Love

Thank you all so much for being such a great class!  You are wonderful! It is a privilege and an honor to serve with such intelligent and thoughtful persons as you. We did not get a chance to cover everything we may have wanted in our time together this summer.  For me it has been a pleasure and a rewarding experience to discuss the idea of morality and how we understand moral behavior for the Christian in the United Methodist Church today.

I have a friend on Facebook who has been reading the moralmade.blogspot.com postings for the class.  Through this social media, our class discussions are reaching outside the walls of ZUMC.  Her comments were, “the blog is a refreshing real life application of scripture and church teaching combined with your own personal experiences. I love that you hit major topics head on without judgment and with loving understanding.”

If there is one thing I had hoped we would learn, in discussing matters of morality, it is the heart of Jesus.  He loved sinners, reached out to them, and died in their place to set them free.  Since we all fall short of God’s glorious perfection, we are them.  Christ died for the ungodly to bring us to God.  We join Him in that very work by loving sacrificially in order to help others come into God’s loving embrace.

The scriptures reveal salvation by God’s work to bring us into relationship with Him through Law, awareness of our weakness and need for His help, and the means for forgiveness through the cross of Jesus Christ and freedom from the power of sin by the gift the great power of grace.

Moral law makes us aware of God’s righteousness, which is higher than our own. We become aware that as much as we try we fail sometimes.  We rebel sometimes.  We pursue pleasures rather than holiness. This should produce in us humility not only in the presence of God, but in considering the sins of others. 

As Jesus pointed out, we should remove the plank from our eye before trying to help another remove the speck from theirs.  Personal plank removal should keep us busy enough to not be obsessed with the sins of others. 

Rich Mullens wrote these lyrics in his song Brother’s Keeper:

My friends are not the way I wish they were. They are just the way they are. 

And I will be my brother's keeper
Not the one who judges him
I won't despise him for his weakness
I won't regard him for his strength
I won't take away his freedom
I will help him learn to stand

I will be my brother's keeper 

Now this roof has got a few missing shingles
But at least we got ourselves a roof
And they say that she's a fallen angel
I wonder if she recalls when she last flew

There’s no use in pointing fingers, unless you’re pointing to the truth.

Our effort to pursue holiness, to share in the fullness of God’s nature, to become a fuller reflection of Christ Jesus, is a lifelong effort.  It is only achieved by grace, God’s Holy Spirit at work in our hearts.  We learn to rely on His power and not our own steam.  Perfection is the goal.  Only God will get us there.  We are promised this perfection when the Perfection comes with the new heaven and new earth at the completion of all things.  Until then we pursue perfection be each day listening, obeying, leaning, and learning.

We cannot lead others into God’s embrace if we are pointing out their failures at the onset.  The appropriate place for such conversations is best done in covenant relationships where there is a history of love and trust among one another. I mentor a few men and recently one of my guys confronted me about my weight. He did so out of love, which really blessed me.  When our sinner friends are on the road to redemption with us and they too desire the holiness of God, they too wish to please Him, then we can encourage one another on to perfection.

This I believe is the Spirit of Jesus and the way the church makes disciples.  Love! Love! Love!

Regardless of what weaknesses there are, we must treat others with love, compassion, openness, and understanding. We are to faithfully live out the life of a disciple who longs to please God with the living of our lives.  Our light will shine the path for others.  This little light of mine comes from the light of the world! Let it shine! Let it shine!

The church sometimes has got it wrong. We are human. We are weak. We need grace and forgiveness.  We practice forgiveness and bless others with mercy and grace.  The church in America supported slavery for decades.  The church in Nazi Germany supported Hitler with the statement of faith, “One Faith, One Folk, One Führer.” It paralleled the Nazi motto, “One Reich, One Folk, One Führer.”  The church must be wary of political and secular agendas driving our agenda.  We must be about one thing: witnessing to the Good News about Jesus through deeds of love and words of grace and hope.

Let us reclaim our chief moral: Love God, Love Neighbor, Love Enemies, Love One Another.  As members of Zionsville UMC we are called to lift the human spirit by living love.  We lead with love.  We carry through with love. And we end in love. 

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” – 1 John 3:18