PEACE & POWER Christian Fellowship

Dear Heavenly Father, LORD God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Creator of all good things, Lover of my soul, Healer of my heart, Leader of my life, Forgiver of my sins,

Be with us as we do this thing called finals.  Help us to remember what we study.   Give us the ability to concentrate for extended periods of time on the material we need to.  Allow us to be able to accurately reproduce our knowledge when needed, whether that is through test or essay or project.  Remove anxiety and fear that would drive us to forget or make mistakes.  But do not allow us to be over confident so that we do not exert the necessary effort.  Give us discernment so that we do not waste time studying non-essentials, so that we do not spend too much energy in one area sacrificing other more important areas, So that we know how to balance the demands of several competing classes.  Allow us to know what the professors are asking.  Keep us from dumb mistakes in reading questions or filling out forms or answering incorrectly when we know the right answer.  LORD, bless us during this time so that we can love you with all of our minds and all of our strength.

But LORD, allow us the ability to see past this brief moment of our lives and truly be able to have a Christ like perspective.  Give us the ability to care for others who are struggling in this moment.  Bless us greatly so that we can bless others.  Help our love even in the craziest of moments be an advertisement for your truly amazing love.

LORD, help us to truly know that your love for us is not determined by our performance this next week.  You could not love us more if we aced every test and you will not love us less if we bomb every test.  You created us in your image and you love us deeply no matter what.  We should not use that as an excuse to goof off but we as a true blessing to know the unconditional love of God.

Lord, you are great and will always be there when we are in need.  You have not brought us this far to abandon us now.  Be with us like you have been in the past.  Love us like you always do.  We lift these requests up to you in the name of the one who beat death Jesus the Christ, Amen.

Spiritual Infection a new Bible Study is now available here.  This works you through how to talk about your faith today, with someone you knew yesterday and still be friends with them tomorrow.

What This World Needs … A Fantastic Reality

There is a place that God created.

There is a place,

            A place without pain and suffering,

                        Without tragedy;

            A place without sickness and disease,

                        Without death.

There is a place,

            A place without anger and hatred,

                        Without fear;

            A place without abuse and violence,

                        Without evil.

There is a place,

            A place without separation and segregation,

                        Without divorce;

            A place without isolation and distance,

                        Without loneliness.

 

There is a place that God created.

That place was Eden, Shangri-La, Atlantis,

But that place is no longer here.

There will be a place that God holds.

That place will be Nirvana, Valhalla, Heaven,

But that place is not yet here.

 

There is a place that God created.

There is a place,

A place of great bounces and fortune,

            Of blessing;

A place of happiness and goodness,

            Of health.

There is a place,

            A place with every want and need met,

                        With every tear wiped;

            A place with every stomach full and every child held,

                        With peace.

There is a place,

            A place of love and joy

                        Of justice;

            A place of righteousness and honor,

                        Of mercy.

 

There is a place that God created.

That place was Eden, Shangri-La, Atlantis,

But that place is no longer here.

There will be a place that God holds.

That place will be Nirvana, Valhalla, Heaven,

That place is in the heart of every person.

 

I am dissatisfied with the way the world is.  I see evil and I know that it is not supposed to be.  I hear of wars and violence and starvation and disease and suffering and pain and orphans and deep within me I am sure those things are not right.  They were not intended.  Then I search for love and joy and compassion and hope and peace but I do not find it.  Where is the good that should be just around the corner?

A few years ago, I had the privilege to see evil up close and personal on several different levels.  In March I traveled to New Orleans only months after the devastation left by Katrina.  We worked to clean up some of the neighborhoods and houses left destroyed by that disaster.  Then in May I traveled to Zambia Africa to work with HIV/Aids education.  Several of the people I touched over there are now dead due to the virus.  Then in June I took a trip to see Ground Zero in New York City.  It was my first trip to that place where human decisions led directly to the death of thousands.  Finally, on July Fourth I spent mine cleaning up flooded homes just across the river in Trenton.  I was confronted with personal crises in my back yard.  I struggled that year because the evil I saw exhausted me.

This is the way the world is.  This is the way I have always known the world to be.  Why do I wake every morning expecting something to be different?  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results.  Am I insane?  I should just grow up and accept the way things are.  An ancient genius named Solomon is quoted as saying, “there is nothing new under the sun.”  The world has always been this way.  Why do I refuse to accept it?

Be careful before you judge me, because you have the same insanity as well.  You expect each stage of your life to be better than the previous.  You hope that turning 13, 16, 18 or 21 will make the difference.  You imagine that being able to drive or on the football team or in college or with that new job will change your life.  You fantasize that if he or she loves you, your life will be complete.  You pray that God will make you a better person, more beautiful, less sinful, keep your family together.  You, too, are deeply dissatisfied with the way things are.  Have you ever wondered why?

Allow me to read a quote to you.  This was written by a first century Christian named John who was one of Jesus’ closest friends:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us:  He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us his Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.  There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

That extended quote is from a letter John wrote that has been preserved in the Christian New Testament.  If you are used to using the Christian New Testament that quote can be found in I John 4: 7 -21.  When or if you find it put a bookmark there because we will come back to it several times this weekend.

Twice in the quote John says, “God is love.”  He also says, “Love comes from God.”  What does it mean “God is love?”

1.      God is personal.  He is a person.  Only persons can love.  Only persons have the capability of loving.  No matter how much you think he does your pet turtle does not love you.  Your pet turtle cannot love you.  Turtles do not love.  Animals can act lovingly but it is not real love.  Only persons with emotions, conscience, consciousness and will can love.  The decision to love is a complicated and complex decision that can only be done by persons.  If God is love this means that God is a person.  He is not “the force” or some “cosmic law of the universe.”  Just like rocks do not love forces do not love either.  I am not saying God is human.  There is a difference in being a human being and a person.  All human being are persons not all persons are human beings.

2.      God is relational.  Persons can only love other persons.  No matter how much you think you do you do not love your pet turtle.  You do not love your favorite TV show.  You do not love your favorite Ice Cream.  Although, we often use the word love to communicate our feelings for inanimate objects we do not feel for them in the same way as a person.  Persons can only love other persons.

This leads us to our next question.  Who does God love?

1.      Since God is eternal for John to say “God is love,” God would have to be eternally loving.  That means that God would have to have eternally loving relationships with other persons.  That means God would have to love someone before he created us.  Was God love before he created us?  Of course.  Then who did God love before he created us?  Himself.

2.      God the Father had an eternally loving personal relationship with God the Son.  God the Son had an eternally loving personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit had an eternally loving personal relationship with God the Father.

3.      God is love because God is completely invested in perfect eternally loving personal relationships.

Now what does this type of God have to do with us?  In the creation story in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Hebrew Torah now preserved in our Christian Bibles as the book of Genesis we see this God who is love creating us, creating humanity.  Not only did this God create us but this God created us to be in his image.  We were created to be like God.  Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Now if a God who is completely invested in perfect eternally loving personal relationships and if this God created us to be in his image then I can begin to understand my dissatisfaction with the world.  God created me to be in eternally loving personal relationships.  God created me to eternally love him and eternally love others.  A strong sense of what should be is built into me.  It is built into my mind so that when I look at the world and do not see the world God made I am dissatisfied.  When I look at myself and do not see someone created in the image of God I am dissatisfied.  Solomon said that, “He (God) has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

This sense of eternity makes me angry when I see pain, suffering, tragedies and disease.  It makes me angry when I see relationships end due to selfishness, greed, violence, hatred or death.  This sense of eternity makes look for love, joy, peace and happiness.  This sense of eternity makes us fantasize about a better place.  This sense of eternity makes us create amazing stories where tomorrow is better than today.  This sense of eternity makes us want a place where perfect eternally loving personal relationships can exist.  It makes me hope in a fantastic reality based upon the perfect eternally loving personal relationships of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Do you have hope in that fantastic reality?  What parts of your life do you hope change in eternity?  Do you know others who need to hear about this hope?  Do you know friends you need to tell that an eternity is coming that is based upon a God who is love?  What this world needs is a fantastic reality based upon the perfect eternally loving relationships of God.  Let’s give it to them.  Let’s tell them about it.  Tomorrow night we are going to talk about a specific aspect of this fantastic reality.  We are going to talk about how it is made possible by a True Hollywood Hero.

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