What is love? Part II

The following passage on love is a favorite at most weddings:

"Love is patient; love is kind.

Love does not envy; is not boastful; is not conceited;

does not act improperly; is not selfish;

is not provoked; does not keep a record of wrongs;

finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things."

Some people are surprised to learn that this beautiful passage is from the Bible.  Actually, it is an excerpt from an entire chapter of the Bible, referred to by some as "The Love Chapter" (chapter 13 in the book of I Corinthians), with this excerpt being the most popular portion of the chapter spoken at weddings.  Despite being in the Bible, this passage is so popular that I've not only heard it read aloud at non-Christian weddings, but even at weddings where neither spouse is a believer in God.

I thinks it's great that this passage is so popular even at these kinds of weddings.  But I wonder if either marriage partner actually thinks that he/she believes they can be consistent at living out more than a couple of these characteristics over a long period, especially if the true source of love - God's spirit, or the Holy Spirit - isn't living within them?  So although it's nice for a couple getting married and their audience to learn about the characteristics of what true love really is, living it out is very difficult - even for Christians.

In my previous post on this topic, I mentioned near the end how true love is choosing to stick with and support a person and deciding to serve the needs of that person.  In other words, it is a selfless act of service to another person, even when it's inconvenient and even painful.  Now I didn't just pull these observations out of thin air.  "The Love Chapter" is but a small taste of what the "Book of Love", i.e. the Bible, has to say on this subject.  So no, I'm not some kind of 'love guru', but I'm merely relating concepts recorded in God's word (the Bible) by the source or originator of love, God Himself.

So where am I going with all of this?  Well, since the Bible is authored by the source of love (men did the actual writing, but God revealed to them what they should write), then it should contain the best and most comprehensive examples of what true love is and how we should live it out - whether we're believers in God or not.  In other words, what's the point of having a passage read like the one above on a wedding day with no follow-up on what it is and how to live it out?  An understanding of this could save many marriages from disaster.

I'm sure most people have heard the phrase, "God is love" (I John 4:8), and the Bible is filled with examples that prove this.  Here is what God's Son, Jesus Christ, has to say about the ultimate gift of love to mankind:

"For God loved the world in this way:  He gave His Only and Only Son [Jesus Christ], so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish [spiritually] but have eternal life."  (John 3:16)

So God's gift of love to us is being able to live forever simply by believing in the One He sent to earth for us, His Son Jesus Christ.  One definition I've heard of "believing in" is putting the full weight of your trust in someone or something, in this case in Jesus Christ in order to save you from the penalty of your sins:  eternal punishment/damnation.

But later on in the same book of the Bible, John's Gospel, Jesus gave a command to his disciples during the last meal He ate with them before his crucifixion:

"This is My command:  love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.  You are My friends if you do what I command you."  (John 15:12-14)

There's so much that Jesus tells us about His love for mankind in this passage, but the main thing is that the greatest act of love one can do is to die for someone else.  We've all heard this in many love songs and poems, but it's one thing to tell someone you'll die for them and entirely another to actually do it!  Well, Jesus actually did it, but not just for the sake of those disciples that He was eating with at the time, but for the sake of everyone who has ever lived.

By voluntarily being nailed to a Roman cross and dying for the sake of all humanity, Jesus performed the greatest act of love in history.  I'm sure that other people throughout history have sincerely given their lives in order to save the lives of others, but only Jesus' death meant something beyond this life:  if Jesus didn't die in our place to pay the penalty of our sins, NOBODY would be acceptable before a perfect, holy God and therefore nobody but Jesus would be able to enjoy an eternity with God after their bodily death.  Jesus' death was the fulfillment of God's love for humanity.  There is certainly no better example of sacrificial love than this!

Now that we know what true love really is and who the source of it is, let's relate this to how we should live it out while here on earth.

As I alluded to before, a person is truly incapable of loving another person apart from the help of God's Holy Spirit living within them.  And the Holy Spirit only comes to live within a person once they've been cleaned or forgiven by God.  How is this done?  Again, believing in Jesus to forgive you of our sins is all it takes:  no religious rituals, no regular church attendance, no amount of trying to be clean or perfect, no amount of giving or serving.  If you've done all this and not asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you'll be one of the flabbergasted and horrified try-hards that Jesus describes in Matthew 7:21-23!

So does this mean that only Christians - those with the Holy Spirit living within them - are capable of expressing true love?  No, but it's a whole lot harder to express it without Him living within you!  I guess my real point here is that Christians have a much better understanding of true love because they've read many examples in the Bible of what this is and how to live it out.  I'm not saying that Christians are much better at living it out - God knows how selfish people professing to be Christians have withheld love and even harmed others throughout history.  I'm just saying that Christians should know better because they've been exposed to so many teachings about it.

Even if you're a non-Christian or non-believer, learning to better express true love to others involves opening your mind to some of the lessons in the Book of Love, the Bible.  You don't need to read or believe the rest of it, but the following passages might be of help in learning how to express true love to others:

"Husbands, love your wives, just as also Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her"  (Ephesians 5:25)

In other words, husbands need to express love for their wives in a selfless, serving, sacrificial manner.  I'm pretty sure that God would want wives to likewise love their husbands.

"... husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we [Christians] are members of His body." (Ephesians 5:28-30)

I've always chuckled as I read this verse, because Paul here is playing on the vanity of men.  Come on guys, I'm sure most of you have struck a pose in the mirror many times!  You've either checked out your hair or looked at what effect a workout (hopefully) had on you.  But all this passage is saying is that you need to also get your eyes off of yourself and onto the love and care of your wife.

"To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband."  (Ephesians 5:33)

Even though these last few passages have been geared toward married couples, it is my hope that believers and non-believers have been encouraged by learning about true love and how to live it out with all people, not just their spouse.  There's no question that our world would be a drastically better place if each one of us would strive to show just one act of true love per day.

The Great Facade

I was watching a video a couple of nights ago where some non-believing youth were being asked their opinions about various things related to God. One was, "What do you think about church?" The answers were not surprising to me, because I was also once a non-believing youth who felt precisely the same as they do. They referred to some stereotypes that are common in only a few churches, like the mention of "smelly old people", but other answers were sadly all too common, like "boring", "outdated", "irrelevant", and so on.

On arguably one of the greatest Christian music albums ever recorded, wonderfully named "Jesus Freak", the group dc Talk wrote a song called "What If I Stumble?" They open the song with a spoken audio clip of some guy who says

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

What God has been showing me the past few months to a greater degree than at any point in my Christian walk is examples of people who call themselves Christians but who put on what I like to call The Great Facade. I have been anguished at times how their claim to be followers of Christ could not be more opposite in the reality of how they live their lives.

It is the existence of these people who are responsible for the opinions given by the non-believing youth in the video I mentioned. These people also give total validity to the above quote in that dc Talk song.

Now referring to them as "these people" doesn't imply that I'm looking down my nose at them or having hatred towards them. Sometimes I say and do little things that put me in the same category for a moment and leave me crying out to God and asking about why I was so stupid! But my anguish is for "these people" whose facade is continual, whose outward actions and appearance are put on to hide their actual lack of true understanding and relationship with God/Jesus. A facade that creates a Jeckyl-and-Hyde sort of approach to being a Christian that causes great damage to the reputation of God/Jesus as outsiders scratch their heads and wonder if their hypocrisy and inconsistency in life is what it means to be a "Christian".

Here's just one example of sadly many people I've personally known who've put on The Great Facade. An acquaintance of mine and his wife - both Christian by title - are almost at the point of separation. He wants to make things right again but she refuses, adamantly stating among other things that it won't work between them any more. She has seen her lawyer and is on the verge of leaving. At stake are their three young children who dearly love their mom and dad. She in particular is very proactive at school to make sure her children are doing well and being kept safe from bullies. However, among many measures she is taking, she no longer wants their dad to attend the same church as her and the kids once she leaves.

I cringe at how this woman claims to be a Christian but doesn't realize how leaving her husband will do infinitely more damage to their children than poor grades or a bully's actions could ever possibly do. And I almost gasped with disbelief when he told me that she doesn't want him to attend the same church any longer. Basically, she wants to put on The Great Facade at church to appear as though she's right with God, yet she won't humble herself before her husband to whom she once pledged her life - and Jesus who she claims to believe in and therefore follow - in order to make things work again.

Unfortunately, any non-believer who might learn of these things will only see the hypocrisy of a Christian couple divorcing despite the Christian belief in the sanctity of marriage. And they'll wonder why someone who claims to be a follower of Jesus would take so many actions that reflect the total opposite.

The host of the video followed up the answers of the non-believing youth by re-affirming much of what they said, but he then took things in a brilliant direction by commenting that perhaps the church has given God a bad rap. That for a non-believer to form an opinion of God based upon the mess that humans have made of the church that was created and is headed by Jesus is a crucial mistake to make.

When I was "unsaved", my opinion of God - as you will read about in other posts - was initially totally formulated by the particular "spiritual morgue" that I attended as a kid. It was reinforced by people who didn't have a real relationship with God - like people in the media and in academic circles - but still thought they had God and Christians and the Bible all figured out and discredited.

In other words, I was basing my opinion of God on bad sources of information. It was akin to asking an artist how to diagnose and fix a problem with my car, or asking a medical doctor to help me draft a plan to get out of financial trouble. I was using the mistakes and hypocrisy of believers and the lies and subjective opinions of non-believers to form my false understanding of God.

Now I have no idea how or why God began to unravel my totally false understanding of who He is, but He began to do so by exposing me to the Bible. He did this through books and preachers and teachers - including those on Christian radio broadcasts - who began to show me the truth of God and what a relationship with Him is really all about. In other words, I began to see God from His side, and I was so impressed by the non-religious reality of who God is that I was intrigued and eventually gave my life to Him through His only appointed Mediator, Jesus.

I began to realize how religion is not from God, but rather a means created by people to try to relate to God outside of what the Bible teaches. They have a beef with this-or-that, like the claim by Jesus that He is the only way to come to God and to know God, so they make up their own rules and think that God will somehow honor these man-made substitutes by forgiving them and letting them into heaven anyhow. Such religions include Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.

In the case of some sects that call themselves "Christian", they claim to relate to God according to what the Bible teaches, but they twist the Bible just enough to deceive people into thinking that their beliefs are still Bible-based when they actually are not. Such sects include Mormonism (or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and the Jehovah's Witnesses, and such sects are typically and more appropriately called "cults".

Why have I shared this last bit about my realizations and about religion and cults? Because I want you, if you're a non-believer, to be careful about the sources of information you use to form your understanding of God. Quite simply, if these sources discredit or mock the Bible, or if their information doesn't line up with the Bible, then you should ignore them entirely until you have a better biblical understanding.

So how come so many Christians put on The Great Facade? I believe the #1 reason is because they don't make the effort to know and understand who God is. Because they don't know and understand Him, they don't trust Him and therefore don't allow Him to control their lives. So the root causes of a divorce or financial ruin never get dealt with because the Christian tries to fix these things himself/herself. And these disasters occur in the first place because these people never formed a daily relationship of dependence upon this God whom they've claimed to put their trust in. Doing so would have prevented many of these disasters from ever occurring. So these people claim to believe but they don't actually trust, and this makes their belief very shallow and superficial.

They don't read the Bible themselves and ask for God to help them understand it because they don't make the time and the effort to do so, and then come up with excuses. So they instead listen to a teacher's or preacher's opinion and claim that to be truth instead of consulting the source of truth itself. And when one is not familiar with the truth presented in the Bible, it's easy to fall for teachings that sound biblical but actually aren't. Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses live on today simply because Christians don't know their Bible (and don't understand what the cultic versions of the Bible are and how they differ from the real one) nor apply what the Bible teaches them.

They also don't really commune with God, which means spending time getting to know Him. They resort to prayer during an emergency or to present their wish list; they don't pray to ask God to show them what to do in life then ask for the patience to wait for His answer. They sing at church so they don't look unholy, but they don't mean what they sing nor give their reverence and praise to God because they fear being vulnerable plus looking wierd to their friends.

So on and on The Great Facade goes. The Christian puts on their "Sunday best" but then lives not much differently from the non-believer during the rest of the week. It doesn't help that they watch the same TV shows and movies and listen to the same music, either. And all the while the mighty power of Jesus that is available to work in peoples' lives gets overshadowed by the hypocrisy and mistakes of multitude Christians who've put on this facade and don't allow this power into their lives.

These are the main reasons why so many churches become "boring", "outdated", and "irrelevant". The people are there pretending to know God when they actually don't, so they tolerate and never question all the irrelevant (i.e. non-biblical) religious ritual. The religion becomes a safe alternative to actually becoming vulnerable to a relationship with God that will bring about change and growth. They want change and growth on their own terms even if they realize that God's plan is a much better one.

And the net result of all these factors is Christians that are far too often ineffective and hypocritical to the outside world.

Do you need "church"? Part II

I guess I decided to tease you by waiting until this post before giving my thoughts about whether or not you need "church". Actually, I didn't want the first part to be longer than it already is! So here goes.

If you're a willing, open-minded non-believer, going to a four-walled church might be a good way to learn about God as I mentioned in Part I, but provided only that you're in a good environment. It would be better for you at this point to ask God to make Himself known and real to you, then to ask Him if this is the time for you to look for a "good" church (i.e. biblically grounded) - and of course to ask Him to lead you to such a church! God will lead your heart to the right place for you if you open yourself up to Him and trust Him. I'm confident that He wouldn't lead you to a spiritual morgue like the one I was forced to attend as a kid!

If you're a believer, I firmly believe that no matter what kind of perceived or actual experiences or hang-ups you've had at a particular church, you need to first attempt to find and become a part of another one. And I don't mean make that building the center of your faith, but rather the center of your fellowship.

When Christians decide to shy away from other believers, iron can't sharpen iron. Disagreement and debate and even conflict are the root causes of growth, and sitting at home in your bell jar on a Sunday morning makes you a weaker Christian if you aren't at least spending that time in prayer and Bible reading. If you're spending that time shining your car or reading the financial headlines instead, then your relationship with God throughout the week is probably not a priority at any point, either. And the resulting dryness of your spiritual life and therefore life overall - hand-in-hand with your increasing selfishness and desire for worldly things - can come as no surprise.

Also, by shying away, Satan has you right where he wants you. His favorite tactic is to divide and conquer the body of Christ, and he has succeeded marvelously by making countless Christians think they don't need regular fellowship with a body of believers at or through a local church. What often follows is what I alluded to above, and that is substituting fellowship with pursuing worldly things that have left far too many Christians wondering why their lives aren't anywhere near as satisfying as they could be.

Far more often than not, Christians who avoid attending a local church often end up being a Christian by title only, and not by their impact for Christ on the world around them.

However, some Christians who have had truly frustrating if not severely damaging experiences in a four-walled church still need to attempt to seek fellowship. Seeking this in what I call the "true" church, or with other believers in the body of Christ outside of a four-walled church, is better than nothing at all. These believers could start a home Bible study, or they could attend one hosted by someone else. It is often in a small, close-knit environment with other wounded Christians that they can feel open to share what might have gotten them ostracized from a four-walled, or congregational church.

So really, I firmly believe that everyone needs "church", but frankly for a small few believers this may be best achieved outside the large, four-walled congregational kind that has a label attached to it like "Lutheran" or "Anglican" or "Pentecostal" or "Catholic".

What all people ultimately need, however, is to be part of the body of Christ, that church that extends world-wide across all cultures and boundaries. And again, a person becomes a part of this body once they've gotten right with God, which results from asking Jesus to forgive and cleanse them of their sins, which then re-establishes their relationship with God. Such a "saved" person is then known as a Christian.

And whether a person decides to meet with other members of that body in a congregational church with some fancy label or title or simply in someone's living room should result from earnest prayer and waiting for God's answer on the part of a believer. This should not result from peer pressure, but strictly from what one is firmly convinced that God is speaking to them.

My concern is again with those who say they are Christian but who never make the effort to fellowship anywhere with any other Christians, or at least to extend their fellowship beyond, say, their family. Christians MUST make the effort to be willing to trust God by stepping out and fellowshipping in a broader context. Perhaps you need to attend that home Bible study group that your friend or neighbor told you about, or that you read about on a poster or on the internet.

Whatever means you choose to fellowship, you become like a lake that has a stream flowing into it and another flowing out of it. The new experiences you have with different believers is like fresh water flowing in, used by God to bring about cleansing and change in your life, and this forces the selfishness and worldliness away like the stream flowing out.

However, refusing to fellowship at all, or to not extend your fellowship beyond family makes you like a lake with no inlet or outlet stream. There is no freshness in your spiritual life, so after a while the algae and weeds begin to kill your spirit, and the waters of your spiritual life and therefore your life overall eventually stagnate and die.

So the most important question is really not whether or not you need church, but rather whether or not you need fellowship with other people who believe in Jesus. Although I believe the latter is best achieved in a four-walled building, it is obvious throughout the entire body of New Testament scripture - especially in the book of Acts - that regular fellowship in some kind of group setting is crucial.

Otherwise, you are at the mercy of the devil and your spiritual life will stagnate to the point of no longer being effective for Christ. And not being of effect for Christ means that your existence on this planet is essentially a waste.

Do you need "church"? Part I

I have a religious uncle, who, a few years back was lamenting about the moral condition of a non-believing cousin of mine. Knowing that I was a Christian (though not in favor of religion, which is trying to please God through man-made rules and institutions), he felt he could share the frustration on his heart to my cousin while in my presence by lamenting to him, "You really need church!"

When I was a non-believer, the last thing I would have liked to hear from anyone is being told that I needed church! Growing up, I was exposed to a very religious environment where people showed up to this particular church building on Sundays looking as though it was the absolute last place they wanted to be. Then at one point during the service, they would drop a money envelope into a tray that was passed around.

The people, including my parents, seemed to have the idea that if they showed up just often enough and gave just enough money, this would somehow make things right between them and God. No document or teaching - biblical or non - was ever brought up to affirm that these acts would produce this result. In other words, there was no specific percentage of attendance or amount of money revealed that would guarantee that God would love and forgive them. Nevertheless, these spiritually lifeless corpses robotically showed up, sat through each service, and gave their money with about as much passion and excitement as, well, a kid like me being forced to attend a dry, boring, spiritually dead church!

Now, how do you think my cousin would have responded if my uncle had succeeded in convincing him that he needed "church"? Especially if he showed up in a spiritual morgue just like the one I had to attend as a kid? He would have rejected and mocked God for the rest of his life, assuming that believing and following God would drain the life out of him like it did to the people attending that church.

Do non-believers really need "church"? For that matter, do Christians really need "church"?

First of all, to clarify, what exactly is "church"? Well, to the religious person trying to please God based upon his/her own efforts, it's a four-walled building, usually adorned with some impressive steeple and ornate furnishings to try to prove to outsiders just how spiritual they think they are. To the Christian, however, Jesus explains how the church is His "bride", that it is the world-wide body of believers in Jesus of which He and He alone is the Head. So the church, according to what Jesus says in the Bible, is the bride of Christ. He is so committed to His bride that He was willing to lay down His life for her.

So if this is the case, then church in the truest sense is not restricted to a building. Whenever Christians meet to talk about God, or pray to Him, or to worship Him through songs, it can be said that church is 'in session'. It also doesn't matter what time of day it is and what day of the week it is. Where two or more are gathered in Jesus' name, according to the Bible, Jesus says He is (spiritually) there in the midst of them.

With this understanding in mind of what church actually is, unless someone has put their faith in Jesus (asked Him to forgive them of their sins - "save" them - and to become the Lord of their lives), being told that they need "church" isn't the answer to their problems. Jesus is the answer. By accepting Jesus (putting their faith in Him), a person becomes part of the world-wide church or "body" (not building) of believers in Christ, and Jesus alone is their Head - the only One they need to come to with their problems, and not some priest, pastor, or other self-appointed "mediator" between that person and God.

So what's the point of going to church, then? Well, for a willing non-believer who has been invited (not coerced, forced, or dragged) to a non-religious church building who is presented with what the Bible has to say - and not some set of man-made rules and instructions and rituals and doctrines - that person may come to the knowledge that Jesus is the only way that they can get right with God, or "saved" from having to pay the penalty for their sins (their offences against God). Not by following a set of religious practices.

For the believer, the practice of going to church is surprisingly a very strong bone of contention within the body of Christ. I have some relatives whose relationship with their Lord is deeper and more meaningful than most Christians who regularly attend a four-walled church. I have yet other relatives who call themselves Christians - and I believe they are - but make the excuse of not going to church because of some hurt (perceived or actual) in the past in the form of a church experience where people claiming to be Christians acted in ways that indicated otherwise. Or they get too busy trying (in vain) to find happiness by living their lives like non-believers - following their ways and advice - that they no longer have the desire (even though they have the time) to attend the excellent, well-grounded churches in their area.

Why do I go to church? I realize that since I've placed my faith in Jesus, He has cleansed me of all my sins - past, present and future. This means a realization that I don't have to "perform" to earn His love and forgiveness by doing things like showing up at a church. If I miss a church service, I know that God's love for me hasn't changed a single bit and I haven't lost my salvation (i.e. I'm still forgiven) and my faith doesn't hang in the balance. So I don't go because I have to, but because I get to.

Mainly, I go to church because of the other Christians. I go for fellowship with people more than fellowship with God, because a Christian should be spending the rest of their week in fellowship with God - at work, school, and play. Sunday should be merely the "icing on the cake" of their relationship with God, but too many believers make church the "cake" itself. And the cake doesn't taste too good - doesn't satisfy as much - if they've relied on the songs, and/or sermon, and/or time with other believers to be their sole time with God during the entire week. Dessert doesn't nourish the spirit like a full-course meal!

Anyhow, by hearing of the triumphs and tragedies of other believers, I can celebrate and mourn with them and thereby form strong bonds with them. I realize that if I think I'm going through something unique, there's at least one person there who's gone down the same path and I can learn a great deal from his experience, and more importantly that person can pray for me in my situation. My strongest friendships have resulted from people I have met at church.

Far too many Christians go to church because they think they have to. Often, they're the type who are concerned with image, who worry more about what other people think instead of what God thinks. I've found many people with this mindset to be the "Sunday Christian", putting on a facade on Sundays then spending the rest of the week living no differently than the typical non-Christian - chasing money and career, buying the toys, and living selfishly and for today. They simply show up on Sundays to spiritually 'fuel up' (on cake) and give everyone else the impression that they've got everything all together, spiritually and otherwise. Sadly, it is this type of Christian that some of my friends and relatives use as an excuse to not attend a church any more.

So, do you need "church"? That is, should you go to church? I've done enough writing for now. Check Part II of this post for my thoughts on this crucial question.