Unfailing Love

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 13:8
     "Charity never faileth..."  I've seen a lot of movies recently about older people losing their spouses.  We have had a few members of our church who have been going through this stage in life.  I remember when my Grandma had reached a point where dementia forced her sons to make a decision about her care.  We knew Grandpa couldn't care for her on his own anymore.  He protested and insisted he could do it.  Convincing him was not easy.  Had we lived closer, we could have helped more, but an hour and a half is even a great distance when someone's health is failing.  If it had only been her mind, Grandpa would probably never allowed it, but she was having other health issues too which required around-the-clock care.  He went to the nursing home every day.  He sat with her, played cards with her, talked to her.  She was not the woman he had married.  This Grandma I visited in the nursing home was not the sharp-eyed pragmatist I had known all my life.  She barely knew me.  Her memory was dull, and my Grandma's memory had never been dull.  In her younger years, she had worked for the Civil Service, and if you know anything about that occupation, not just anybody tests well enough to obtain that line of work.  I don't know how difficult the exam may be today, but when she took it, you had to have some smarts about you and she had them.  Yet, this woman who did not laugh as often as Grandpa's jokes, who didn't seem to know her own grandchildren had her husband at her side every day.  He went early in the morning and stayed until visiting hours were over.  I know it was hard for him to go home to that empty house.  His life was a few miles away.  I think of their love, and I think of God's.  It never fails.
     Grandma didn't live long after she was put in the nursing home.  I don't know what else we could have done, and I'm not saying that being put there ended her life early.  I know that she had been a busy, active person all her life, and hours sitting would have been foreign to her, even if it was sitting with Grandpa.   After her three boys had grown, she kept busy.  She turned their basement into a ceramics shop.  She made beautiful ceramics.  She gardened, canning green beans and jellies.  I've yet to taste anything like her raspberry jelly.  She crocheted.  I still have one of her afghans. 

Snuggle by the Fire

Artist: Mary Stewart Cutting (1858-1932)

Image Appears In: The Wayfarers

Date Image Published: 1908

Courtesy of www.reusableart.com

     I don't remember whether she went into the home in the spring or the summer, but I remember that around Christmas time that same year, we were attending her funeral.  The hardest thing was knowing how alone Grandpa would be.  At least he could be by her side when she was in the nursing home.  At least he could bring her treats, or play dominoes with her.  He could hear her voice, he could hold her hand.  Now, he had to find other ways to occupy his time.  He did that for about two more years, and then he went to Glory to be with his wife.  His passing was sudden.  We didn't know he had any health problems and God took him unexpectedly.  Some couples say they love each other, but other couples show it.  My grandparents loved each other.  My Grandpa told my Grandma that if she married him, he would do the dishes every night.  And he did.  It wasn't just a promise he made to get her to wear his ring, he followed through with his commitment.  I got the feeling he enjoyed doing the dishes, because he always sang while washing.  Maybe in his Navy days he had a lot of KP duty and knew the most efficient way to get the job done.  In any case, after every meal, Grandpa filled the sink with suds and washed all the dishes, even when Grandma had a house full of company.  He let us help of course, on occasion.

     As loving and strong as any human relationship we see on this earth, none of them exceed God's love for us.  None of them last longer than God's love.  His love never fails us.  There is nothing I can do, no way I can act, no thing I can say that will cause God to withdraw His love from me.  If like my Grandma, I became a person completely different than who I am, God would not suddenly stop caring for me. While any of us still have life, He will never take back His plan of salvation.  He will never say, "No, I didn't plan for that person to be saved."  When Jesus died on the cross, it was for all eternity.  The love He showed for me on Calvary is a lasting work.  It was and is enough.  As our Advocate, Jesus never goes to the Father and says, "I didn't die for that one."  His love is everlasting, it will never cease.  What about the Holy Spirit?  How is His love unfailing?  He never gives up on seeing people come to Christ.  It is true that He will eventually stop knocking on an individual's heart's door.  If that individual continues to push Him away, He will eventually stop knocking.  But not because He no longer loves that person.  And when one person rejects Him, it doesn't cause Him to give up on the whole human race.  There are other hearts still inviting Him in. 
     As sweet and endearing it is to see older couples still in love with each other, still wanting to be together, their love is not as powerful as my God's love.  Although, watching these dear older saints is potent, magnify that enduring love by the greatest strength, and then you will have my God's love.  My love may fail Him.  My love may fail my husband and children.  But I can never say that about Him.  I will still be praising Him for His love when I arrive in Heaven.  I wish He could praise me about my love for Him.

Bearing and Believing, Hoping and Enduring

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 13:7
     Charity..."Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
I remember a preacher in my Bible college chapel preaching on this passage and saying that this verse was a progression.  In us, it probably is.  It would be hard to endure if I didn't hope, believe, or bear first.  But with God, who has perfect charity, it can not be.  He doesn't ever need improvement, His love doesn't have to build.  Here is what I have learned from these four characteristics about the Trinity.
     Beareth all things...God is strong enough to bear all of our problems.  He doesn't whine or complain about the weight. For Him, the lifting is easy.  Jesus bore the weight of the cross, the weight of rejection, the weight of our sin.  Bearing these things not because He was forced, but because of His love for us.  The Holy Spirit bears with being pushed away, with being grieved, with being ignored.  He puts up with a lot.
     Believeth all things...God believes me to be righteous and holy when I am not.  He believes it because of the debt His Son paid to make me righteous and holy.  Jesus believed in my worth and value by dying for me.  The Holy Spirit believes in His ability to transform me.  He believes in the power God has given Him to make me a different person from what I am naturally.
   Hopeth all things...God hopes every sinner will come to repentance.  He hopes all of His Creation will realize He is the Creator and He deserves our worship.  He hopes that if He allows this earth to remain one more day, then one more soul will be saved.  The Lord Jesus hopes people will recognize that His sacrifice is enough.  Nothing more needs to be done, nothing added.  His substitutionary death on the Cross of Calvary paid it all, and He hopes that every person trying to work their way to Heaven will someday realize that.  The Holy Spirit hopes that the tapping on the heart will open wide to Him.  He hopes the call to the mission field will be answered.  He hopes the nudge to talk to the person in the grocery store about Christ will prompt action.

Jesus stands at the door knocking
Taken from Standard Bible Story Readers, Book Six
By Lillie A. Faris
Illustrated by O.A. Stemler and Bess Bruce Cleaveland
The Standard Publishing Company, 1929

     Endureth all things...God endures His name being used in vain.  He endures people who claim He doesn't exist.  He endures us transgressing His laws and explaining why they shouldn't be there.  He endures people tossing His Words in the trash or burning them. He endures His Words being twisted, simplified, changed.  Jesus endured over thirty years in a human body.  He endured limiting His power.  He endured questioning, ridicule, unbelief, semi-belief in the form of being made a mere historical figure and not the Son of God.  He endured betrayal, beatings, crucifixion, burial.  He endured separation from His Father.  The Holy Spirit endures living in a Christian heart that is cold, indifferent, unresponsive.  He endures getting too much glory for the work in our lives, and sometimes, not enough glory for the work in our lives.  He endures having His gifts squandered or exaggerated. 
     When I see these traits of love, and I think of how marriages are entered into so quickly, thrown away so lightly, exited so frequently, it is clear that we don't understand God's love.  If we did, we would put up with a lot more to make marriage work.  If we understood God's love better, we would never walk past a person without asking about their eternal destination.  We would sacrifice and tolerate more if it would make a difference in a person's eternal soul.  If I loved God like He loves me, I would spend more time with Him, listen to Him better, do more for Him.  He has given so much for me.  He has given so much to me. I am amazed that anyone's love for me could be so perfect.  I can never get into an argument with Him about not loving me enough, about not understanding me, about not doing enough for me.  I might think those things about my family and friends at times, but God can never be accused of it.  Can I ever love like He loves?  I can only attempt.  And even though my attempts will fall short, it is better than not trying at all.

The Whole Truth

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 13:6
     Often I am so busy learning about myself, that I forget it is not the only reason to read the Bible.  It is also to learn about God.  The things God has been reminding me about Himself has renewed me.  Not that He has ever needed me to have confidence in Him, I have always been confident of His love for me, of His watchfulness, of His provision.  I have always been sure of His infallible Word, of Holy Spirit conviction, of the law of sowing and reaping.  I am certain that He wants me to lean on Him, worship Him, serve Him, in that order.  Yet, even though I stand firm on all these, God still shows me more about Himself, not because He needs to instill that confidence, but because when I am confident in who He is, I am confident in who I am.  And honestly, I've needed that a little the last couple of weeks.  I have had inner wrestlings in my spirit.  I have been bearing  weights when I should be allowing God to flex His muscles.
     This has little to do with the verse today, but this chapter has reminded me so much about my loving God.  It has been refreshing to dwell on Him, and not on me.
    "{Charity}Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;"  Brackets are mine.  This seems like an obvious characteristic of God's love.  It is not ground-breaking revelation that God is not joyful about our sin.  In my prayer time this morning I thanked Him for having this quality because it was what prompted Him to plan our salvation.  As much as the Lord Jesus loathed sin, He was willing to come close to it, to have it put upon Him, so that it could be taken from me.  That is true love.  He took hateful, despicable, detestable sin upon Himself.  The Holy Spirit does not rejoice in sin. He does not hurrah every time He has to point it out in my life.  He isn't cheering when the sin I didn't know was there is revealed to me.  He doesn't wave each transgression in my face.  Sometimes it hits me hard, unveiled like a rabbit in a magician's hat, but He doesn't say "I told you so".  Sometimes He shows me in a quiet way, quivering my calm, off-balance steps, which provokes me to see the cause. 
     God also rejoices in the truth.  He is The Truth.  So does He rejoice in Himself?  I know He rejoices in His Son.  Remember at Christ's baptism and at the Transfiguration when God says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."?  He rejoices in His Son, who is the Truth.  In Roman 13:17, Paul says, "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."  He is also referred to by Christ in John 17 as the Spirit of truth.  Very little here on earth or in man is truthful.  Which would leave only one answer as to what truth would cause rejoicing.  Him.  I should rejoice in Him here, but when everything points away from Him, away from the Truth, it gets very difficult.  How marvelous it will be in Heaven when everyone will rejoice in the Truth.  None of us will have hidden motives or secret agendas.  God says charity is rejoicing in the truth, and the only real truth exists in Him. When I rejoice over every sinner who has been found by Christ, I am rejoicing in the truth. 

Courtesy of http://breadsite.org

     I may give my money to many "charities" but true charity is found when I give that money to organizations that give out the truth.  Since there is only one truth, it would be better to invest my money not in humanitarian causes, but in spiritual ones.  Giving money to fight cancer, to save children in the Sudan, to political candidates is fine.  Will we ever find the solution through those?  Will there ever be a day when cancer is cured, children are no longer hungry, politics solves our problems?  I know the answer to the last two.  And while I don't condemn anyone for donating to these needs, if truth is not being revealed through all of these fine and noble organizations, it isn't true charity.  If God allows the doctors to eradicate cancer from the body, but the soul has never been touched, I don't see the cause for rejoicing.  Trust me, I want to see a cure, I'm just saying we call them "charity", but unless it somehow points to God, it is not.  Should Africa conquer malnourishment in every child on that continent, unless each little life is presented with the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have only prolonged the inevitable.  I'm not heartless.  I don't want to see those children die.  But I know that they are hungry for something more substantial.  They need to be filled with the truth.  If all the political bickering subsided, if our nation were to somehow fix unemployment, education, the deficit, foreign policy etc., etc., etc., we might think it time to celebrate.  But in our material health, our spiritual selves would lean less on Him, and more on us.  We would seek our own truth instead of the real Truth.  So as much as I would like to see members in my church family gainfully employed, as much as I would like to see the housing market rise again, I know that sponsoring a candidate to deliver us from these woes will not deliver us from our eternal ones.  I would never discourage anyone from giving to these needs, but we label them wrong.  They are not true charity unless with the earthly cure they are giving out the spiritual one. 
     God does not rejoice in iniquity, and did something about it.  He rejoices in the Truth that was sent long ago to deliver me from my iniquity.  He rejoices in every wayward sinner, trudging with Bunyan's burden, eyes opened at the Cross for the first time.  He rejoices when that burden falls from our backs and He gives us a scroll of Truth to exchange in that Celestial City.  I love God's way, when I sorrow for people in sin, and I give out the Truth of God.  I love the way God loves when I give my money to disease fighting physicians who also tell about the Great Physician, when with the morsel of bread they give out the Bread of Life, when in the political debate they offer The Way, The Truth and the Life.  Charity is God's love in action.  His actions tell the whole story, a story of the whole truth.

The Power of Love

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 13:5
     I have always approached these verses, wondering how I can improve in my love for others.  I have always looked at them as a checklist to check my charity meter.  This week, I have been meditating on how God is all of these verses.  In my prayer time, I thank God for being each characteristic of charity, and why I know He is.  Then I thank Jesus for being each of these characteristics and then the Holy Spirit.  Praising God is easy when you just pray the Scripture and really think about how God embodies it.
     "Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;"
    Doth not behave itself unseemly... God never behaves inappropriately.  He never says a word too many and He never listens to or tells a raunchy joke.  We probably apply this sense of decorum to heads of state or monarchs.  There is a sense of how to behave, what to wear, how to carry yourself.  We think of the majesty of a royal position.  God is all those and never pushes the bounds of indecency. 
     Seeketh not her own...God created us to worship Him.  He created us to fellowship with Him.  He made us in His image.  Yet, most of His Creation refuses to even give Him a thought.  If He were to put us under His thumb, He could require us to worship Him as we should.  But He gives us free will.  And because of that, He allows us to go our own way, separate from Him.  He is not going to put us in a headlock until we cry out "Uncle" so that He can acquire our devotion.  If He wanted to, He could.  If Christ had been selfish, He would never have left Heaven.  If He wanted to do only what He wanted to do, He would have told the Father to have somebody else do the job.   The Holy Spirit allows God the Father and God the Son to receive all the glory, even though He does an equally important work in our lives.  His love for us prevents Him from shining a neon arrow upon Himself to remind us that He is at work as well.  I also find it interesting that the pronoun used for charity in this trait is her.  In other places in the passage, charity is referred to as it.  I am not implying that women have more love than men, but if you think about it, a mother almost always has this quality when it comes to her children, and men are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church.  I just think that maybe this quality in charity comes a little more naturally for women and therefore, God chose to use a feminine pronoun.  Just an observation.
     Is not easily provoked...This is so true of our God.  When I think about the times in the Bible that God exercised judgement upon the earth, He always gave fair warning.  He did not just react to what was taking place.  When He decided to destroy the earth by flood, He had been patient with the wickedness for hundreds of years.  Even after he instructs Noah to build the ark, He gives ample time for people to repent, to choose Him.  He didn't tell Noah and the next day send rain.  When He exiled Israel into captivity, first to the Assyrians, then to the Babylonians, He charged prophet after prophet to warn of what would be coming.  He could have destroyed them instantly, but because His righteous anger is a slow burn, He doesn't punish immediately.  That idea of lightning striking someone when they have done wrong just does not fit in with this characteristic of God.  Jesus was not easily provoked when the Pharisees questioned Him unfairly.  He could have zapped them.  He could have stricken them with leprosy.  If he was a vengeful God, He would have.  How many times have I provoked the Holy Spirit?  How many times have I told Him no, have I waved Him away, have I hardened my heart against Him?  If He was easily provoked, He would just take His presence and leave.
     Thinketh no evil...Some people believe that God is sitting up in Heaven hatching up plans for us.  Some think that He is sketching out every detail on how to make us more miserable.  If God is a God of love, which He is, and these are the characteristics of love, then we know this cannot be true.  First of all, God is not capable of evil, but to even think of Him scheming and plotting gives an evil slant to His plans.  Christ could have pocketed a ledger with names of those who spit on Him, who challenged His deity, who withheld food or shelter from Him.  He could have studied that list and prayed to His Father to allow some unforeseen danger to happen in that person's path.  Instead, when we read the Gospels, Jesus is never praying evil on us, only good.  He intercedes for us, and an intercessor wants our best, not our worst.
     When I think about how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit embody these qualities of charity, it doesn't make me feel defeated.  It might seem that it would, because He is perfect and I am imperfect.  He is holy and I am unholy.  But because He is living in me, His power becomes my power, His holiness becomes my holiness, His love becomes my love.  I have access to this kind of love because He resides in me and so as a by-product, I have His love in me.  I can choose to not use it, but I always have access to it, and that is a thought that fills me with hope.

Charitable

Today's passage:  I Corinthians 13:1-4
     This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.  I would venture that it is a favorite of many people.  A majority of the verses are dedicated to telling us what Godly love is supposed to look like.  We often interchange the words charity and love but they are not the same.  One of the best definitions I have seen for the word charity is "Godly love in action".  We have experienced Godly love through our Lord.  It is hard to explain it without showing what it is.  There is so much in these verses that I think I will take only a few at a time.  I want to have a real understanding about how God loves me, and how He wants me to love other people.
     "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."  This morning as I was having my prayer time, I was really meditating on these verses.  I was praising God for being these verses.  He is the definition of godly love, since He is God.  I was thanking Him for being a longsuffering God.  He is not only waiting for unbelievers to accept His Son, He waits for me to continue to grow and mature into the Christian He wants for me to be.  I'm really thankful He is so patient with me.  I thanked Him for being kind.  Oh, how kind He is.  How can I even begin to explain how good He has been to me.  He shows me kindnesses every day.  He has given me a wonderful family.  He has provided all my needs.  He protects me. 
     I praised Him for being a God without envy.  Jealous, yes, but not envious.  They are two completely different things.  I asked Him to help me to be a person who does not wish for the things of others, who does not wish to be others.  I praised Him for being a God who does not promote Himself.  I was really struck by this, because if there is any One who deserves to be promoted it is Him.  The Bible is full of verses talking about exalting, praising, reverencing, worshipping God, and they all come from people who at the time recognize how great He is and how much He deserves all of it.  God doesn't boom His voice down to us, reminding us that it is praise time again.  He doesn't arrange the clouds to say, "Hey, down there, I'm up here and I want you to worship me."  He could.  He has all the power in the world to do that.  He has all the right in the world to expect it.  His beautiful Creation points to it.  But He doesn't ever ask us.  He isn't "puffed up".  Nor could He ever be, since any recognition He gets He rightly deserves. 
     He does not have to exalt Himself, because when I recognize the characteristics of charity that have just been described, when I think about His longsuffering, His kindnesses, being devoid of envy, it automatically brings me to a place where I will promote Him, I will boast and brag about what a wonderful God He is. 
     I can't articulate appropriately just how much God impressed this on my heart this morning.  I can't because He is beyond my faltering words.  I pray that God will make me a person who is longsuffering (although I will never be as longsuffering as He is), a person who is kind (even though His kindnesses exceed any I even attempt), a person who is devoid of envy, but especially a person who does not seek her own glory.  I pray that if I am able to achieve even a sliver of charity's traits, I will understand that I do not deserve any recognition for those things, because God is the only One who can enable them in me.  If I represent charity in any fashion, then I know it can only be God, because never can I have that kind of love on my own.  He doesn't demand our praise, but when any of us shows His love in our lives, He is the source of it.  When we do something that seems completely contradictory to how a person would react, we are pointing to Him.  We make people wonder how we possibly could respond the way we do, then He is getting that credit He deserves, because it acknowledges a "higher power" to act that way.  When I accept praise for a particular kindness or unexplained patience, then it must not be charity at all, because if I can achieve it on my own, it must not be from God.  True charity has no feigned action.  It has no disguised humility.  It is not doing what ought to be done with an underlying sense of obligation.  If I loved others the way God loves me, I would never do anything out of duty.  I would do it with the love I have for my own children.  And even that, as selfless as it usually is, doesn't quite compare.  Because God loved me enough to give up His only child, and I'm pretty certain I will never be as selfless as that.