What is Love? Part 2: Love is not Rude

This is the second post in a series on 1 Corinthians 13, and it's all about love.  In my first post on this subject, What is Love? Part 1: Love is Patient and Kind, I wrote about the first part of this passage.  In this post, I will discuss 1 Corinthians 13:4-5.

“Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.” (1 Cor. 13:4-5)

Most of these words are pretty straight forward and mean what you’d think they mean.  Other versions say things like “love is not jealous,” “does not vaunt itself,” “is not puffed up” or “proud.”  But then we get to how love isn’t “rude.”  Other versions in English said that love “doesn’t behave indecently,” instead of “isn’t rude,” but both of those terms seemed pretty broad and vague to me.  The word being translated here in Greek means to be unbecoming or behave unseemly, and that word is derived from another word that means shapeless or inelegant.  To me this seemed like it meant that love is appropriate, and doesn’t step out of line.  Whether that’s in a romantic relationship, work relationship, friendship, or whatever, it’s a good rule to abide by. 

Think of how many friendships and romantic relationships have fallen away because of someone acting inappropriately or out of line?  And this could mean so many things.  If someone is spreading rumors about you behind your back while proclaiming love to your face, that is inappropriate, indecent, and rude.  If someone pressures you into divulging some intimate or painful detail about yourself before you are ready or when the time is not right, that is out of line and unbecoming.  Neither of these show love.

Love does not manipulate or behave like a child out of jealousy, but instead has confidence in the love that they show.  Love does not boast and put itself over others out of pride, but instead puts pride aside to embrace those around them and welcome them into their love.  Love is not rude, is not inappropriate, and does not step out of line, but is instead mindful of those around them; not poking at their sore spots, but trying to promote healing.      

World Changer

I have always wanted to impact the world in some way.  Everyone does, right?  That’s the “American dream.”  Fame, fortune, name in lights and on the lips of people all around the world.  And why?  Because I did something.  Me.  I am the great and powerful world changer.  Proclaim my name and talk about me. 

That’s exactly what I wanted a few years ago, until my soul had a crisis and I figured out that that way of thinking is just all wrong.

You will only be capable of changing the world when you are able to realize that you can’t.  Yes, you read that correctly; you cannot change the world.  In fact, there is very little that you yourself can actually do.  I am by no means saying that you are useless.  On the contrary, each and every person on this earth is an extremely valuable tool.  We are the most useful when we entirely surrender ourselves to our Master.  Imagine trying to build something when all your hammer wants is to go off and do its own thing. 

When we try to make a name for ourselves is when we will fail.  That’s when we start serving the wrong master; the master of death and destruction.  That’s what happened in Genesis 11, you may know it as The Tower of Babel Fiasco.  At that time, all of the people in the whole earth spoke the same language.  The people decided to build themselves a city with a tower “with its top in the heavens” and they said “let us make a name for ourselves,” (Genesis 11:4).  They were attempting to make a name for themselves and empower themselves, trying to physically put themselves on the same level as God.  So God confused their language.  He scattered them over the whole earth and made it so they could not understand each other.  This is just one example of our destiny of failure, if we take the path of self-righteousness.

In John chapter 15, verses 4 and 5, Jesus said “Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

As a believer in the Bible and Jesus, I firmly believe His words.  Without Him, we can do nothing, and with Him, we can do anything.  “I can do all things through Him who gives me power,” (Philippians 4:13).  If we want to change the world, I suggest that we put our own desires to do so aside, and instead seek what He wants for us.  

2 Corinthians 4:5-6 says “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The only way to change the world as we know for the better it is to speak life and truth and follow through with actions validate our words.  We need to proclaim the Light of Yeshua and the Truth of God and His Word, not ourselves.  Anything that we are outside of God is not worth proclaiming.

Psalm 27:2 continues to drop further wisdom on the subject, when it says “Let someone else praise you, not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips.”  This is part of modesty.  We should not be proud and braggadocios, letting everyone know the good that we have done.  Instead, we should boast of our God, because to Him, all praises are due.  That way we will show the world what we are about, and what is good and true.

Psalm 44:8 “In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever.  Selah.”

Psalm 52:1 “Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?  The steadfast love of God endures all the day.”

Essentially, if you want to change the world, stop trying to.  Focus on God.  No matter what He tells you to do, do it.  It doesn’t matter how insignificant it may seem to you; if it is where God wants you, it is the most significant thing you could possibly do.  That is how you become a true world changer.

What is Love? Part 1: Love is Patient and Kind

Love is important, right?  I think that’s one of the very very few things that most people can all agree on.  Everyone wants (or maybe needs is a better word there) to feel loved.  Everyone loves something or someone.  We make important decisions based on love, and we wouldn’t want to live in a world void of love.  But what is love?  What is this driving force, this idea, this instinct that we all know and recognize as love?  And why is it so important?

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I’m going to look at this through a wonderful lens that I like to call the Word of God, also commonly known as the Bible.  We know that love is important from a Biblical perspective for many reasons.  I could list them all, but I think that I  can sum them up pretty well by citing Yeshua’s (Jesus’) answer to the Pharisees when they were testing Him and asked what the greatest commandment in the Torah was.  “And he said to him ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor and yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets,’” (Matthew 22:37-40).  Yeshua himself said that the entire Law, or Torah, and every God-given word uttered from the prophets depends on love, so obviously, love is pretty important from a Biblical perspective.  But why?

In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul says that we are essentially useless and that we’re doing whatever it is that we are doing in vain if we are without love.  He says “If I give away all I have, if I give up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing,” (1 Cor. 13:3).  We can do all the “nice” and “good” things that we want.  We can help those around us, we can sacrifice ourselves for our cause, and we can do any number of things, but if we are not doing them out of love, then there is ultimately no point.

If we look back at the previous verse, we learn that this concept does not only apply to what we do, but also to what we know.  He says “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing,” (1 Cor. 13:2).  We can have all the Bible knowledge in the world, go through seminary, have read the Bible however many times, have all the street smarts in the world, and literally know more than any other human being on the planet about life, God, and all things in between, but if we do not have love, we are nothing.  Nothing.  And just because you believe in God doesn’t mean anything either, because Paul said that even if you have enough faith to remove mountains and are without love, you’re still nothing. 

But why?  Why is love so important?  Just one little word, and if we don’t have it, then what’s the point?  Well, unfortunately, in the English language, we only have one word for “love,” and that’s kind of ruining it for us.  Because we love peanut butter, and vacations, and our moms and dads, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, tacos, art, water, scenic views, animals, good books, and God.  We bring God down to the same level as peanut butter.  Great.

I want you to take a look with me for a minute at the Biblical definition of love.  We can find this in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.  You know, the part they always read at weddings.  I had read this many times before and definitely gained some perspective on what love was, but I still felt like something was missing, as I often do when I look at the Bible in only English, seeing as how it was written in Hebrew and/or Greek.  So I pulled out my interlinear Bible and my Strong’s Concordance, along with several versions of the Bible in English, and I had myself a good old-fashioned word study, and what I discovered greatly enhanced what I know to be “love.”  Allow me to break it down for you a bit.  In this blog post, we’re only going to look at the very first few words in this passage.

“Love is patient and kind…” (1Cor. 13:4).

Other versions say that love is “long suffering” instead of patient.  The word used in Greek, makrothumeo, means to be long-spirited or patiently endure.  This made me think about the Israelites in the wilderness and their constant complaining and how God had to be quite long-spirited with them to eventually lead them to the Promised Land.  It also made me think of myself and how I know that I make the same mistakes time and time again, but God still loves me.  Because He is patient.  But what I really liked from this part was the word for “kind.”  The Greek word, chresteunomai, means to show oneself useful or act benevolently.  Many people see this word and think about being “kind” or “nice” to someone, like being polite or maybe even just tolerating them.  In reality, it means to be useful and help them, not for your own gain, but for theirs.  So if you find yourself being “nice” and dismissively “tolerant” to someone, you are not loving them.  The question you need to ask yourself is, is what you are doing useful?  Or is it useless?

Now I think you have to be careful when applying this specific principal to your interactions with others, especially in today’s world where we all have differing viewpoints on big issues and we all think we’re right.  Many people think that they are being useful, helpful, and kind to someone that they find to be in the wrong, but often that is just not the case.  There are basically two fields of thought among believers as to how we approach someone with a different opinion than ours on what we consider to be a “big issue,” such as gay marriage, the confederate flag, keeping Torah, etc. etc. etc. (yeah, I went there!). 

The first one is where they kind of just “live and let live,” for lack of a better term.  A believer knows that someone believes differently than them, but they’re not going to talk about it.  They think that they will not be able to convince the other person of the error of their ways, so why bother?  Let’s just keep the peace and be friends.  If it ever comes up, then I’ll let them know where I stand…unless it’s not a convenient time…and if I can think of a good way to say it…but pretty much I just want to make sure we’re still friends because I think I can be a good influence in their life.  Right?

The second one is where they will absolutely let everyone know what they believe and why everyone else is wrong if they don’t agree.  And they will make sure they touch all bases and cover every subject.  Look, I just want you to know!  Because I care about you!  So just listen to me, read your Bible, and WHY DON’T YOU AGREE WITH ME YET?!  You are living in SIN, my friend!

Now I’m not saying that all believers fall into one of those two categories, but many of them do.  In my opinion, neither of them are very good examples of “love is patient and kind.”  While it is necessary to maintain friendships and not make people uncomfortable all the time, it is also important that your friends know who you are and what you stand for.  You may be the only representation of God that a lot of people ever see, so be a good representation.  If you just sit back and pretend like your differing viewpoints are not at all important, you are not being kind.  You are being selfish.  You are watching your friends go down in flames while keeping any knowledge that you have of God to yourself.  That is not making yourself useful or acting benevolently.  It is not kind, and it is not love.

At the same time, if you are constantly nagging people and pushing your beliefs on them, that is not love either.  We need to “speak the truth in love,” (Ephesians 4:15).  Mostly, we need to make sure people know where we stand (without being obnoxious!) and love them regardless of whether or not we agree with them.  Remember, love is patient.  And you are not always going to be using words to get your point across.  People are supposed to be able to know us by our fruit.  If they can’t see Who we serve in the way we conduct ourselves in everyday life, then we are doing it wrong.  There are definitely times to take a stand, and I think we all pretty much know them when we see them, but those times will mean nothing to those around us if we have not created a foundation of love with them.

If we do not have love, we are nothing.

6 Reasons Every Believer in Jesus Should Celebrate Passover

Passover is a beautiful holiday that, like all of the Biblical holidays, I feel gets overlooked by many of today's believers.  So I have come up with 6 reasons why I think every believer in Jesus should celebrate Passover.

1) It's Biblical
There are 7 holidays that God specifically tells us to celebrate (check out Leviticus 23) in the Bible, and Passover is the first one.  No matter where you stand on the whole Torah/Old Testament/Covenant to-keep-or-not-to-keep controversy, it is still clear that these holy days belong to no one but God Himself.  He created them as yearly reminders of who He is, what He's done, and what He will do.  Celebrating these holidays that God custom made for us can draw us close to Him and show us aspects of His character that we may otherwise overlook.

2) It's Mindblowing
Every year as my family celebrates Passover, it seems like I have some new revelation or realization that just blows me away.  In our home, we do a semi-traditional Passover Seder (order of the service/dinner) that uses many Biblically based traditions that the Jewish people have been using for centuries.  Every year I am just floored by how much I see Jesus in these Jewish traditions!  And every year I discover a little more of the deep intricacy of the whole Passover story and how God designed it so that Jesus would fit the bill perfectly when the time came for Him to be our Passover sacrifice.  It's something that you think you already know until you really start learning about it.

3) The Feast of Unleavened Bread
Many people think that Passover and Unleavened Bread are one and the same, but this is not true.  If you've heard anyone say anything about "Passover week," then they were mistaken because Passover isn't even really a full day.  The Passover occurs "between the evenings" (between sundown and complete darkness) on the 14th day of Aviv (the first month on the Hebrew calendar).  Unleavened bread is actually a separate holiday that starts on the next day, although we do start eating unleavened bread at Passover.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread ties right into Passover, especially for believers in Jesus.  Right after we celebrate not only God bringing His people out of bondage in Egypt, but also Him later bringing His people out of the bondage of sin through Jesus' sacrifice, we then celebrate 7 days of abstaining from leaven and cleansing our bodies and homes of it, symbolically cleansing our lives of sin.  Not only are we reminded that, because of Jesus, we can do this cleansing, we are also reminded that we have to do our part in turning from our sins in order to receive complete cleansing from them.

4) First Fruits
Passover is when we celebrate the death and sacrifice of Jesus, and First Fruits (a holiday that happens during the Feast of Unleavened Bread when the first fruits of the barley would be presented/given to God at the Tabernacle/Temple, and also when we start counting the omer -- 50 days until Shavuot/Pentecost) is when we celebrate Him rising from the dead, therefore becoming the first fruits of the resurrected.  First Fruits is celebrated on the day after the Sabbath (7th day of the week; a day of rest) after Unleavened Bread starts, so it's not always on the same day of the month, although it is always on the same day of the week every year.  In the year that Jesus was crucified on Passover, First Fruits fell on the 17th day of Aviv, which just happened to be the day that Jesus rose from the dead!  Coincidence?  I think not.

Most Christians celebrate this without realizing on Easter or Resurrection Sunday. Jesus' death is kind of celebrated on Good Friday, and sometimes Passover is celebrated or looked at on Maundy Thursday, which is great. I think everyone should celebrate all of it! If you celebrate Passover before First Fruits/Easter/Resurrection Sunday, then the latter holds so much more significance and is so much more sacred.

5) God Told Us To
We are told several times throughout the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible, also known as the Pentateuch and/or God's instructions for how we should live our lives) that we are to celebrate Passover from generation to generation forever.  And that was back when it was only to commemorate Him leading His people out of Egypt.  How much more should we keep it now that we are also celebrating His Son dying a horrible and undeserved death to free us from the bondage of sin?

6) Coconut Macaroons 
Okay, homemade coconut macaroons have got to be one of my favorite things to eat (and I make pretty good ones, if I do say so myself), but it's not just the macaroons that make Passover great, it's more the principle of them (and if you're allergic to coconut, I'm deeply sorry for your loss).  In case you're wondering, coconut macaroons are somewhat of a Passover tradition, since they're unleavened cookies, and we don't eat leavened things on Passover.  It's kind of hard to do desserts on Passover since most desserts have some sort of leaven in them, so coconut macaroons are quite popular (probably because they're so yummy!).  Anyway, back to the point.  Every Passover is so special and unique, such an enriching and powerful experience, that, like the macaroons, I long for it and look forward to it every year.  It's hard for me to imagine why anyone would not want to celebrate it, because I always get so much out of it.  It's definitely a time to draw near to our Creator and Savior, and in my opinion, it's something that everyone who believes in Jesus should do.

If you want to try celebrating is for yourself or with your family, I can point you to two Jesus centered haggadahs (orders of service to walk you through it) put together by friends of mine.

Our Passover Lamb: A Christian Haggadah is available on Amazon Prime for only $3.99, and
Broken for You is available for free download as an ebook, and is also available on Amazon Prime for $6.50 for a hard copy.

All My Strength

In Deuteronomy 6:4-6, also known as the Jewish prayer the "shema" (roughly translated as "hear and obey"), God commands us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.  Recently, I was thinking about this concept, and something relatively simple dawned on me that I had apparently been missing, and I'd like to share it with you.

If we are loving God with literally every ounce of our strength, then we have none left to use.  This is the ultimate submission.  Only when we love God with every single ounce of our own strength do we allow His to take over our lives.  We're using all our energy loving Him, so we know that He is the One doing everything in our lives.  This is how we can give all credit to Him and follow Him so completely; He's the One behind the wheel.  Since we're using all our strength loving Him, He uses His to help us live our lives how He intended and use out talents in a way that glorifies Him.

It's Him, not us.

Coming into  a fuller understanding of this simple, yet remarkable truth gave me more courage in my love for God.  That may sound a bit weird, but it was because I realized that it's through my love for Him and His for me that His Will is done in my life, and knowing that really makes all the difference.

How Lovely

There is a Jewish prayer called “Ma Tovu” in Hebrew, which in English means “how good” or “how lovely.”  This is commonly a prayer of reverence, expressing thankfulness for the opportunity to worship God, usually together or as one people.  This prayer is made up of different passages of Scripture from Numbers and the Psalms, and is a beautiful prayer.

The part of this prayer that I would like to draw attention to comes from Psalm 26:8; “O Lord, I love the habitation of your house, and the place where your glory dwells,” (ESV).  This is, of course, referring to the Temple, God’s “house” so to speak, where His glory was dwelling in order that He might be among His people, Israel.  I read this part over a few times and it left me thinking “Hey, isn’t that us?”  As believers in Jesus as our Messiah, don’t we believe that God’s Holy Spirit dwells in us?  Our bodies are now the Temple, right?  And as believers in Messiah Jesus, we are part of Israel.  We are His people, so He dwells with and in us!  So in saying this prayer, we are expressing our love for ourselves and God in us.

To me, and I’m sure to many others out there, this is sometimes a tricky subject.  I don’t always feel like I love myself, and I’m always finding new flaws that make me less than perfect and, in my eyes, unlovable.  But apparently, since I say this prayer, I do love myself, because God is in me, and I love God more than anything.  I just have to stop thinking of myself by everyone else’s standards and remember that I am a vessel, and God dwells within me. 

I’ve been to Jerusalem, I’ve been to the Western Wall which is all that remains of the Temple courts, and I loved it.  In fact, I got really emotional thinking about how I was touching a wall that used to be a wall around the place where God was.  His House, where He lived.  But you know what?  God doesn’t live there anymore.  He lives in me, and He lives in you if you let Him.  So how much more should I love myself?  A lot more than I do, that’s for sure.  But God loves me; if He didn’t, He wouldn’t be living in me!  And that’s a pretty good start!