96 Sermon Illustrations on God S Love

Valentine's Day brings back some strange childhood memories for me.

I'm especially haunted by the fact that after signing my batch of Valentines the night before the classroom exchange I would invariably inscribe some with “form Jimmy.” I hated that. I knew the difference between “form” and “from,” but my hand seemed destined to make this mistake at least some of the time. This was alright if the card went to someone with “cooties,” but heart-wrenching if it went to some of my favorite people.

We all know that Valentine's Day is more likely designed by the card manufacturers than by God. There's nothing in the Bible about such an event. But it doesn't hurt to think about love on a cold February day. After all, it's part of the definition of God Himself.

Here is the way Jesus laid it out. He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). But why is the commandment called new?

The initial standard of love for others was based on our love for ourselves -- “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But here Jesus ups the standard and makes Himself the measure of love -- and this is brand new. Our love for ourselves is uneven, incomplete and sometimes distorted. But Jesus' love for people is pure, sacrificial and unconditional. There is no higher standard to be found.

Throughout the New Testament, then, you find this standard placarded before us. We are to forgive as Christ forgave, bear burdens like Christ did, give as Christ gave, accept others as Christ accepts us.

For instance, Paul said, “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God” (Romans 15:7).

It might help to place in front of your mind that person who is most disagreeable to you -- that cantankerous, obnoxious, or overbearing person, or maybe that person who gets all the breaks, all the attention.

Do you accept that person like Christ accepts you? Is it possible? The source for that love is the Spirit within us. But the way that love begins to show up in the believer often corresponds to our perspective on His acceptance of us.

We are professional sinners, committing thousands of sins in our lives, so what right should we have to reject someone else? And the fact that we really know better makes our sins even more grievous. But Christ accepts us unconditionally. Can we really shun someone else when we're thinking about that amazing fact?

Love doesn't mean that you like everyone equally, that you spend the same amount of time with everyone or that you give in to everybody's desires.

Love is deeper than “like.” But you must not shun the difficult people. You must not be exclusive in spirit. You must welcome the difficult people from your heart as much as Christ welcomes you. You must be ready and inclusive when God brings them to you.

A friend of mine was the chaplain for the University of Arkansas football team. He serves as pastor of a church that has attracted many college students. Years ago on the practice field -- at the very time he was talking with a player about Christ -- up walked a man named Tommy. “Hiiiiiii, Pastor!” Tommy blurted out. Tommy was one of those people who was too loud and always had wrong timing. He was a slow learner. And he became a real irritation to this pastor.

When considering this nagging problem, God brought this potent thought to this pastor's mind: “Remember, you are my Tommy.”

He got the message. Do you?

Christ accepts His family without condition. He did not accept us because we are something special. He accepted us in the same way we are to accept others, cooties and all.

And Valentine's Day -- whether it is in the Bible or not -- is as good a starting place for that kind of love as any other day.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If these words don't immediately ring true to you, just spend some time observing the people around you. Take an example from our culture: what does a man do when he declares his love for a woman and asks for her hand in marriage? He buys her a diamond ring — for some men, the most major purchase they've ever made. As human beings, we intuitively recognize that we put our treasure toward that on which our heart is set.

We usually apply Jesus' statement about treasure to our financial and material assets, but we have other kinds of treasure. Many have wisely pointed to the connection between how we spend our time to what we value most. Time is precious; one could make some assumptions about where your heart is based upon where you spend your spare time.

I expect that most parents would consider their children to be their greatest treasure. This is why the story of Abraham and Isaac is so arresting. Abraham had waited one hundred years for the birth of Isaac. When God told him to sacrifice Isaac, he could as well have asked him to cut out his own heart. By obeying God, Abraham proved what God already knew: that though Isaac was his greatest treasure, Abraham knew that he was a gift from God. He could not choose to hold on to this treasure if God asked him for it.

Have you ever wondered what God's greatest treasure is? He “owns the cattle on a thousand hills” and He is not limited by the constraints of time. Since we are made in God's image and God is a father, I believe that we can reasonably assume that God treasures his Son above all other things. Imagine the tender and violent affection God must feel for his “only begotten son,” the Prince of Peace. Yet God took this treasure, and He gave him to us.

If you have doubted God's love for you, doubt no more. God's heart is where his treasure is, and He has already given his treasure to you. Paul asks the question, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). It is because Jesus is God's greatest treasure that we read the hard words, “whoever rejects the Son will not see life” (John 3:36). If we reject Christ, we reject the very heart of God that He has offered to us.

I hope that you will realize the depth of God's love for you, which He has demonstrated by giving his Son for you. Receive that love today with thanksgiving, believing that you are held dear in the very heart of God.

________

Copyright © 2005 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

*

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever." -- Psalm 136:1 NLT

It was midnight on Thursday, February 8, A.D. 356, and Athanasius, a leader in the early Christian church and passionate defender of the deity of Jesus Christ, was leading a worship service. Suddenly loud shouts and clashing armor could be heard outside the church. Soldiers had come to arrest him.

But Athanasius said, “I didn't think it right, at such a time, to leave my people,” so he continued the service. He asked a deacon to read Psalm 136 and then requested the congregation to respond with the refrain, “His faithful love endures forever,” which they did twenty-six times over the din of the soldiers outside.

Just as the final verse was completed, the soldiers rushed into the church, brandishing their swords and spears and crowding forward up the nave toward Anthanasius. The people yelled for Athanasius to run, but he refused to go until he had given a benediction. Then some of his assistants gathered tightly around him, and, as he recounts it, “I passed through the crowd of people unseen and escaped, giving thanks to God that I had not betrayed my people, but had seen to their safety before I thought of my own.”

Athanasius was portraying to his people God's love, which endures forever. He was willing to lay down his life for his flock — just as Jesus had laid down his life for his flock a few centuries earlier.

Since God's “faithful love endures forever,” why is there ever any need to worry?

________

Adapted from THE ONE YEAR® BOOK OF PSALMS with devotionals by William J. Petersen and Randy Petersen (Tyndale) entry for November 8

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #30150]

Moviegoers buy tickets to see Hollywood’s finest actors come heroically to the rescue to save helpless people. Patrons of the theater flock to witness well-trained thespians portray roles in which love triumphs over heartache and good vanquishes evil. Bookstores aggressively promote the latest romance novels which allow the readers to experience vicariously a person’s committed love for his or her soulmate. People enjoy love stories.

This week, as Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter, we commemorate not just a religious event, but instead the greatest love story ever told. In our contemporary culture, Easter is a holiday and an overblown commercial event, but, lest we forget, at its very core Easter is a love story.

To remind ourselves of central truths of this love story, let’s begin with the characters.

In this drama, the leading Man is a Jewish carpenter with no acting experience born to a teenage Jewish girl in a borrowed barn. Not exactly Broadway, is it? This unlikely Hero, born in a small town to a rather insignificant family, becomes the world’s greatest and most influential star because of His loyalty, perseverance and genuine love for people of every background.

Another important figure in our love story is the carpenter’s Father, one who lives very far away and gives His Son a tremendously difficult assignment. This assignment can be accomplished by no other person and is designed to provide heavenly forgiveness and spiritual freedom. The Father loves the Son so much that it saddens Him to know that the only remedy for the danger faced by the masses in this drama is the sacrificial death of that beloved Son.

The antagonist in our story is a character who wanted to be like the Father and the Son. His pride, a quality observed in the bad guys of many a storyline, caused him to rebel from the Father. This hatred is demonstrated most clearly when the bad guy in our story tries to murder the leading Man and discourage His followers from believing in the Son’s amazing promises of love and devotion.

The numerous supporting actors in our story are the helpless citizens of a doomed world who need the Hero to save them from destruction. These supporting actors, living in countries spanning the globe, play the unlikely dual roles of being both observers of the love story and participants in the action.

Now that we understand the characters, let’s quickly review the plot.

Befitting a great love story, the benevolent Father sends the dependable Son to defeat the evil enemy in order to save the desperately needy crowds. Once the antagonist’s plot fails and he is finally defeated, the leading actor then asks the rescued followers to commit the rest of their lives to trusting in him. Those who answer this call and devote their hearts to following the Son become adopted members of the Father’s family.

What makes this story unique? What separates this love story from so many others?

First, it is true. This non-fiction tale was not hatched in the brain of Hollywood’s leading screenwriter or developed at the typewriter of America’s finest novelist. No, this love story called Easter is a true historical event.

Second, no one else is eligible to play the three main parts. No other being in this universe is qualified to play the role of the loving, forgiving Father. No other actor is as evil as the antagonist. Only someone who is perfectly sinless and completely holy is allowed to apply for the role of the Son. Only one person has qualified.

Third, unlike so many movies that allow the hero to escape unscathed, the antagonist in this epic tale, a ruthless creature known as Satan, did indeed kill the carpenter, the Father’s only Son. After the death of the carpenter, Satan was convinced he now reigned victorious and would become the universe’s leading man. At Golgotha, otherwise known at the place of the skull, the heroic leading Man apparently met His unseemly demise on the day known by historians as Good Friday but emerges triumphant when He miraculously is resurrected by the Father on that first Easter Sunday morning.

Finally, unlike the movies at the cinema, we who sit in the seats can all play a part in this drama. All of us can star in this exciting tale of rescue, if only we will follow the Hero and allow Him to save us. The most important feature of the most important love story is that the Father, the sovereign God of the universe, is continually holding casting calls to welcome new actors into this play. To transition from observer to participant, one must only give his or her entire life in devotion to the Son, a Galilean named Jesus Christ, through faith, trusting in the Hero to save them from the certain attacks of the evil one.

Easter Sunday is the climactic ending to a spellbinding earthly performance and the prelude to an eternal drama. Only when the curtain is raised on the final scene of this production (in front of an empty tomb) do we realize that, like in all good love stories, the Hero wins in the end.

This Easter, I believe the Father is calling you and me to move from movie critic to committed actor, trading a life of distant observance of the Son for dedicated obedience to the Son. May I invite you to join me in this beautiful narrative, the love story that indeed qualifies as the greatest story ever told?

Happy Easter.

________

Trey Graham is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Melissa, Texas

*

In the days when the great evangelist Moody was preaching in Chicago, a man, partially under the influence of liquor, seeing the warm lights of Moody's tabernacle, staggered up the steps to the front door. Upon opening it, he saw no one within, but he did see the motto hanging above the pulpit: “God Is Love.” The man slammed the door, staggered down the steps, and muttered to himself, “God is love? God is not love. If God were love, He would love me, and He hates me.”

He continued his uneven walk around the block, still muttering to himself. But those words began to burn images into his benumbed thinking. A power seemed to draw him back to the tabernacle. With the throngs that were now making their way into the tabernacle, he soon found himself seated inside, and Mr. Moody was preaching. The sermon over, Moody made his way to the door to shake hands with the people as they left. But this man didn't leave. He continued to sit in his seat, weeping. Moody came over to him, put his arm on the man's shoulder, and asked, “Is there something that I can do for you? What was it in my sermon that touched your heart?”

“Oh, Mr. Moody, I didn't hear a word that you spoke tonight,” the man responded. “It's those words up there over your pulpit - 'God Is Love.’” Moody sat down and talked with him for a while, and soon he gave his heart to Moody's God.

Friend, God is love. All His ways and acts are love.

________

Source: These Times, Copyright (c) November 1974, Pacific Press, http://www.signstimes.com

For us over middle age (or even those almost there) and all you others, check out this version of “Jesus Loves Me”.

JESUS LOVES ME (Senior Version)

Jesus loves me, this I know,

Though my hair is white as snow.

Though my sight is growing dim,

Still He bids me trust in Him.

(CHORUS)

YES, JESUS LOVES ME... YES, JESUS LOVES ME...

YES, JESUS LOVES ME FOR THE BIBLE TEL LS ME SO.

Though my steps are oh, so slow,

With my hand in His I’ll go

On through life, let come what may,

He’ll be there to lead the way.

(CHORUS)

Though I am no longer young,

I have much which He’s begun.

Let me serve Christ with a smile,

Go with others the extra mile.

(CHORUS)

When the nights are dark and long,

In my heart He puts a song.

Telling me in words so clear,

“Have no fear, for I am near.”

(CHORUS)

When my work on earth is done,

And life’s victories have been won.

He will take me home above,

Then I’ll understand His love

(CHORUS)

I love Jesus, does He know?

Have I ever told Him so?

Jesus loves to hear me say,

That I love Him every day.

Plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz tells the story of a man who’d been severely injured while attempting to rescue his parents from a fire. His heroic efforts proved to be in vain, though. His mom and dad died in the burning house.

During his rescue attempt the fire had scorched his face and disfigured it. He was so ashamed of his appearance after that he refused to allow anyone — including his wife — to see his face.

For help, she went to Maltz. “Not to worry,” he assured her, “I can restore his face.”

Despite the good news, the wife still felt disheartened. Her husband had always refused any medical treatment. Assuming he wouldn’t change his mind, she said to Maltz, “I want you to disfigure my face so I can be like him! If I can share in his pain, then maybe he will let me back into his life.”

Maltz tried to mask his horror at the request. He refused to perform the operation, but was so moved by this woman’s love for her husband that he went to visit her husband. Through a closed door, he yelled, “I’m a plastic surgeon. I want you to know that I can restore your face.”

No reply.

“Please, won’t you come out? At least let me see your face. At least talk to me.”

Silence.

Still speaking through a door, Maltz told the man of his wife’s request. “She wants me to mutilate her face in order to make her face like yours. She hopes that you will then let her back into your life. That’s how much she loves you.”

Ever so slowly the doorknob turned.(1)

LOVE OF ANOTHER KIND

The woman’s love toward her husband mirrors the love that God feels toward us — the kind of love that God calls us to model toward each other. Jesus said, “I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. And here is how to measure it — the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends” (John 15:12, 13, NLT).

Jesus took on our face, our disfigurement. There was no place he wouldn’t go in order to reach us. He went to a hay trough, homes of ill-repute and a bloody cross. The love He modeled had no limits. He did this in order to afford us the treatment that he deserves. Ellen G. White describes it this way: “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. ‘With His stripes we are healed.’”(2)

Doesn’t that kind of love make you want to respond? Don’t you want to spread that kind of love to others? Jesus stands at the door of your heart and says, “Look! Here I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me calling and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends” (Revelation 3:20, NLT).

Won’t you let Him in? And won’t you let Him out?

________

1. Maxie Dunnam, This is Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 60-61.

2. Ellen G. White, DESIRE OF AGES, p. 25.

________

Karl Haffner, Walla Walla College Church senior pastor, writes from College Place, Washington.

TEENAGE GRANDSON: “Grandma nothing is working in my life!”

GRANDMA: “How do you mean?”

GRANDSON: “You know! At school, at home, my friends, my girlfriend . you know!”.

GRANDMA: “Would you like some of the cake I’m making?”

GRANDSON: “Sure!”

GRANDMA: “Here, have a ¼ cup of cooking oil.”

GRANDSON: “Yuck! I can’t drink that!”

GRANDMA: “How about a couple raw eggs?”

GRANDSON: “Gross, Grandma!”

GRANDMA: “Would you like a cube of margarine! Or some flour? Or maybe baking soda?”

GRANDSON: “Come on Grams, those are sick! I want some cake!”

GRANDMA: “That’s right, they seem bad by themselves. But when you put them together in the right way and slowly bake them in an oven, they make a great cake!”

–––––––––

Commentary: This is how God works in our lives. We often wonder why he lets us experience hard times; taken by themselves they seem difficult. But God knows what He is doing. When all the ingredients are together and allowed to bake in His time, they always work for our good!

Someone said, “God is crazy about you. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and [yet] He chose your heart. [Consider] the Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem; not to mention that Friday at Calvary. Face it, He’s crazy about you.”

The night before Easter, I was up preparing food for the breakfast I would serve after Easter sunrise service. I had the TV on in the background and "Pretty Woman" was playing -- a movie classic. I wondered why I loved this movie so much since I was a young girl...I have seen it a hundred times. Why would I love a movie about a prostitute? Then this past weekend, I visited a small church in Ft. Lauderdale where the priest spoke about the Bible story of Hosea and Gomer, a story of Hosea's love for his prostitute wife. No matter what she did, Hosea continued to pursue her and wait for her with open arms.

I was reminded why I love "Pretty Woman" ... I am Julia Roberts and God is Richard Gere. For years, I prostituted myself to the world, but God rescued me, gave me new clothes without stain, set up a new home for me in His mansion, and made me an heiress to His kingdom. Forever I will be God's pretty woman!

Below I have included a skit on the story of Hosea that a coworker had shared with me a couple of years ago. It's a beautiful story that will tug at your heart strings.

_______________________

THE ROMANCE OF THE AGES

by Robert Tullos

MAN: ‘Tis a strange and timeless story…

WOMAN: A love story…

MAN: The story of Hosea and…his wife.

WOMAN: And her name?

MAN: Well, you see, the story is a whole lot better if you don’t have to say her name…

WOMAN: But her name is important.

MAN: I know, but…

WOMAN: Her name was Gomer.

MAN: If there is a lesson to be learned from this story, it’s don’t name your daughter…Gomer.

WOMAN: No…there is a much greater lesson to be learned. You see, Gomer, was a prostitute.

MAN: And Hosea was a preacher.

WOMAN: Not exactly the kind of match you would find on “The Love Connection.”

MAN: But, television wasn’t around. God was the matchmaker.

WOMAN: And Hosea loved Gomer…

MAN: Have you seen my wife Gomer…Where is she!?

WOMAN: Desperately he would search for her, but he would not find her, until he looked in the Red Light District of the Northern Kingdom.

MAN: Despite Lying…

WOMAN: Despite Adultery…

BOTH: Hosea loved Gomer.

MAN: Despite Cruelty…

WOMAN: Despite Sin…

BOTH: Hosea loved Gomer.

WOMAN: Why can’t you just leave me alone! I’m not good enough for you! I can’t live my life as a prophet’s wife! Stop rescuing me Hosea!

MAN: But I love you!

WOMAN: Listen! You pull me out of bars and I’m just going to end up there all over again. I’m not the woman you dreamed I could be…am I?

MAN: No, not now, but…

WOMAN: You’re a dreamer!

MAN: And you’re my wife!

WOMAN: I’m not your wife! I quit! Do you hear me?

MAN: I do hear you, but…(I…love…you!)

WOMAN: Then leave…me…alone!

WOMAN: Do you have any pride, any self respect?

MAN: I have love!

WOMAN: That wasn’t the question…you’re ruining my business…your love is humiliating…

MAN: I know it is…but it’s strong!

WOMAN: Hosea was a romantic in the purest form. Every fiber of his being was love. Every thought, every breath, was consumed by a God-given love for his wife. And like a madman to the world, he would search for his unrequited love.

MAN: No one…

WOMAN: Not Shakespeare…

MAN: Not Browning…

WOMAN: Or Lennon…

MAN: Could write a love song like Hosea lived.

WOMAN: This romance was a nightmare.

BOTH: Hosea was a failure. Hosea loved Gomer.

MAN: At the apex of this romantic catastrophe, we find Hosea once again searching the inner city for his wife. And off in the distance, he sees her, captured and for sale on an auction block. She was an ugly sight…

WOMAN: Bruised…

MAN: Beaten…

WOMAN: Naked…

MAN: Humiliated…

WOMAN: Destroyed.

MAN: She had nothing.

WOMAN: Hosea ran back to the house, packed up their food, their clothes, their possessions; everything of value.

MAN: He ran as fast as he could, and as he arrived, the auctioneer began.

WOMAN: Who will give me five shekels for this woman?

MAN: Five!

WOMAN: Five! Ten, do I hear ten? Ten, to the Roman soldier! Do I hear twelve?

MAN: Twelve!

WOMAN: Twelve, to the holy zealous man! Fifteen, do I hear fifteen? Fifteen, going once…Fifteen, going twice…

MAN: I’ll give everything I have!

BOTH: Silence.

WOMAN: Hosea brought forth everything they owned, and laid it at the feet of the auctioneer. He wrapped up Gomer’s trembling, naked, humiliated body, picked her up, and carried her home.

MAN: Paid in full.

WOMAN: A relentless romantic.

MAN: Solid as rock.

WOMAN: God-like.

MAN: With a God-kind-of-love.

WOMAN: Unheard of before this time.

MAN: Before the time when God looked down upon the auction block of the cosmos and saw you and me.

WOMAN: We were an ugly sight.

MAN: Bruised…

WOMAN: Beaten…

MAN: Naked…

WOMAN: Humiliated…

MAN: Destroyed.

BOTH: Chained and captured like an animal.

WOMAN: We had nothing.

MAN: And before the bidding began…

WOMAN: The earth quaked and God shouted…

MAN: I’ll give everything I have!

WOMAN: And the hammer fell.

MAN: And the ransom was laid down.

BOTH: Paid in full.

WOMAN: The romance of the ages.

MAN: The romantic…

WOMAN: Who gave birth to other romantics…

MAN: And despite lying…

WOMAN: Despite adultery…

MAN: Despite cruelty…

WOMAN: Despite sin…

BOTH: God so loved.

WOMAN: You are invited to partake in this romance.

MAN: To enter in to the very center of Christ’s love.

WOMAN: Totally loved.

MAN: Totally forgiven.

WOMAN: And totally free to love each other…

MAN: As Christ loved us.

BOTH: The romance of the ages.

Our instinctive expectation when we pray is for God to intervene in the circumstances and situations we bring before His throne. It is proper and appropriate to expect God to respond when we pray. We must never forget that He responds in the way He deems best, and that His response may often be different than our desires. Whatever God’s response, the act of prayer is itself a pathway to joy.

Prayer is a petition we present before God -- never directions we give to God. However, knowing that every time we pray in accordance with biblical guidelines, God does hear and does respond, is a promise that should bring joy to the heart of every believer. Prayer becomes our passage into a front row seat to see God at work. It is our assurance that we are living in His grip and are a part of His unfolding purposes. Christians with the habit of prayer tend to be Christians who live with a deeply rooted sense of joy growing from their certainty about God’s presence and work in their lives. Let’s dig a little deeper into why we can experience joy as a fruit of our prayers.

The first way a Christian learns to pray is praying as an expression of need to the Lord who loves us and gave Himself for us. The Gospel tells of our sin and the sacrifice Jesus made to save us. If He would do that, He would surely hear my cry for help. If He will provide forgiveness and eternal life, surely He will provide present help. Praying for His intervention on the basis of His provision for our salvation becomes a vivid reminder of how He feels about us. Prayer is in effect a tutorial reminding us of why we can have confidence in the Lord and what His presence in our lives means. When the Gospel story drives your prayers, it drives you to joy.

The second way a Christian learns to pray is by praying for the needs of others. Someone once defined evangelism as “one beggar telling another beggar where to get food.” Our encounter with Christ reveals His love for us. Our walk with Christ makes clear His love for others. The Gospel is bigger than me. The Gospel is for the whole world. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The better you know the Gospel, the more you understand the love of God is deep enough and wide enough to embrace all who turn to Jesus in faith.

The Apostle Andrew was always bringing others to Jesus because He knew that Jesus cared about them, too. Imagine his joy as he watched Jesus embrace those he brought with the same love he experienced. Knowing the Gospel is for the whole world drives us to pray for the needs of others with as much passion as we pray for our own needs. Seeing God work in ever-wider circles multiplies the joy of seeing Him work in us.

The third way a Christian learns to pray is by praying for the purposes of God to be fulfilled. Children know their parents love them, but they do not understand the depth of that love. As they grow and mature, they realize more and more the distinctive, sacrificial love that drove every loving act of their parents. Things their parents did and decisions their parents made look different when they realize those decisions were driven by love. As adults with children themselves, those kids are often surprised when they raise their children in the same way they were raised. Why? Parental love drives their decisions, too. As we learn more and more of Christ, our prayers begin to reflect more and more of His priorities. When you are praying for what you know God wants to do, you rejoice in the certainty He will hear and He will respond to prayers in the direction He is already going.

The Academy Award-nominated film “Les Miserables” has garnered praise as an overarching parable contrasting the Bible’s Old Testament, where God’s law and wrath is in focus, and the New Testament, where God’s love and grace is evident.

From Genesis to Revelation, however, the Bible conveys a remarkably uniform picture of the God of justice and love revealed throughout the Bible.

The New Testament book of 2 Thessalonians tells of the second coming of Christ in terms of “affliction,” “vengeance,” “flaming fire” and “everlasting destruction from the Lord’s presence” upon those who do not obey the Gospel (1:6-10).

According to a popular contrast of Old Testament wrath and New Testament love, this sounds like what one would expect to hear thundered from the lips of some Old Testament prophet of doom rather than from the apostolic author of the Bible’s “love chapter” (1 Corinthians 13).

Remember also Jesus’ own words about the tortuous existence of the wicked in the place where “the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.” Again, this is New Testament -- Mark 9:48.

On the other hand there is not a more “New Testament” book than that of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. God speaks to His people with tender love and words of redemption in this Gospel-rich book. Consider for instance chapter 53, where the servant of the Lord is described as “bearing our sicknesses” and “carrying our pains” (v.4). The people are described as straying sheep, rescued by God’s servant who bears their iniquity (v.6).

God’s classic self-revelation to Moses includes on the one hand a description of abundant love and grace, while on the other, of his searching justice and judgment:

“The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation,” (Exodus 34:6,7).

We must remember that the Old Testament law included divine commands carrying punishment for disobedience, as well as an intricate system of sacrificial worship, indicating God’s merciful will to forgive sinners based on the timeless principle made clearer in the New Testament: “without shedding of blood there is no remission,” (Hebrews 9:22).

Abraham, representing a multitude of Old Testament saints, experienced this himself (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3).

God’s plan of salvation, worked out in the historical panorama of both testaments, could be considered an exposé of these two marvelous aspects of His character coexisting in harmonious tension.

Perhaps in this regard the most instructive passage in the entire Bible is the wonderful self-disclosure from our God Himself: “I am the Lord, I do not change,” (Malachi 3:6). God’s redemption of man is an expression of His character and person and is grounded firmly in it.

The only reason anyone is saved, whether Abraham, Moses, Paul, Peter or the person that received Christ yesterday, is because God is merciful and gracious, offering forgiveness and love to anyone who turns from his or her sin in faith and repentance to the crucified, resurrected and living Christ.

It is the abundant mercy and love of God that moves Him to take upon Himself human flesh and bear the iniquity of us all in His own body on the cross. At the same time, the harsh judgment of sin is necessary because of the blinding white purity and holiness of the God who reigns in righteousness.

For God to do less than judge unrepentant sinners would make Him an inferior and flawed judge of His universe. It is this eternal, changeless God of the Bible who redeems sinners, and He does so -- in any age -- in a way that is entirely consistent with and that gloriously reveals His perfect justice, love and majesty.

This God of the Bible we can and should know.

Andrew* limped up the stairs to the pulpit of the church. As he turned to face the congregation, I noticed that one of his eyes sagged. The scarring was evidence of the torture he had endured.

He greeted the members of the Bulgarian Baptist church in broken English. It was the late 1990s and it had been less than a decade since the Soviet Union had dissolved. Many of the believers sitting shoulder to shoulder in the pews of the church had known the trauma of persecution under the communist regime. Some had been imprisoned. They were acquainted with suffering, so they could relate to Andrew’s story in a way that I couldn’t.

Standing in front of a congregation of Bulgarian believers, Andrew described how fighters had come to his village and executed his father in front of his eyes. He held his dad as he died in his arms.

Then the men dragged Andrew to prison where they tortured him. They beat him so badly that they destroyed the vision in one of his eyes. Searing jolts from electric shock permanently damaged the nerves in one of his legs.

A priest who visited the prison on occasion helped him escape. Then his long walk over the North African desert began. He traveled on foot to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a miracle he survived the brutal journey.

From Egypt he crossed into Israel, where he registered as a refugee and applied for asylum in Europe. Bulgaria offered to take him. An African who had never seen snow, he was totally unprepared for winter in the Balkans. He shivered almost constantly, never really managing to feel warm. But his heart was burning with anger. He was consumed with the desire to take revenge on the men who destroyed his life.

From hate to love

Andrew and some refugee friends began attending services at an international Baptist church, attracted by a promise of free meals. James, the pastor and a former car mechanic from Texas, and his wife Audrey served a meal in their apartment after the service every Sunday. They invited anyone who wanted to come.

No one could resist Audrey’s buttery casseroles -- not me and not the African refugees. I met Andrew when I sat across from him at the kitchen table. He asked me about my family. Did I have brothers, sisters and aunties? He wondered how my father felt about me being so far from home. Was he worried that I lived alone? I sensed the cultural distance. This man from a closely knit tribal society hardly knew what to make of a young woman traveling voluntarily across an ocean to make a life of her own, far from those who were her protectors.

One Sunday, Pastor James happened to be preaching on the Sermon on the Mount. He emphasized Jesus’ command to love your enemies. Jesus’ teaching struck Andrew as ridiculous and offensive. So he confronted James after the service, planning to argue. He felt only hatred for his enemies. He wanted retribution, not love.

But over months of conversations, James patiently explained the power of the Gospel. The Sermon on the Mount convicted Andrew. Jesus’ teaching, death and resurrection broke through his bitterness. He decided to follow Jesus, knowing that this new commitment meant he had to forgive the men who killed his father.

Standing in the pulpit of the Bulgarian church, he said he wanted to return to North Africa, the place of his greatest sorrow. Before, he wanted to go back to kill his enemies, but now he would forgive them. God’s love, he believed, could save them, just as it had transformed him.

Listening to Andrew, I wondered if I would do the same. Would God’s love flow through me if I watched my father die in my arms? Would I be able to love people if they tortured me the way they tortured Andrew?

Andrew’s testimony taught me three things about God’s love:

• Jesus isn’t asking us to do something He hasn’t already done Himself.

He forgave those who crucified Him. He loved us while we were still enemies of God (Romans 5:10). Jesus calls Christians to love our enemies and bless those who curse us, because He did the same. He established a pattern for those who would follow after Him (1 Peter 2:20–25).

• Loving our enemies isn’t something we do for God. It’s something God does through us.

This sort of love isn’t natural; it’s supernatural. It isn’t a love any person can muster in his own strength. This love is the fruit of the Spirit, at work in those who believe. It can’t be manufactured; it can only be gifted. If we suffer in Jesus’s name without retaliating, the “Spirit of glory and of God” rests on us (1 Peter 4:12–19).

• Jesus’s command to love our enemies applies to all Christians, everywhere, all the time.

Andrew understood that he couldn’t be a follower of Jesus and not submit to this hard teaching. The call to love even our enemies subversively breaks the natural cycle of violence that has corrupted God’s good world. It is this love that most closely reflects the merciful character of God Himself (Luke 6:27–36).

Commenting on Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, Charles Spurgeon realized that loving enemies is one of the most distinctive aspects of the Christian discipleship:

“We do not merely cease to hate and then abide in a cold neutrality, but we love where hatred seems inevitable. We bless where our old nature bids us to curse, and we are active in doing good to those who deserve to receive evil from us.... He who can bless the unthankful and the evil is a child of God, for the Lord is doing this on a great scale in daily providence, and none but his children will imitate him.”

Will I love like Christ? Will I imitate Him in blessing even my enemies? A North African refugee taught me that if I’m a follower of Jesus, I don’t have a choice. Andrew showed me the radical love of God that embraces even our enemies. Recently, I spoke with James and Audrey. They told me that Andrew returned to North Africa to put this love into practice.

________

*Name changed.

You’ve likely heard the platitude: “You have to love yourself before someone else can love you.”

It doesn’t happen every day, but when life seems to become too complicated or my depression takes hold, it’s like an emotional and mental levee breaks. I begin to see my shortcomings as failures, my comforts as complacencies and my difficulties as incompetence.

Self-hate creeps in before I can barely detect it. I trick myself into thinking I need to try harder as if my salvation depends on me. I try to do anything that will make God happier with me. I begin to wonder if I will ever be worthy of God’s affection again -- or if I ever had it in the first place.

It pops into my head: “Can God love me if I hate myself?”

If you’re anything like me, take heart. God designed the Gospel for us unworthies.

Jesus says in Mark 2:17, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” In the very beginnings of His public ministry, Jesus begins replacing the world’s platitudes with His: Our sickness is the very thing that makes us savable.

Paul echoes a similar sentiment in his first letter to the church at Corinth: “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:27-31).

The proud and haughty seek to be their own saviors; Gospel-needy people are sick and they are often shameful. They know they can do nothing and need to be rescued by someone whose status supersedes their own. They know they need to be fixed because they feel sin’s pang deep in their bones.

If you find yourself feeling sick and shameful, consider that God could be using it to remind you that you are not capable of saving yourself. Instead of being antithetical to God’s salvation, your sickness and shame actually pave the way for it.

Even so, while we believe God is able to save us, some of us wonder if He actually loves us -- perhaps because we have sinned one too many times or we feel we are too stubborn to be loved. This, too, misunderstands of the love of God.

When you can’t love yourself and wonder where God’s love is, remember the God by Whom you are loved:

• You may doubt it sometimes, but you are predestined, called, justified and glorified by the Father (Romans 8:30). The Father actually loves us and calls us His children so that we will be like Him, since we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:1-2).

• You may doubt it sometimes, but Jesus can actually free you from your sins (Romans 6:22). He is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister because you have actually been made holy by His sacrifice (Hebrews 2:11).

• You may doubt it sometimes, but the Holy Spirit can actually effect change in your life (Romans 12:2). The Spirit brings us true life -- something the flesh cannot do (John 6:63).

You are not worthy of the Gospel. You never have been. God’s love is not due to your loveableness. Because of this, He will not leave you, even when you’re unlovable.

You are reckoning with a God who came down to take on flesh so that He could replace your unworthiness with His worthiness -- a God who loves you even when you don’t love yourself. Your doubts cannot overpower the unchangeable character of God. Your blood-bought status can never be revoked by even the deepest fears or the darkest doubts. Your sonship in the family of God is the result of Christ’s merits alone, and He is the one who loves even the most unlovable.

Among the many hymns with deep roots in the history of the Church, “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” is based on a 900-year-old poem written by theologian and mystic Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard was a towering figure in the political, intellectual, and religious life of 12th-century Europe.

In 1113, Bernard became a member of a new religious order known as the Cistercians. The group followed a strict monastic life of prayer, labor, and austerity. Two years later, he was sent by the order to found a new monastery that he named Clairvaux.

Bernard quickly became one of the leading reformers in the Church of his day. He participated in Church councils, worked to heal schisms over who was the legitimate pope, helped to found and promote the Knights Templar, and preached the Second Crusade, even convincing King Louis VII of France and Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III to join the expedition. He was also involved in intellectual and theological debates, most notably opposing some of the teachings of Peter Abelard.

Bernard’s greatest contributions were in the realm of spirituality. While earlier spirituality in Western Europe tended to emphasize Christ’s divinity, primarily portraying Him as a victorious warrior over the powers of Hell, Bernard focused on divine love, particularly demonstrated in the Incarnation and revealed in Christ’s suffering. Jesus’ love for us was so great that He chose to suffer for us, providing forgiveness of sins and identifying with humanity’s weakness and suffering. Thus, from Christ we learn compassion and mercy from both a human and divine perspective.

To Bernard, the only proper response to God’s love in Christ is to love Him in return and to imitate Him by loving our neighbor. Love was so central to Bernard’s spirituality that Dante portrays him as the one who leads to the highest levels of heaven in the Divine Comedy.

Bernard’s emphasis on a deeply personal relationship with God built on faith and love anticipated, in many ways, Protestant ideas. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin quoted Bernard in support of justification by faith; Calvin also quoted him in support of imputed righteousness.

Bernard also promoted lectio divina, an approach to meditation on Scripture designed to help the practitioner hear the Holy Spirit speaking and to increase personal connection with God. He wrote on many other areas of theology as well, particularly about the Virgin Mary. He also wrote extensively on the theology of music and authored many hymns and poems.

One of Bernard’s poems was the source of “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.” “Salve Mundi Salutare” consists of seven sections, each addressing a part of Christ’s body (specifically, His feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and head) as He hung on the cross. Throughout, Christ’s suffering is portrayed as the ultimate expression of divine love, and it calls for a response of love from us in return.

The season of Lent and Holy Week is an appropriate time to meditate on Christ, His Divine and Human natures, His sufferings on our behalf, the love that prompted them, and what that love has accomplished on our behalf.

O Sacred Head by Bernard of Clairvaux is a wonderful, time-tested resource to reflect on these realities.

O sacred Head, now wounded,

with grief and shame weighed down,

now scornfully surrounded

with thorns, thine only crown!

O sacred Head, what glory,

what bliss till now was thine!

Yet, though despised and gory,

I joy to call thee mine.

2 What thou, my Lord, hast suffered

was all for sinners’ gain.

Mine, mine was the transgression,

but thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior!

‘Tis I deserve thy place.

Look on me with thy favor,

and grant to me thy grace.

3 What language shall I borrow

to thank thee, dearest Friend,

for this, thy dying sorrow,

thy pity without end?

Oh, make me thine forever,

and should I fainting be,

Lord, let me never, never

outlive my love to thee.

4 Be near when I am dying,

oh, show thy cross to me,

and for my rescue, flying,

come, Lord, and set me free!

These eyes, new faith receiving,

________

Jesus shall not move,

for one who dies believing

dies safely, through thy love.

________

Copyright (c) 2023 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

A converted African went to Robert Moffat, the missionary, and told him that his dog had torn his copy of the New Testament and swallowed some of the leaves of it, and that he was grieved about it, for the dog was very valuable. "But," said the missionary, "why do you grieve so? You can get another Testament, and the pages will not hurt the dog."

"Ah!" said he, "that's what I fear. He is a good hunter and a good watchdog, and the New Testament is so full of gentleness and love that I am afraid he will never be of any service again."

________

William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."

God's love is unconditional. He loves us for who we are and not for

what we are.

A T.V. executive called the pastor of a metropolitan church and told

the pastor that he thought his son was in his city involved in the

drug culture. He asked the preacher if he would try to find the boy

and do something with him. About four months later the boy was found

and told the Gospel. He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The

preacher told the boy to pick up the extension and he would call his

father. The preacher told the father that his son had been found and

that he had accepted Jesus. The father replied, "I don't care about

that, I want to know how long his hair is, has he taken a bath, will

he apologize to his old lady?" The boy ran out of the study and his

father never saw him again.

This father's love was conditional: if you meet these requirements

I'll love you. But fortunately for us God's love is unconditional.

He loves us in spite of our sins.

-John Bisagno

The gospel of Jesus Christ needs to point sinners to the intrinsic majesty and glory of God and away from the self-esteem of man, according to John Piper. Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis and a noted author, drew on the title of one of his best-known books, "Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions," unpacking the title's two premises with an exposition of Christ's high priestly prayer in John 17.

Piper addressed a luncheon sponsored by the Arkansas-based group in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in St. Louis.

"The gospel in America is the gospel of self-esteem," Piper said, describing a gospel "that defines love as 'making much of me. If you want to love me, make much of me.' That's the definition of love in America. You feel loved because you are contaminated by this gospel in which you feel loved to the degree that you feel made much of.

"We raise our children that way, we educate them that way, we motivate people in business that way -- get people to feel made much of and they will feel loved."

Defining the gospel merely as forgiveness of sins and avoidance of God's eternal wrath is part of the good news, Piper said, but it fails to account for the genuine ground of a sinner's joy in salvation through Christ -- the glory of God.

A critical error that typifies this faulty gospel is seen most clearly in its unbiblical definition of love, Piper said. In his high priestly prayer, Christ defined love by placing himself as the supreme object of all affections, even those of God the Father.

Instead of seeking satisfaction in loving Christ as the greatest and highest of all beings, much of what passes for the gospel in contemporary Christianity defines loving another person as exalting them so that they feel good, not about God, but themselves, Piper said. It is a man-centeredness that reaps deadly eternal repercussions, he said.

When Christians view love of God as seeking his glory, Piper said individuals, churches and global missions will be radically transformed.

"Do you feel more loved when God makes much of you," Piper asked, "or do you feel more loved when God enables you by the power of his Spirit to enjoy making much of him forever? That's a very damning question in America. Because we have virtually defined love as to make much of our children, to make much of our students, to make much of our spouse, to make much of people so they feel made much of and thus feel loved.

"I believe Jesus is praying [in the high priestly prayer] that there is a totally different essence of what love is from God to us and that is: God loves us to the degree not that he makes much of us, but that he gives us the capacity by regeneration and sanctification to enjoy making much of him forever."

Piper illustrated man's fulfilling his chief end in glorifying God through the illustration of a trip to the Grand Canyon. People do not visit this great wonder of nature to increase their self-esteem, he said, but rather to marvel at something that is infinitely massive and outside themselves.

Similarly, the full-orbed expression of the gospel satisfies people's deepest longings in a way that a man-centered pseudo-gospel cannot.

"Most people don't go the Grand Canyon to enhance their self-esteem because there is an echo of the image of God on our souls that we were made to enjoy making much of God forever, not made to be made much of forever," Piper said.

"We were made to enjoy mirroring the glory of God, and when people go to the Grand Canyon there is something that happens in the human soul standing on the edge of that expanse that draws them out of themselves and in a moment, there is a precious gift of self-forgetfulness in which they swell with wonder.

"That's why they're made and they all need positive echoes of it and they go to big crazy movies and they buy big books to put on their coffee tables with pictures of mountains and rivers because they know that their joy really comes from outside themselves and not by standing in front of a mirror. You were not created to find joy in a mirror no matter what you see there."

Piper called for missionaries, evangelists, church planters and all ministers alike to proclaim this full-orbed biblical gospel, which places love within the context of God's glory. Human beings who are made in the image of God both need and desire this message, he said.

"We must bring together the gladness in the glory of God so that his glory gets its due and we get our love," he said. "The world wants this, but nobody wants to tell them. We just help them to feel made much of and that is deadly."

*

(Pittenger, a liberal:) “We do not receive the grace of God because we are good and confess our sins, it is the other way round. It’s always God’s grace which come first, … his forgiveness awakens our repentance. ‘Just as I am, without one plea.’ The whole point of the Christian gospel is that God loves and accepts us just as we are.”

John Stott: “This is a very confused statement of the gospel, however. God does indeed accept us ‘just as we are,’ and we do not have to make ourselves good first — indeed we cannot. But his ‘acceptance’ means that he fully and freely forgives all who repent and believe, not that he condones our continuance in sin. Again, it is true that we must accept one another, but only as fellow penitents and fellow pilgrims, not as fellow sinners who are resolved to persist in our sinning. No acceptance, either by God or by the church, is promised to us if we harden our hearts against God’s Word and will. Only judgment.”

The love for equals is a human thing - of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing - the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is rare thing - to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love of the enemy - love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.

________

"The Magnificent Defeat" by Frederick Buechner

- Michael J. Hostetler, {Illustrating the Sermon} (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989) 71-72

Christian leaders must face their fears and admit they can do nothing without Christ, says Sammy Tippit, an internationally-known evangelist from San Antonio. The key to courage is God's perfect love, which drives out fear.

COURAGEOUS CHRISTIANITY

Tippit, whose autobiography, “God's Secret Agent,” tells of his mission work in communist Eastern Europe, said God's people are living in an age that requires them to be courageous, but that courage comes from being in the presence of God and not by denying fears.

Referring to the passage in Acts 4 where Peter and John are brought before the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, Tippit suggested there are three keys to courageous Christianity.

First, Christians must face their fears. Jesus forced Peter to face his fears, telling the apostle he would deny him three times. It was only after Peter acknowledged that he had fears that God was able to transform him into the bold preacher who proclaimed, “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed,” (Acts 4:8-10).

Second, Christians must admit they can't, but God can. Peter said, “Salvation is found in no one [other than Jesus], for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved,” (Acts 4:12). Tippit told of his arrest years ago in communist-led Leningrad, where he was asked to sign a confession for his crimes. He refused, and his jailers told him that if he didn't, he would be sent to Siberia immediately.

“Oh, God, I need you,” Tippit prayed, acknowledging that his own wit and words were not going to get him released. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, Tippit began to write his testimony, in an echo of the Apostles Creed, “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, and was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into hell, and on the third day He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where He now sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.”

“He came into my heart and saved my soul,” Tippit wrote, “and if you want to know Him, too, you can pray this prayer right now.” Saying the confession did not go over well with his captors, Tippit nevertheless conceded that his boldness and power came from God and not from his own feeble heart.

Third, courage comes from spending time with Jesus. Tippit said the Jewish leaders noted the courage of Peter and John, even as they realized the two apostles were “unschooled, ordinary men ... [who] had been with Jesus,” (Acts 4:13). Perfect love drives out fear, Tippit said, because there is no fear in the face of Jesus, where perfect love abounds (1 John 4:18). It is by spending time with Jesus that our fears fall into perspective before a great and holy God, suggested Tippit.

*

[Original illustration here was a duplicate in HolwickID 25837-26027]

Moviegoers buy tickets to see Hollywood’s finest actors come heroically to the rescue to save helpless people. Patrons of the theater flock to witness well-trained thespians portray roles in which love triumphs over heartache and good vanquishes evil. Bookstores aggressively promote the latest romance novels which allow the readers to experience vicariously a person’s committed love for his or her soulmate. People enjoy love stories.

This week, as Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter, we commemorate not just a religious event, but instead the greatest love story ever told. In our contemporary culture, Easter is a holiday and an overblown commercial event, but, lest we forget, at its very core Easter is a love story.

To remind ourselves of central truths of this love story, let’s begin with the characters.

In this drama, the leading Man is a Jewish carpenter with no acting experience born to a teenage Jewish girl in a borrowed barn. Not exactly Broadway, is it? This unlikely Hero, born in a small town to a rather insignificant family, becomes the world’s greatest and most influential star because of His loyalty, perseverance and genuine love for people of every background.

Another important figure in our love story is the carpenter’s Father, one who lives very far away and gives His Son a tremendously difficult assignment. This assignment can be accomplished by no other person and is designed to provide heavenly forgiveness and spiritual freedom. The Father loves the Son so much that it saddens Him to know that the only remedy for the danger faced by the masses in this drama is the sacrificial death of that beloved Son.

The antagonist in our story is a character who wanted to be like the Father and the Son. His pride, a quality observed in the bad guys of many a storyline, caused him to rebel from the Father. This hatred is demonstrated most clearly when the bad guy in our story tries to murder the leading Man and discourage His followers from believing in the Son’s amazing promises of love and devotion.

The numerous supporting actors in our story are the helpless citizens of a doomed world who need the Hero to save them from destruction. These supporting actors, living in countries spanning the globe, play the unlikely dual roles of being both observers of the love story and participants in the action.

Now that we understand the characters, let’s quickly review the plot.

Befitting a great love story, the benevolent Father sends the dependable Son to defeat the evil enemy in order to save the desperately needy crowds. Once the antagonist’s plot fails and he is finally defeated, the leading actor then asks the rescued followers to commit the rest of their lives to trusting in him. Those who answer this call and devote their hearts to following the Son become adopted members of the Father’s family.

What makes this story unique? What separates this love story from so many others?

First, it is true. This non-fiction tale was not hatched in the brain of Hollywood’s leading screenwriter or developed at the typewriter of America’s finest novelist. No, this love story called Easter is a true historical event.

Second, no one else is eligible to play the three main parts. No other being in this universe is qualified to play the role of the loving, forgiving Father. No other actor is as evil as the antagonist. Only someone who is perfectly sinless and completely holy is allowed to apply for the role of the Son. Only one person has qualified.

Third, unlike so many movies that allow the hero to escape unscathed, the antagonist in this epic tale, a ruthless creature known as Satan, did indeed kill the carpenter, the Father’s only Son. After the death of the carpenter, Satan was convinced he now reigned victorious and would become the universe’s leading man. At Golgotha, otherwise known at the place of the skull, the heroic leading Man apparently met His unseemly demise on the day known by historians as Good Friday but emerges triumphant when He miraculously is resurrected by the Father on that first Easter Sunday morning.

Finally, unlike the movies at the cinema, we who sit in the seats can all play a part in this drama. All of us can star in this exciting tale of rescue, if only we will follow the Hero and allow Him to save us. The most important feature of the most important love story is that the Father, the sovereign God of the universe, is continually holding casting calls to welcome new actors into this play. To transition from observer to participant, one must only give his or her entire life in devotion to the Son, a Galilean named Jesus Christ, through faith, trusting in the Hero to save them from the certain attacks of the evil one.

Easter Sunday is the climactic ending to a spellbinding earthly performance and the prelude to an eternal drama. Only when the curtain is raised on the final scene of this production (in front of an empty tomb) do we realize that, like in all good love stories, the Hero wins in the end.

This Easter, I believe the Father is calling you and me to move from movie critic to committed actor, trading a life of distant observance of the Son for dedicated obedience to the Son. May I invite you to join me in this beautiful narrative, the love story that indeed qualifies as the greatest story ever told?

Happy Easter.

________

Trey Graham is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Melissa, Texas

*

Plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz tells the story of a man who’d been severely injured while attempting to rescue his parents from a fire. His heroic efforts proved to be in vain, though. His mom and dad died in the burning house.

During his rescue attempt the fire had scorched his face and disfigured it. He was so ashamed of his appearance after that he refused to allow anyone — including his wife — to see his face.

For help, she went to Maltz. “Not to worry,” he assured her, “I can restore his face.”

Despite the good news, the wife still felt disheartened. Her husband had always refused any medical treatment. Assuming he wouldn’t change his mind, she said to Maltz, “I want you to disfigure my face so I can be like him! If I can share in his pain, then maybe he will let me back into his life.”

Maltz tried to mask his horror at the request. He refused to perform the operation, but was so moved by this woman’s love for her husband that he went to visit her husband. Through a closed door, he yelled, “I’m a plastic surgeon. I want you to know that I can restore your face.”

No reply.

“Please, won’t you come out? At least let me see your face. At least talk to me.”

Silence.

Still speaking through a door, Maltz told the man of his wife’s request. “She wants me to mutilate her face in order to make her face like yours. She hopes that you will then let her back into your life. That’s how much she loves you.”

Ever so slowly the doorknob turned.(1)

LOVE OF ANOTHER KIND

The woman’s love toward her husband mirrors the love that God feels toward us — the kind of love that God calls us to model toward each other. Jesus said, “I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. And here is how to measure it — the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends” (John 15:12, 13, NLT).

Jesus took on our face, our disfigurement. There was no place he wouldn’t go in order to reach us. He went to a hay trough, homes of ill-repute and a bloody cross. The love He modeled had no limits. He did this in order to afford us the treatment that he deserves. Ellen G. White describes it this way: “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. ‘With His stripes we are healed.’”(2)

Doesn’t that kind of love make you want to respond? Don’t you want to spread that kind of love to others? Jesus stands at the door of your heart and says, “Look! Here I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me calling and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends” (Revelation 3:20, NLT).

Won’t you let Him in? And won’t you let Him out?

________

1. Maxie Dunnam, This is Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 60-61.

2. Ellen G. White, DESIRE OF AGES, p. 25.

________

Karl Haffner, Walla Walla College Church senior pastor, writes from College Place, Washington.

Appreciation

The Daily Vidette, student paper of Illinois State University, ran the following correction: "It was incorrectly reported that today is T-Shirt Appreciation Day. In fact, it is Teacher Appreciation Day."

It's often said that teachers don't get enough appreciation. Now we know why.

-Parade (12/31/95)

Committees

Rules for committee membership:

Never arrive on time; this stamps you as a beginner.

Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise.

Be as vague as possible; this avoids irritating others.

When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.

Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular.

--Vern McLellan, Speaker's Digest (7/96)

Criticism

The Arizona Republic reported, "As Terry Mikel was speeding toward Tucson, he passed a car, an unmarked Arizona Highway Patrol car. The officer pulled Terry over. When Terry explained that he was late for a class he was teaching at the University of Arizona, the officer took pity on him and let him off with a warning. Before he went back to the car he said, "Slow down and drive safe."

Terry felt obligated to correct him. "Excuse me, Sir, but it should be 'Slow down and drive safely. You said 'Drive safe.'"

The officer walked back to his car and wrote him a $72 speeding ticket.

--Rik Danielsen, Show Low, AZ

Evangelism

After listening to Chuck Swindoll on the radio, 8-year-old Debbie asked 6-year-old brother David, "Do you know about Jesus?"

Expecting a new slant on the old gospel story, David replied, "No."

Big sister continued: "Sit still, 'cause this is real scary." After explaining the gospel as only an 8-year-old could, she popped the question: "Now David, when you die, do you want to go to heaven to be with Jesus, God, your mommy and daddy and big sister, or do you want to go to the lake of fire to be with the Devil and bank robbers?"

David thought a moment, then replied, "I want to stay right here."

--Jim Abrahamson, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Giving

For years we lived in a small town with one bank and three churches. Early one Monday morning, the bank called all three churches with the same request: "Could you bring in Sunday's collection right away? We're out of one-dollar bills."

--Clara Null, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

God's Love

For a brief time in the 1980s, Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs enjoyed popularity as exotic pets. Unfortunately, the pigs did not live up to their reputation as ideal pets, often becoming aggressive and weighing up to 150 pounds. What do you do with an unwanted pig? Pork roasts are not the answer; the meat is tough and stringy.

Fortunately, Dale Riffle came to the rescue. Someone gave Dale one of the pigs, and he fell in love with it. The pig, Rufus, refused to use its litter box and developed a craving for carpet, wallpaper, and drywall. So Riffle sold his suburban home and bought a five-acre farm in West Virginia. Before long, the guy was living, literally, in hog heaven.

Rufus has been joined by 180 other pigs who, according to U.S. News & World Report, snooze on beds of pine shavings, soak in plastic swimming pools, and listen to piped-in classical music. They socialize in age-graded affinity groups. They never need fear they will one day become bacon or pork chops.

Dale Riffle told the reporter, "I think we're all put on earth for some reason, and I guess pigs are my lot in life."

It's amazing that anybody could fall so in love with pigs. Even more amazing is that an infinite, perfectly holy, majestic, awesome God is passionately in love with insignificant, sinful, sometimes openly rebellious, frequently indifferent people like you and me.

--Jim Nicodem on Preaching Today

----------

Copyright(c) 1997 by Christianity Today, Inc/Leadership Journal.

Winter 1997, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Page 79