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The Source

I wish I had counted the number of people who approached our son simply to say “thank you.” Completing his MBA studies, Matthew was honored to speak at his pre-commencement ceremony. He warmly recalled the shared closeness among his classmates and the care they exhibited toward each other. Then he offered his friends three charges, the first of which was this: find the source of your love. “We cannot give and give indefinitely without having a source from which we receive love; we will burn out. My source of love comes from my faith—I follow Jesus Christ who loves me so much that he died for me even though I do not deserve it. That is a source that will never run dry.” Matthew did not anticipate the applause that followed, and his parents were struck by the appreciation expressed by both friends and strangers later at the reception. His comments had found their home in welcoming souls that day.

It was Jesus’ friend, John, who taught of our union with God in Christ, the most loving provision of Him who is love by His very essence. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,” wrote the apostle, “God lives in him and he in God.” This is the heart of God toward us, evidenced through the Spirit of God within us. How could we become any closer to Him, or He to us? What could He possibly do that would be any more loving than to unite us with Himself in Spirit?

We marvel at God’s promises—in this case, the assurance of His Spirit alive in us—yet truth always travels with a companion command, an imperative, a call to respond. John continued, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.” For as God loves us and unites us to Himself, so we are called to love others as ourselves. Truth be told, however, on our own, we’re not all that good at loving others, for our human nature falls far short of the nature of God. So John says to us “know and rely.” To which I say, thank you, John. For when I simply accept God’s love for me, I experience an inner freedom: the onetime pressure to love gives way to a newfound desire to love, and what I once considered a demanding obligation to love becomes a welcome opportunity to love.

Recalling Christ Jesus before him, John says, “love one another.” Relying on Christ Jesus within him, John says, “We love because he first loved us.”

Yes, Matthew, He is, indeed, our source.

Father, grace me to know your love—to accept and experience it in faith—and to rely on your love as, living in the Spirit of Christ, I engage the world today. Amen.

[Click here to read 1 John 4:7-21, John’s insights into true love.]

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Before Christ

Correct me if I’m wrong. I’m guessing that, every once in a while, you stop and reflect on the change God has brought about in you since you entrusted your life to His Son. The transforming work of the Spirit in us is beyond remarkable, and we can neither plan nor explain the inner wonders He performs in silence. We can only marvel at Him.

Yet I think it is equally important to consider the work God did in and around us before we came to believe in Christ Jesus. How many people did He send our way with the message of salvation and life? I think of Dave and Barb, Gary and Sue, Pat, and countless others. How did He spare us from catastrophe, or how did He sustain us through it? Personally, I recall the moment when, through a dream, God turned the sting of my father’s early death into both the assurance of his never-ending life in Christ and a hope for my own.

Reading the Biblical story of Cornelius and his family, I wonder how often they looked back on the amazing things God did in their lives before they came to a saving faith in Christ Jesus. Though “devout and God-fearing,” these Gentiles knew nothing about His sacrificial atonement or the eternal life that is found in Him, but God was working in their lives, anyway. Through a breathtaking series of visions, He called Cornelius and the apostle Peter together for one momentous occasion with two astounding outcomes—the salvation of Cornelius and his family, and the spread of the gospel to the Gentiles.

God always inclines Himself toward us before we ever incline ourselves toward Him. He pursues us, He calls us, and He prepares us. Then when our hearts finally warm and open to Him, He pours His life-giving Spirit into us and saves our souls. And as God used others to reach us in our search for Him, so He blesses us to reach out to others with the life and peace that we ourselves have found in Christ. For in His time, God changes people’s “before Christ” into their “anno Domini”—their own personal “year of the Lord.”

Take a moment today to appreciate all the work God did in your life before you came to know Him through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Lord God, I remember my “before Christ” years and how you worked through so many people and events to draw me to yourself. Use me now to bring to others the hope and assurance I have found in Christ Jesus, the Savior. Amen.

[Read the story of Cornelius and his family in Acts 10.]

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Low-bar People and a High-bar God

The sign for the 5K cross country ski race caught my attention. I was 27 years old, sufficiently athletic, and hailed from Michigan. What advantage could these Ohio people have over me? When race day arrived, I showed up with my fish-scale bottom skis, wearing blue jeans and a sweater. Most others zipped up wind-resistant body suits and carefully evaluated the snow to determine exactly which wax to apply to what skis. (“Uh-oh.”) A quarter mile into the race, I realized I was in way over my head. I thought my lips—already frozen from sucking in large volumes of 20-something degree air—would drop off like icicles and that my heart would pound right out of my chest. Fortunately, there were no casualties that day, except my pride, which kept me going all the way to the finish line where my wife greeted me: “Are you OK? You don’t look so good.”

It’s a common problem borne out of naiveté or pride—we benchmark ourselves to performance standards too low, which leads us to assessment conclusions too high. We don’t comprehend just how good “good” can be until we encounter “excellent,” “elite,” or “perfection.” This happens in a spiritual sense, as well, when we evaluate humanity against our own human standards and conclude people are undeserving of God’s judgment and in no need of a Savior. But God is perfect, and His elite standards mirror His divine nature. We may benchmark ourselves to ourselves, but God’s high bar for us is purity, which reflects His very nature. And against His greatness, our idea of “goodness” is exposed as something far less than what we had thought it to be. As Jesus himself said, “No one is good—except God alone.”1

We are broken people, unable to meet God’s lofty expectations or even our own low ones. And certainly God will judge us, but not as one delighting in some cosmic game of “Got-‘cha.” To the contrary, Paul writes, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”2 In Christ, God stared down our imperfections, declared them for what they were, and then paid their price through the life of His Son. For our God is all about turning sinners into winners.

Father, thank you for imputing the righteousness of Christ to an undeserving me. Fill me with your goodness, that I would be of some good to the people I encounter today. Amen.

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10)

[Read today’s Scripture in Romans 5:6-11.]

1 Luke 18:19
2 Romans 5:8