Spring break. What wonderful words. This year’s destination? Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. I’d say it’s much different than last year’s trip to the middle of nowhere, Montana. Less hiking, less groundhogs, but way, way more chain smokers.
The time on the beach has been awesome, although I’m a little bitter that a week back in Philly will put a reverse on this new tan..
As already mentioned, I have made it a goal to read through the Gospels at least once during this Lent season. I’m hoping and praying that through it I will gain a more accurate picture of who Jesus was while on earth. We can’t be like him unless we understand more about him right? What has stuck out to me the most so far (I’m through Matthew and Mark) is the compassion and the love that Jesus had (has) for people.
To name a few..
Matthew 14:14 “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”
Matthew 20:34 “And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they received their sight and followed him.”
Mark 6:34 “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
Mark 3:5 “ And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”
This last one has struck me the most. Gary Chapman, the author of The Five Love Languages came to speak at Moody during Founder’s Week. The message he gave sheds a lot of light on a verse like this. In his words, “anger is a gift from God.” It is an emotion that we have that expresses our great zeal for something. Of course, sometimes this anger is expressed towards others in sin, which is not “biblical”. Yet at other times, it can be used to express an urgency and passion concerning righteousness and a hatred for sin. In Mark 3:5, Jesus was angry that the Pharisees were hardening their heart toward the truth. Yet, he still had compassion on them. He still had their best interests in mind.
One of my beach reads has been Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. I put it down several years ago because I didn’t completely agree with Miller’s perspective. I picked it up again because I don’t completely agree with Miller’s perspective. I decided not to be so close-minded, and I’m so glad I did. He has some really great things to say.
He sat through a class once where the professor tried to convey the impact and importance of metaphors. He threw out the word “relationships”, and asked the class to give him metaphors that came to mind. They came up with things like “investing” in people, “valuing” people, and the fact that relationships are “priceless”. All economic metaphor. After hearing the discussion concerning these things, Miller had an epiphany: “The problem with Christian culture is that we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money..If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us, and perhaps, we feel they are priceless..love doesn’t work like money. It is not a commodity. When we barter with it, we all lose.”
If anybody had reason to say that there were people who were not worth his time, it would be Jesus. Yet, Jesus never withheld love from anyone. He had compassion on the poorest of the poor, the lowest of the low. His anger never substituted his love. His love is constant.
It’s so convicting to think about all the times that I withhold love from people, as if I have a bunch of money that is mine to keep or give away. Yet, it’s so comforting to think that even in times of discipline, Jesus does not withhold even the smallest amount of love from me. He gives it freely. And whatever love we give is only ever because he gave it first.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the knowledge of God.”
Friends, may this be your prayer as well.
As Ethan Pierce says,
Spread the love.
Liann.
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