Luther’s comment important for us and how does it relate to John’s epistle? Luther encourages us to continue to try, even though we are human and we will not follow God perfectly. John also is encouraging us to continue to love God and to follow His commands with everything that is in us. Loving God is just like everything else; in the beginning, it is very hard and we become distracted very easily. But if we ask God for help, God will send His Holy Spirit to guide us and to help us do what we cannot do by ourselves. The more we really seek to love God and to follow His commandments out of love, the more fully we will love and exhibit the character of Christ. But there is an important caveat: We must not become so self – absorbed that we are only looking at ourselves. Actually, the more we follow Jesus and try to follow His commandments of love, the LESS attention we will pay to ourselves.

I have a friend who is a sincere Christian. When you are with this lady, she does not speak a great deal about Christ, but everything she does is done in love. My friend draws people to herself because of the love she demonstrates. And it is when people ask why she is different that she tells them about her Savior who loved her so much that He gave His life for her sins.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for your mercy! Thank you for your grace! Thank you that you long for us to be made into your likeness. Help us to love you and to follow your ways of love all the days of our lives. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 3:18-20 “Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth. And by this we will know that we belong to the truth, and will assure our hearts in His presence: If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things.”

2020 is an election year and all over the world, poiticians are making promises…and all over the world, opposing political parties are pointing out all the ways that those promises have already been broken or are remaining unfulfilled. One cynic was heard to say, “How can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips are moving!”

Many churches have fund – raising events during which people make pledges. But when the time comes for those pledges to be fulfilled, the same people that made such a big show at the beginning are nowhere to be found. (And all the pastors said, “AMEN!”)

During Jesus’ last days in Jerusalem, when he was teaching on the steps of the temple, he told a story recorded in Matthew 21:28- 32 “But what do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first one and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he replied. But later he changed his mind and went. Then the man went to the second son and told him the same thing. ‘I will, sir,’ he said. But he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” “The first, ” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in a righteous way and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.”

Jesus had no patience with professionally religious people who only talked but who did not live out their faith. Matthew 23 records Jesus’s rebukes to these people. Jesus called them “blind guides,””hypocrites,””whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones.”

But are actions enough? No. St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body,a but have not love, I gain nothing.”

How do we know when we have done enough? We don’t. But God keeps the records. Left to ourselves, some of us will wear ourselves out, always worrying that we aren’t doing enough good deeds. That is why John mentions our hearts condemning us. But no amount of good deeds will help us earn our way into heaven. Even when we are doing the very best we can, our motives are still mixed. This is why Jesus came to die for us and this is why we must listen to the Holy Spirit.

If we will pray and ask God to guide us, He will show us those whom we are supposed to help and those whose needs are to be met by someone else. There is nothing wrong with praying about every need that comes to your attention, but you are not God. Only God can meet all the needs of His people. Your job is to channel the resources God has given you into the needs He wants you to meet. But part of your job is also to rest in the Lord. If you fail to rest in the Lord, you will have big problems hearing His Voice because the clamor of the urgent will be howling in your spiritual ears.

We can take comfort in the last statement: “If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things.” God is a good parent and knows us better than we know ourselves. Good parents do not reproach their toddlers for failing to behave like teenagers.

Let us turn our hearts to our loving Heavenly Father and pray.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for loving us and for sending Jesus to die for our sins. Help us to follow hard after you all the days of our lives. Help us to listen for your leading, that we will help those you want us to help. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

1 John 3:16- 17 “By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?”

We have been studying God’s love and the story of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. One legitimate question is this: why was God so hard on Adam and Eve? Couldn’t God have cut them some slack? Did God really act lovingly when He banished Adam and Eve from Eden and forced Cain to become a fugitive?

Many times we want to confuse love with indulgence. God loved Adam and Eve, and He continued to love them after He had sent them away from Eden. But God was and is a just God, and justice demanded that sin be punished. Adam and Eve had disobeyed God. Disobedience required discipline. Who knows how much more evil Adam and Eve might have committed had God allowed them to remain in Eden?

Loving parents are not indulgent parents, and indulgence is not an act of love. Many times, parents indulge their children, not because they love them but because they are busy or distracted or hope that indulgence will buy love. But love is earned and not bought with things. Loving parents discipline their children. Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

How do we recognize an act of love? We look at Jesus. Jesus laid down His life for our sins. If we are to truly follow Jesus, we must be willing to lay down our lives and be compassionate to those around us who are in need. But there are so many needs! How can we know when to help? We must listent to the Holy Spirit. Once we have confessed our sins and have asked God to come into our hearts, He gives His Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us. When faced with perplexing questions, we can ask God for direction and He will quietly impress on us what we need to do. But we must be prepared for surprises.

Several years ago, we traveled to Accra to buy drugs and medical supplies for the Saboba hospital. We had just parked our vehicle when we realized that all four of the tires were going flat at once! This was at a time when money transfers were slow and difficult. Imagine our joy to find that two months earlier, someone had donated the exact amount of money we needed to replace those tires. God had moved in someone’s heart and they had acted, not knowing of the need.

At times, we have been moved to help someone without knowing their situation, only to learn that they were in desperate need and had been begging God for help. It is just as thrilling to be the means of help as it is to be on the receiving end because it means that we have heard God correctly.

God’s love is compassionate, but God also is a just God who hates sin. Because God loves us, he sent Jesus to die for our sins. As John said in 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

PRAYER: Father God, we confess that we are sinners and that your justice would demand that we pay for our sins with our lives. Thank you for sending Jesus to die in our place. We now turn ourselves over to you and ask you to lead us and guide us so that we will live as people of love. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.