Enticing Love

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.

His love endures forever."

Psalm 136:1

There is a light beside my backdoor that seems to attract every bug in the county.  Opening that door at night is hazardous: moths and flying insects of every kind hover around, drawn toward the light.  In the morning, the evidence of their get-together is seen by the carcasses of those who came too close to the glow or by those unfortunate ones who smashed themselves against the siding of the house.  

Just as insects are attracted to light, I am drawn toward God's long-term, unconditional, healing, powerful love.  The difference is, God's love will not hurt me.  Instead, it will heal me, bring me peace, complete my soul and give courage to my heart.  Love is what I've been looking for all of my life.

God's love has a way of giving my life meaning and purpose.  Twentieth Century pastor and author A.W. Tozer said that, "God loves us for ourselves.  He values our love more than He values galaxies of new created worlds."  To love God and to be loved by Him is the desire of the human heart.  When I give my life to Him, His love is manifested in many different ways.  

Come Unto Me

Child Abuse. Terrorism.  Bankruptcy.  Broken Marriages. Cancer.  The world is wrecked and sin has brought death and destruction to God's perfect creation.  Things are not as they were meant to be.  Consequently, man suffers.  

Lying.  Pornography.  Gossip.  Slander.  Cheating.   Cursing.   Infidelity.  Addiction.  Fits of Anger.   Compulsive Shopping.  Idolatry.  Sin is everywhere in my life, threatening my relationship with God and others.  The burden of trying to do right is heavy.  I'm tired.

Jesus understands the pressure I face as His follower.  He knows that I mean well and desire to please Him, but my flesh is weak.  I can't do the right thing in my own strength.  He encourages me to rely on Him, saying, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  (Matthew 11:28) 

No longer am I expected to live up to His standard by trying hard to do my best.  Under grace, God relieves me of that burden as I walk in relationship with Him, depending upon Him to enable me to live in a way that pleases Him.  The burden is removed from my shoulders and placed squarely upon His shoulders.  I then can rest as Jesus fights my battles for me, freeing me to simply receive His love.

As I come to Jesus, I will find rest and my heart will be at peace.

Drink from the Waters

The rat race.  The treadmill.  Jumping through hoops.  Running like a mouse in a wheel.  Working overtime but never achieving fulfillment.  Giving my life to a cause yet feeling empty inside.  Or, as Solomon put it, "Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless."  (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

It's pretty easy to go through life, checking off all the things I think I'm supposed to do, but still feeling utterly unfulfilled, empty and dissatisfied.  There must be more than this!  The world tells me I will find satisfaction in a successful career, riches, family, and romance, but my heart aches for more.  

To try to chase the emptiness away, I change careers, earn even more money, have more children and find a new man, but nothing helps.  There's still a hole in my heart.

There was a woman who understood this feeling of hopeless worthlessness.  She was ostracized by the townswomen.  No one wanted to be her friend and she was the butt of many jokes, the subject of much gossip, the object of ridicule.  She went through men as some change cars; a new one every few years.  Her isolation was so complete that she found herself going to get water in the hottest part of the day when she knew no one else would be at the well.

It was as she was performing this daily household task that she learned what was missing. She had been looking in the wrong places for her sense of fulfillment.  Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  (John 4:13-14)

No longer will life seem pointless.  Instead, everything I do will take on new meaning as I live for God instead of for me. His love draws me to Him as I long for what is missing in my life.  I was created for relationship with my Creator, and as I accept the free gift of salvation God offers through faith in Jesus Christ, my life becomes complete as it was meant to be.  

An abundant life is mine for the taking if only I will follow Jesus and drink from His well. 

Seek and You Will Find

One of the fondest memories of my childhood is when the kids in the neighborhood got together to play reverse Hide and Go Seek.  Instead of everyone hiding, only one person hid and the rest of the players looked for him.  Once a player found him, she quietly and secretly hid with them until only one "seeker" was left.  That person then became the one who hid.    

When I got to be the one who hid, I would find the most out-of-the-way, tricky place to hide where no one could find me.  My objective was to avoid being found.  With God, however, it's different.  He wants to be found.  He doesn't make things difficult or tricky to get to Him.  Instead, He says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)

Even though God is easily found, I am effortlessly thrown off-track.  I may be headed toward Him with every intention of giving Him the top priority in my life when tragedy strikes.  Suddenly, I'm focused on the problem and forget about the Solution. 

Unexpectedly, my health fails and I move away from the Cure.  

Out of the blue, my friends desert me, leaving me all alone.  In my loneliness, I turn away from my One True Friend.

Jesus is the only one I need Seek and I am guaranteed that when I look for Him, I'll find Him. . . and my life will never be the same again.

God is a pursuing God.  His love comes after me, courting me with it's vastness, power and beauty.  I try to resist, but He never gives up.  Out of His great love for me He calls me to come to Him and lay my burdens at His feet, to drink from His fulfilling waters, and that I'm assured of finding Him when I seek Him.  His enticing love brings rest, meaning and focus to my life.  "Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good.  His love endures forever." (Psalm 136:1)

As I begin this day, it is my prayer that I will drink from the waters Jesus is offering instead of trying to find fulfillment elsewhere.

How do forsake my God in the busyness of my life?

When do I stop looking for God?

Unfaithful

"You adulterous people,

don't you know that friendship with the world

is hatred toward God?

Anyone who chooses to be a friend

of the world 

becomes an enemy of God."

James 4:4

Divorce rates are high, hovering around 50% and increasing with each subsequent marriage.  Followers of Christ are not immune to this trend as the same rate of divorce is reported among those professing to be Christian.  As a people, we know a little something about infidelity and unfaithfulness.  I would even go so far as to say that we have made it a way of life.

Reading through the Old Testament, I see many examples of where God says His people have been unfaithful to Him.  Apparently, the tendency to live unfaithfully runs deep among God's people.  But how have we been unfaithful?  Church attendance is trending slightly up, with 43% of Americans claiming to attend on a weekly or almost weekly basis.  An astounding 42% of Americans claim to be born again or evangelical.  Even though 74% of Christians believe that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God, only 48% read it on a regular basis.  

On the surface, it seems like I live in a country where almost half it's residents follow Jesus.  Clearly, looking at the divorce rates and the culture in general,  there is something wrong.  Could it be that we are once again, as a people of God, turning our backs on Him?  Are we praising the LORD with our mouths but our hearts are far from Him?  (Isaiah 29:13)  It seems our inclination towards unfaithfulness is affecting more than just our marriages.

Spoiled Fruit

I have a large section of strawberry plants in my garden.  The vines look healthy and have quadrupled in size since I planted them last year.  I was so excited for harvest time to come.  As I watched the little berries grow and gradually turn red, it finally came time to pick some of the delicious fruit: I could taste the strawberry shortcake.  As I searched through the plants, though, most of the ripened fruit I came across had either shriveled up or been eaten by a bird or rodent. Disappointingly, I collected only a handful of fruit that was fit for consumption.


In a similar way, I can look good on the outside, appearing to have a strong relationship with God and follow Him closely.  When it comes time for the harvest, however, my fruit may be spoiled, shriveled up or half-eaten by pests.  The fruit I produce exposes the state of my heart. Either I am for God, or I am against Him; I can't have it both ways.


I can't be motivated by a desire to succeed and also profess to desire only God's will for my life.  It is impossible for me to say that pleasing God is my driving force yet fail to love my husband and family.  If I constantly corrupt my heart with the filth of a sinful world coming through the television set yet claim to follow a holy God, who am I fooling?  


The fruit I produce will either be from the vineyard of the Lord, or it will be harvested from the dark orchard of my own flesh, depending on who is master of my life.  If Jesus is Lord, then love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will be yielded. (Galatians 5:22-23)  


If, however, I am my own master and lord, then I will find, ". . .loveless and cheap sex, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community."  (Galatians 5:19-20 MSG)   This sounds like a description of the culture in which I live.


Paul went on in this passage to say, "This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know.  If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom."  (Galatians 5:21 MSG)  That's what I call a sobering word of caution for the people of God living in a dark world.  Will I stay true to Him and His ways, or will I get sucked into the culture around me?  


I betray the state of my level of faithfulness to God in the fruit I am producing.

Reckless Righteousness

"It's okay for me to look at other men as long as I don't touch.  I mean, God wants me to enjoy His handiwork, doesn't He?"

"Sure my family drinks a lot, but we don't have a problem.  We could stop any time we want to.  Alcohol is just a part of the way we celebrate."

"I'm free to watch, say and do anything I want to, as long as I don't hurt anyone else."

"When I write the receipt, I'll change the amount I actually collected from you for the car so you don't have to pay so many taxes."

These are some comments I have actually heard from believers and they represent the attitudes and viewpoints of most western believers:  Since we are saved by grace, the way we live our lives is not really that important.

Unfortunately for us, this is a bald-faced lie!  God is very concerned with the way I live my life as one of His children.  As His Word says in 1 Peter 1:15-16, "So you must live as God's obedient children.  Don's slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires.  You didn't know any better then.  But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy."  (NLT)

Just because my sin is atoned for does not give me license to live my life as one who has not been set free from the bondage of sin!  Sin is an affront to God, and continuing to live my life as one who has no hope does not please Him.  In fact, it angers Him.  As A.W. Tozer said, "God's wrath is his utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys.  He hates iniquity as a mother hates the polio that would take the life of the child."  

Recklessly using the grace of God as His permission to continue in my selfish ways is dangerous and destructive.  If I'm serious about my walk with the Lord, I will make it my goal to live in a way that pleases Him instead of just doing what comes naturally.

My level of faithfulness to God is evident in the choices I make, in the words I say and in the thoughts I think.

Wayward Heart  

I can tell when my husband isn't really listening.  I'll be chattering away and he'll respond with, "Mmhhmm. . .okay. . . .right. . . "  I then know he didn't hear a word I said.  His heart and mind were somewhere else, thinking about work, his list of things to do, or an upcoming meeting.  His body is present but his heart is not with me.

As aggravating as that feels to me, I often do this to God.  I talk about Him, I go to church, I attend Bible study, I pray, I do all that I think I'm supposed to do; but my heart is not really with God.  Instead, I'm going through the motions, mindlessly reciting and acting out of tradition.  I can't remember the last time I had a real conversation with Him.  

God had to warn the Israelites about this same problem through the prophet Isaiah.  He said, "These people say they are mine.  They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote."  Isaiah 29:13 NLT)  

The biggest indicator of the state of my heart is whether or not I am obeying God.  If I do what He says, my heart is focused on pleasing God. If, however, I don't give a second thought to what God wants me to do during the course of a day, then my heart is focused on pleasing myself.  I must always remember that God doesn't care how my life looks to others.  Rather, God is most concerned about the state of my heart.  

Another gauge that helps to measure the tenderness of my heart is in how much I worry.  When I fret about difficulties, needs and hardships, I am acting unfaithfully.  Or, as Oswald Chambers said, "It is not only wrong to worry, it is infidelity, because worrying means that we do not think that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything else that worries us."  

If my heart is faithful to God, or at least moving closer to Him, then I will do things His way and my worries will be gone as I rest in His peace.  

I am naturally a two-timing traitor.  Living in a culture that rewards individuality and the pursuit of my own self-interest, I must guard against infidelity toward God.  I will know when I am drifting away from Him by examining the fruit produced in my life, looking at the way in which I choose to live my life, and finding the location of my heart.  In this way I can keep from being a friend of the world, but an enemy of God.

As I begin this day it is my prayer that I can keep focused on you and all that you are doing in my life.

How do I betray the location of my heart in the way I live my life?

In what areas do I have a hard time letting go of behavior that is not pleasing to God?