Tag: Paul Nordman

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Selfless Love

“Permission to speak candidly?” For years, Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples” felt like an obligation to me; the gospel was a heavy load I’d rather keep bundled on my back than to unpack and share. For one thing, telling others what I’d found in Jesus would make me stand out when what I really wanted was to fit in. And to be perfectly honest, though I had come to trust that Jesus had paid the price of my sins and granted me salvation in His name, there remained enough debilitating doubt to muzzle my message. How frustrating!

Seemingly “out of the blue one day,” I decided to begin to read Scripture daily and to journal whatever response it was stirring within me. Mulling things over at the pace of my pen slowed me down and delved me deeper into the riches of God’s truth. He showed up without fail, His Spirit speaking through His word to teach me new things and, in the process, to show me His intimate love. My soul flooded with hope, my spirit streamed in joy, and I began to open myself up completely to Him, the content of my heart pouring out in torrents of blue gel ink onto dry beds of yellow-lined paper. The more I realized God’s love for me, the more freely it burst inner dams of doubt, flowing now to others through witnessing words and compassionate care.

Love begins with God. “This is love,” taught the apostle John, “not that we loved him, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”1 When we acknowledge that Jesus is God’s Son, “God lives in [us] and [we] in God,”2 and so, “In this way, love is made complete among us.”3 “We love because he first loved us.”4

What then does God’s love in us look like? Action, it looks like action. “Freely you have received; freely give,”5 said Jesus to His disciples. “Forgive as the Lord forgives you,” wrote Paul to early believers. And as God’s love pours out in compassion, we too “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”6

God never meant for us to share Him in our own power, for we are neither able nor inclined. Instead, “We know and rely on the love God has for us.”7 For His selfless love is uncontainable; it overflows our hearts in words of life and acts of care.

Father, you are love. Open my heart to your love; may your love for me overflow in my love for others. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Christ in me is love.

1 1 John 4:10
2 1 John 4:15
3 1 John 4:12
4 1 John 4:19
5 Matthew 10:8
6 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
7 1 John 4:16

Read John’s live-breathing lesson on love in 1 John 4:10-19.

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Selfless Restoration

During my college years I would occasionally pick up some spending money working for a dealer in European antiques. Most of my duties entailed delivering high-valued pieces to well-healed clients, and occasionally I would do whatever chores needed to be done around the store. One day, I noticed on the workbench several small, brass boxes buried amid the clutter. Embossed on their lids was a portrait of a woman and the decorative patterns that encircled her profile; though dulled by years of neglect, these artifacts were nonetheless compelling. The shop owner explained to me that these were cigarette boxes Princess Mary had given to British troops at Christmastime 1914, the first year of “the Great War.” Hers was the portrait that adorned the lids amid their ornate designs.

“If I clean all of these up, may I buy one?” I asked the owner. He agreed, so I went to work, removing tarnish from brass, including the green patina burrowed deep into the crevices of each relief, until every piece came alive again, restored to its former splendor. So stunning was the transformation that the owner would gift these formerly forgotten relics to his most elite clients—all, that is, except the one antique box my mother opened that Christmas morning.

As beautiful as these polished pieces emerged from their cleansing, we are restored to God in infinitely greater brilliance and immeasurably higher value. The apostle Paul tells us that God “has reconciled [us] by Christ’s physical body through death to present [us] holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation …”1 Holy, without blemish, and free—stop and soak this in, for it is who we are, and it is who we are becoming, for “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things … by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”2 Then more majestic than the likeness of any earthly sovereign, the image eternally embossed on us is that of Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God,”3 for we are “being transformed into [the Lord’s] likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord.”4

So what remains for us but to carry “the message of reconciliation”5 God has committed to us? For just as God, in Christ, has removed the tarnish from our souls, so also does He long to restore everyone to His image in ever-increasing glory and brilliance. May no one be lost amid the clutter.

Father, you have reconciled me to yourself; how can I ever thank you enough? Use me to bring the hope of reconciliation to others, so that precious, living treasures would be rescued from amid the clutter of this world and restored to splendor in the image of your Son. In Jesus I pray. Amen.

Christ in me is peace.

1 Colossians 1:22
2 Colossians 1:19, 20
3 Colossians 1:15
4 2 Corinthians 3:1
5 2 Corinthians 5:19

Read today’s Scripture in Colossians 1:15-23.

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Selfless Prayer

Throughout the years, I’ve encountered two types of prayer support. I’ll bet you have, too. By far, the most frequent is in the form of a promise: “I’ll pray for you.” We hear it, we say it, and we appreciate it, for it gives us the hope of help. Even if my friend ultimately heaves my plea heavenward as if to jettison the weight of obligation, at least he stands with me, at least she adds her name to my petition, and I am grateful for the promise of prayer.

Yet have you ever experienced the richness of the friend who intercedes for you in real-time? “Let’s just pray about that right here,” she responds; “Let’s stop and pray together now,” he offers. Like the men who lowered the paralytic through the roof, these faithful friends interrupt their lives—if even for a moment—to carry you to Christ. Though the world bustles all around, you step away into an unseen crevice of hidden calm. Two now intercede as one, and both are blessed in His promised presence. And your wobbly legs of doubt and fear are strengthened again to faith and confidence.

Selfless prayer is a gift we pass around, giving it at times and receiving it at others. How can we make it all the more precious and all the more helpful? Pray in faith and do not doubt, for “anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”1 Trust the Holy Spirit, for when we do not know how to pray as we should, “the Spirit intercedes … according to the will of God.”2 And “pray with thanksgiving,”3 celebrating the reality that God is more compassionate than we are, that He is wiser than we are, and that He is more faithful than we are. God is more eager to bless us than we are to receive His blessings, and He is able to do anything. He is good.

Whether we depart our friends with a promise to pray, or we linger with them in the present to pray, God is glorified and we are blessed when we experience the gift of selfless prayer together.

Our Father, thank you for making us one in Christ and for the privilege of coming before you in His name. Grace us to pray selflessly and boundlessly. May our sacrifice of prayer be pleasing in your sight today. In Jesus’ name and by the power of your Spirit, we pray. Amen.

Christ in me is strength.

Read Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:5-13.

1 Hebrews 11:5
2 Romans 8:26, 27
3 Philippians 4:6