Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “God’s Grand, Christ-Centered Plan”. As the quarterly says in Wednesdays lesson, “What is God’s ultimate final plan? To unite everything, everywhere, in Jesus”. And so, Ephesians emphasizes. Therefore, this is to be our marching orders, too. When we are divisive, critical and condemning… we are engaging in Satan’s work. Giving voice to his accusations. So, how to be a uniting force in an evil world, while still maintaining the purity of heart that is the hallmark of God’s people? This can only be accomplished as each of us welcomes the Holy Spirit into our lives. Of ourselves, sinners that we are, we are at a total loss to do both (be a uniting force in a sinful world… and maintain purity of heart as we strive to be that uniting force). For there is one word that encompasses both. And that word is “love”. Agape-love. God-inspired love. Exemplified by the very life of God’s Son. Christ’s faith-filled life of love is the way… the only way.
Of ourselves, we do not know how to be inclusive (treating all with kindness, regard, respect) and being exclusive (a single-minded heart/ mind toward God). Love is the only way. God-inspired love for others leads us to know how best to relate to others, while that same love leads us to be pure of heart, too. There is no other attribute that can do this. Love alone bridges the gulf. Extending a hand, a heart, to those lost like we once were. As the great hymn says, “I once was lost, but now am found”. And so, we act in love for others, to lead them back “home”, too.
Wasn’t this Christ’s way? He came loving us sinners. Love alone was His method. Nothing else. Love led Christ to so speak and to so act. Soft words/ hard words. Acts of kindness performed/ acts of kindness withheld. And in the end, dying for the very ones who despised that love. And yet, this is the only way to win us sinners back home. Back to the family. United back to God and to each other. Love displayed. Love, lived-out.
“God’s Christ-Centered Plan” (ibid) is to be our plan. To be “light” and to be “salt” in a dark and lost world. It is what we are called to be, what we are created to be. Little “Christs” in a world that is divided, angry, unloving and unkind. A world that moves and acts “in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness” (Ephesians 4:17-18). These are our brothers and sisters. We are to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). This alone will win our brothers and sisters to come back Home… if they will. This… and no other.
Let us be faithful to our high calling. To love as He loves. To live as He lives. To “be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail… (to) build the old waste places; (to) raise up the foundations of many generations; (if so) you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In” (Isaiah 58:11-12). We shall be moved by that unifying Spirit of God, working to fulfill his “ultimate plan” (op. cit.).
With brotherly love,
Jim