Category: Spiritual Formation

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The Praxis of Love (pt 1)

This is from a sermon give at East Balsam Baptist Church 9/25/2011 (pt 1)

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. (1 Corinthians 13:12, 13 MSG)

Paul was writing to the church in Corinth to encourage them in their struggles and hardships. In these verses Paul writes that while we are doing life we don’t always see or know the answers to our “why or how or when or who” questions. When we stand before God we will have the answers, but for now Paul tells us to hang onto our faith, hope and love.

Our faith is in God who was, is and always will be with us. This faith does not promise us a trouble free life, rather is promises us we will always have someone to lean in good times and when things get rough. Our hope is in the new life and restored relationship we have through Jesus Christ. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3 to “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” We have a hope to share with other and a faith that anchors our trust in God. Then we have love – in The Message it says “love extravagantly.” Paul tells us of the three: faith, hope and love, that love is the best. Two questions come to mind here: What does it look like to love extravagantly? and How do we know love is best? The answer to the first is what we will be exploring today and the answer to the second is 1) Paul’s writing were inspired by God and 2) it is a reflection of what Jesus taught when ask the question about the greatest commandment.
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God at Work

It’s been a while since I have posted. A lot of pondering going on, but not a lot of time to write. I do want to share my experiences from the last couple of Monday nights.

As you may or may not know I have been going into Lino Lakes state prison for the last four years working with groups of offenders who are completing an 18 month program called IFI. It is a faith-base prison ministry that is part of Prison Ministry Fellowship. The latest group I have been working with (8-9 months) are finishing up working through A Rattling of Sabers by Greg Bourgond. It is an in-depth look at themselves and putting down on paper a Biblically grounded set of beliefs and values they are choosing to begin living by. This is done through a lot of personal reflection and the working of the Holy Spirit.

A couple of Mondays ago I sat in the room with them and listened to the striking of key as 9 men began to type out their personal life platform, putting into words what they have been thinking and what the Spirit has been stirring in their hearts. Then this last Monday each man read to the rest of us what God has been doing in their lives. What wonderful stories I heard from each of them. God was working in each one of these men in unique and special ways. It was wonderful to see the hard work these men put into what I hope is only the beginning of a transformed life and that when I are released I am trusting that God will use these men to do great things for the Kingdom.

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Family Experiment

Relations in our family have been a little stressed this summer. there are a variety of reasons but I think is comes down to two things. We have lost our focus on God and/or each other. It’s not like we all sit in different parts of the house and not talk to each other. No the stress shows up in those times when you would expect conflict in a house with a couple of teenagers and parents. Our life is no different than that of a lot of other families but as a family of Christ-followers we have the right foundation to allow us to restore our relationships both vertically wiht God and horizontally with other family members. I guess you could say that we are putting to practice what I was preaching about in early Aug, with me taking on he role of Haggai (see this blog posting).

This experiment will last about 30 days so that we can begin to develop the habits of listening to God, thinking about the other in our family, and taking the focus off ourselves. This isn’t about gaining more head knowledge because we all know what we should do. The goal is to move our head knowledge to heart knowledge and then put it into practice.

Don’t know how it will work but so far (ok we have only been at it a day) so good. Yesterday the task was simple. All we did was send two text to the others in the family to encourage them or complement them on something they do well. The texts had to be at least 2 hours apart so you actually had to think about the task twice. The Proverb we reflected on was:

Start with God-the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning. (Proverbs 1:7 MSG)

You see in this process we need to make sure our relastionship with God is strong so we can then use that to strengthen our relationship with others.

Today the task is to do the encouragement text again plus with $3.73 create something that the whole family can enjoy. We’ll see what happens.