Tag: love

Ambassadors for Christ

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“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” -2 Corinthians 5:20 (1)

Paul used the idea of an ambassador, to remind the early church that God works through each of us as an extension of Himself to others. Therefore, it’s important that we recognize this vital role in our relationship with God and with those around us.

An ambassador in today’s world is a diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to another country. An ambassador will take up residence in a host country, and while there, they must be conscience of how they conduct themselves at all times. What they say, and how they respond to various situations are all reflections of their home country. In all they do, they seek to represent their country to the highest standards possible.

To follow Paul’s analogy, that we as believers are Christ’s ambassadors, simply means that we as believers, are in a way extensions of God’s ministry here on Earth. In simple terms, what we say and do in everyday life matters. Why? Because our actions might be the only positive testimony about how much God loves us, that other people see. Not everyone will step foot in a church to learn of God’s love and grace. In a way, you are the church to the world around us.

Being an ambassador is a tough job. As believers we are not called to take the easy path, but to take the sure path of Truth.(2) The gate that opens to the path of Truth is a narrow one, and it’s not always an easy one. Yet the Lord calls us to a life that reflects His character and nature.

All of this raises a question: As ambassadors, what type of traits should we be living out each day that best represents our Heavenly Father?

Fortunately, the Bible provides many examples. In one example; the Apostle Paul identified a number of these Godly character traits in a letter he penned to the early churches in the region of Galatia.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (3)

Paul wanted the early church to be known for these qualities, to live them out in their everyday lives.

On a personal life application level, the implications for me is that when someone wrongs me, or slights me, or even puts my character in question, I no longer have the liberty to respond in like manner. Rather, I need to consider how Jesus would respond and take the higher road. In such cases, He would no doubt trust his Heavenly Father for the outcome; and He would extend love and grace towards the one who offended me.

In fact, more often than not, I should be praying for those that have offended me and at the same time praying for myself, allowing the Lord to humble me and bring compassion and forgiveness to my heart, instead of coldness and blame. I need to seek His ways to love the very person that’s wronged me.

In this way, we become “Christ’s ambassadors.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright FullLifeWord 2016

 

References:
(1)The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), 2 Co 5:20.

(2)The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ga 5:22–23.

(3)The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Mt 7:13–14.

Notes:
Currently the U.S. has 180 Ambassadors in service, only the president with approval of the senate can nominate an ambassador, six have died due to acts of terror, most recently Chris Stevens Libya Benghazi, Libya September 12, 2012. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassador)

Defined: an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to a foreign country. (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ambassador)

For God has chosen to extend his work in Christ through “Christ’s ambassadors,” making his appeal through them to those who do not yet participate in the new creation to be reconciled to God (v. 20).
Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, vol. 3, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995), 2 Co 5:11.

 

The Essence of Prayer

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“Do not be anxious about anything but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” -Philippians 4:6

 “In the stirring chapter in which Sir Ernest Shackleton tells of the loss of his ship among the ice-floes, he describes an incident that must have set all his readers thinking. In the grip of the ice, the Endurance had been smashed to splinters; and the entire party was out on a frozen sea at the mercy of the pitiless elements. Shackleton came to the conclusion that their best chance of eventually sighting land lay in marching to the opposite extremity of the floe; at any rate, it would give them something to do, and there is always solace in activity. He thereupon ordered his men to reduce their personal baggage to two pounds weight each. For the next few hours every man was busy in sorting out his belongings—the treasures that he had saved from the ship. It was a heart-breaking business. Men stole gloomily and silently away and dug little graves in the snow, to which they committed books, letters, and various knickknacks of sentimental value. And, when the final decisions had to be made, they threw away their little hordes of golden sovereigns and kept the photographs of their sweethearts and wives!” (F.W. Boreham, 2010)

Getting down to the basics in anything can be difficult. Certainly for Shackelton’s expedition team, this was so. In the end, they took with them that which represented the essence of their possessions; photographs of their loved ones. Nothing else was deemed more valuable.

I’ve been on a journey myself, a journey that required me to set aside the distractions of my life and to capture and focus on the essence of prayer.

Over the past several months, I have come to recognize that God’s motivation for the idea behind prayer was driven by His love for His creation. God’s love is an enduring love that knows no boundaries. His love pursues us; it’s a love that transcends all time and space.

 “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. “ (Psalm 139:16)

Prayer became God’s designated means to allow us to respond to His overtures of love. It is through prayer that I am able to communicate and respond to my Creator, to the one who loves me with all of His being. (Psalm 107:15, Psalm 118:1)

Prayer is a gift from God that rises above the circumstances of life. A pastor friend once reminded me that life is hard. At times we seem to face a never ending set of circumstances that makes life hard. Perhaps the circumstances we’re facing are life threatening, or a chronic medical condition that painfully reminds us of its presence each and every day. For others it might be facing economic or relational challenges, or the loss, or imminent loss of a loved one. Whatever our circumstances, the scriptures assure us that we are to engage in prayer, in good times and in bad. (1 Thessalonians 5:18, 1 Timothy 5:5, Daniel 6:10)

The Apostle Paul reminds us that in every situation, no matter how tough it might be, we are to approach God with a heart of thanksgiving. In the face of our circumstances this can be a very tall order. Such a heart is one of continuous gratitude for God’s grace, provision, and ever present love for us. In time, I have learned that the only way to possess such a heart is from the perspective of eternity. What we know is that God’s love for us endures forever. Meaning, that for those who trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, His love for us will continue from the present into Heaven for eternity, long after our earthly bodies have turned to dust. Once in Heaven, our finite and comparatively brief earthly life, with all of its troubles and difficulties, will be but a distant thought, a moment in time. It will pale in comparison to the eternal life we are going to experience in Heaven. (Ephesians 5:20, Matthew 1516, Psalm 9:1, Romans 7:25)

Lastly, prayer, at its most basic level is one of confidence in our God. Confidence is expressed in our belief and faith in God for the outcome of our prayers expressed to Him. I’ve learned that at times, God may elect to answer our prayers in an unexpected manner. When He does, it may not feel like the answer we desired or planned for. We should not falter on this point, as I’m convinced that His response is working within a framework that must consider His overall plan for our lives and the lives of others. In this context, our challenge in this earthly life is to trust in His answers, even when we don’t fully comprehend or agree with them in the moment.

It’s possible that the full disclosure of God’s responses to our prayers, and the impact of His responses, may not be fully realized until we are in Heaven. It’s there that we will see the full breadth of his wisdom. For now, we will be blessed in this life for taking the step of trusting fully in God’s wise responses. (Matthew 20:29)

I’ve learned in recent times, the importance in trusting God for the outcomes of my prayers, knowing that His answers to my prayers will ultimately fit into His grander and total plan for my life. (1 John 5:14-15, James 1:6, Matthew 21:22)

The essence of prayer then, is to understand that God loves us with an enduring love, and that He desires communion with us; prayer becomes the vehicle by which this is accomplished. Prayer must be something that is elevated above life circumstances, and when we do pray, we must do so with a heart of thanksgiving. And finally, we need to pray with confidence, trusting in God’s responses, even if we don’t fully grasp the significance of His answer in the moment.

Copyright 2015 FullLifeWord.com

The Great Piggy Bank Heist

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“It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.” -Matthew 24:46

 
The Great Train Robbery of ’63 that occurred in London had nothing on the heist I was involved in, known simply by our family as the “Great Piggy Bank Heist.”

I was in kindergarten at the time, and my older brother (Heretofore known as the “ringleader”) was in the second grade. It was in this state of advanced education that he gained certain, albeit incomplete, understandings of money. In school he learned that coins had some sort of intrinsic value, what value of course, was still beyond my limited understanding, but I was certain that my brother understood all those details, and would one day enlighten me with his vast storehouse of learning.

In any event, we had in our shared bedroom a closet; and on the closet floor, way in the back, were two genuine ceramic piggy banks. One was mine and the other was my brother’s. Evidently, as I learned many years later, my Mom had a tradition of giving each child a piggy bank and putting coins in the bank minted with the year of their birth.

Of course my brother and I didn’t know of such details, and while the pigs were a curiosity, they never garnered much in the way of attention; at least not until my brother learned in school that the coins contained within each pig could somehow be traded for toys. Of course the specifics of how such a transaction might come about had yet to be determined.

It was a Saturday morning, and the ringleader filled me in on exactly how this was to go down. Dad was at the store, and Mom was around the house doing things moms do. My job was to stand by the door and keep a lookout for Mom.

The ringleader explained to me that he had evidently developed a clever way of inverting the ceramic pig while shaking it at a given frequency. In doing so, he explained; the coinage would come out of the little slot on the top of the pig’s back. (Somehow in this moment of dazzling insight, he failed to notice the rubber plug on the belly of the pig, which would have made our heist considerably more successful. This and other such overlooked details would ultimately be our undoing.)

At the appointed time, I took my position by the bedroom door, and when Mom went into the garage with and armful of laundry, I gave the signal for the extraction process to start. A lot of shaking was taking place, rather nosily I might add, but not many coins were making it out.

The garage door coming into the house opened suddenly, and Mom reappeared. I quickly hushed the ringleader until she disappeared into another room.

After the coast was clear the shaking resumed. Soon the shaking took on a different resonance, more of an up and down shake pattern. This resulted in a better yield. My brother was clearly brilliant! The coins were practically pouring out onto the wood floor making a steady tinkling pitter patter sound in our closet.

In due process, I observed the ringleader skillfully sorting through the growing pile and tossing aside the dimes and collecting the other coins. I asked him why he was doing that. He explained to me, as one with an air of superior knowledge; that obviously the dimes were smaller, in fact they were the smallest coins amongst coins, and therefore they could hardly be worth much when it came time to trade coins for toys. I could find no flaw in such a sound argument. Soon he had the larger pennies stacked neatly, as were the nickels and the occasional quarter, while the diminutive dimes were set aside. With that said, he resumed the shaking.

As there hadn’t been a Mom sighting in a while and my interest in the lookout job was waning, I took it upon myself to gradually move closer to the action, away from my post so that I might study the coin extraction technique in more detail. I figured at my age, having already decided on becoming a lifelong learner, I figured it was to my advantage to pick up a few life skills along the way. This trade the metal coins for fun toys was an example of some real out of the box thinking. Gone would be the days of waiting on birthdays and Christmas times for toys.

It wasn’t long before I found myself standing behind my brother, who was on his knees and halfway in the closet, all the while skillfully shaking one of our beloved pigs. At that moment, one of the lowly dimes popped out of the pig he was shaking. It hit the wood floor and rolled just past me. I was following it with my eyes, and as I turned my head slightly, I noticed that the dime suddenly stopped as it struck a pair of shoes. Unfortunately for us, our careers as professional piggy bank boosters were over, as the dime stopping shoes were occupied by our Mom.

As I reminisced on this childhood memory of my Mom returning unexpectedly to find us boosting the piggy bank, instead of doing what we should have been doing, it reminded me that Jesus is concerned with what I’m doing with my life right now. If He were to show up unexpectedly, as my Mom had, would He approve of what I’ve been doing? As a believer and follower of Christ, I know that He has entrusted me with talents and abilities to use wisely in my earthly life. But what exactly should I be doing? While there are many things I could be doing, I would like to touch on at least three activities I sense we should all be doing.

As a believer, I ought to be living my life out authentically. By that I mean, my life should reflect the principles and character of God as much as possible and as consistently as possible. Not out of a sense of just following a bunch of rules, rather from a place of gratitude in my heart for the love and grace He has already expressed to me.

Jesus said that the love we express and show for one another will identify us with Him to the rest of the world around us.(John 13:35) My life should be marked as a life lived with integrity before God. My motives and heart should be aligned such, that I am viewing life and life situations, as much as possible from God’s perspective. (1 Thessalonians 2:4) That means that I should not allow my life to be governed solely by the approval of others. On the other hand, neither should I fall into a life of challenging others to live out their lives authentically, if I’m not also willing to live by those same principles that Scriptures teach. (Romans 2:21-22)

Secondly, to the best of my ability, I need to do my part to maintain the integrity of God’s Word in my life. This means that I must resist the pressure to compromise or dilute God’s standards defined in His Word for me. (Jude 3) Instead, we need to partner with the Holy Spirit to preserve and teach from the scriptures what God intended for us to hear and then do. (1 Timothy 1:11, 2 Timothy 1:14) All of this is challenging, because we live in unprecedented times in our country. Yet we must find a way to express God’s perspective to a lost world with respect, and to engage our fellow believers with love. (1 Peter 1:22) This approach makes sense to me because that’s how Christ approached me.

Lastly, I need to trust that God is executing His perfect plan for my life and in the world we live in. We need to live expectantly, awaiting Christ’s return and to be prepared for that day. (1 Thessalonians 1:7; 2 Timothy 1:12)

Much like my Mom suddenly appearing, we don’t know when Christ will return; (Matthew 24:36) but we do know this, that He will! And when He does, I want to be caught doing His will and not my own.

Do You See Anything?

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“‘…Do you see anything?’ …Then his eyes were opened…he saw everything clearly.” (Mark 8:23-25)

In my dentist’s office there used to be this really large picture that hung on the wall in her waiting room. It had the appearance of some sort of modern abstract art. It never did anything for me. I had glanced at it on numerous occasions but never really paid it much mind.

That changed one day.

On that particular occasion, a little girl accompanied by her mom, came in to the dentist office and took the seats nearest me. I overheard the child saying to her mom, as she gazed at the picture with a smile; “Do you see anything?” The mom looked up briefly from her smartphone, smiled, and then returned to whatever it was she was looking at. The little girl continued to gaze at the picture until it was her turn to see the dentist.

After they left the room, I wondered what it was that was so interesting about this picture that had engaged a child’s attention for so long. The picture itself, though large, in my opinion was nothing to really look at…in fact, it was rather plain looking. I was thinking this while I was still looking at the simple colors and the seemingly random patterns that made up the picture, when suddenly an entire scene of various forest animals materialized! What to the uneducated eye appeared as simple abstract art, was actually, a carefully crafted picture that required the viewer to spend time gazing at it before the true objects became evident to the viewer.

Now, whenever I happen to see that picture, I can’t help but really “see” the images that the creator intended for me to discover. The images no longer remained hidden from view.

Some years ago, while serving at a start-up church, I found myself in the position of having to teach children; kindergarten through six grade. It was never my intention to teach kids, I was much more comfortable with teaching adults. But there was no one else, and so I took the role with the idea that this was only a temporary assignment. I had never taught kids before, and I judged my first few weeks as a disaster.

To complicate matters, we served a community in which many families where skating on the edge of homelessness. Many single moms and dads from a low income housing project nearby would visit our church on Sundays. Some of these families were transitory, they would come a few Sundays and I’d never see them again. For those families in particular, I was not able to see how anything that I was doing with them in class would ever matter or make a difference in their little lives.

Over time my teaching skills improved as I learned that kids learn differently than adults. The kids and I were having much more fun, as evidenced by a lot of laughter and even some random learning happening. Yet I still wondered…did my miniscule contribution really make a difference in the grand scheme of things. Shouldn’t I be doing something bigger and more important? I pondered those questions, and concluded that what I was doing really didn’t make a difference, there was simply too much hurt and impossible circumstances with many of these kids. Nothing I was doing really mattered.

A few weeks after coming to that conclusion, a young mom and her little kindergarten aged son came and visited our church.

Her son was a joy, a great little guy, complete with out of control blond hair and sky blue eyes. In class he was very attentive, he followed every move I made and made every effort to politely get my attention during the entire class time. I couldn’t help but spend some extra time with him. As I interacted with him, I saw that his little blue eyes gave away something else; a sense of deep hurt and loss. I devoted as much time with him as I could. Fortunately we had several other adult helpers that day, so I had the luxury of extra time. Together we played games, drew pictures, and he demonstrated his extraordinary play-dough skills for me.

It was later that I had learned from his mom, that her husband had recently abandoned their family, and that her son had been devastated in not understanding why “daddy left.”

When class was over, and I was signing him out to his mom, he ran over to her with crafts in hand and greeted her with a hug, and then turned quickly to face me as if to say something. I knelt down to be at his level, and without warning, he fell into my arms, putting his little chubby arms around my neck. He gave me a great big hug! He held me tight. I was so surprised that at first I didn’t know how to respond. That kind of thing never happened before! Certainly never in any of my adult classes! I put down wherever it was I had in my hands and gently hugged him back.

In that instant, my heart was broken, but my vision was made clear.

What we do for our Lord does matter! It matters because He places us in the right places at the right times for His perfect purposes. We may not see the final outcomes, but where possible, we are to express His love in every task we are given, no matter how much or little we think it might matter.

All I know is that it mattered to a little boy that morning, a young life that had experienced deep hurt without understanding the adult complexities of why. I hope and pray that perhaps on that day, he saw in me a small reflection of Jesus.