GCI Women's Ministry

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, NIV).

When we read these verses from First Corinthians, we think of how we are to reflect these characteristics of love in our own lives. We measure our behavior, our actions and reactions toward others. As we realize we fall short of this ideal, most of us then ask God to help us have more love.

Paul was telling the Corinthians this is what love looks like, and it’s a good pattern for us to follow. After all, love is the royal law mentioned in James 2:8. Love is a fruit of the Spirit and doesn’t come naturally to those with carnal natures – guess that about covers everyone.

But what if this chapter is more than a model of behavior for us? So many of Jesus’ words and Paul’s writings are seen as prescriptions for living—ideals of human behavior we all know can never be reached. Were their words intended to be legalistic yardsticks with corresponding punishments?

Rather than a prescription, 1 Corinthians 13 seems to me a description of God. John tells us God is love (1 John 4:8). God doesn’t have love or give love and he certainly doesn’t love as humans do, hot one day, cold the next, at times loyal then fickle in destructive cycles.

Substitute God for love in this chapter and what do you see? God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. God is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.

This chapter is not a vehicle for judgment or condemnation of ourselves or others, but a beautiful picture of a God who didn’t just give us a royal law of love but is himself the royal law of love. We don’t merely serve a God who loves us and wants us to love each other, but a God who embodies and exudes those listed characteristics of love. All of Scripture points to Jesus, who is the exact representation of the Father. We may even say that here we are presented with his resume.

The love chapter tells us who God is and how Father, Son and Spirit interact. It shows how he treats us, provides for us and will deal with us in the future. And yes, as dearly loved children we want to be like him. Some day we will be. But for now, don’t beat yourself or anyone else over the head for falling short of this ideal. Rejoice in God who alone is ideal, perfect love.

How many times have you heard someone say this? When I hear it, I wonder if the person has been lying up ‘til now. If I ever get the urge to utter such an expression, I stop myself and rephrase. It’s the same with let’s be clear. I don’t use these phrases because I don’t want to imply I’ve been the opposite.

Honesty seems to be in short supply these days. In my state, we just went through an election with all the attendant campaign promises and smearing of opponents. Several propositions were on the ballot and I found it difficult to sift through the conflicting information and make an informed decision for or against. I wish the politicians would just be honest!

Has honesty gone the way of eight-tracks, vinyl records and other outdated technological gadgets? A character on a popular TV show says everyone lies. According to him, everyone has something to hide or thinks they have something to gain from not telling the truth. It’s human nature to want to protect oneself. I hate to distrust everyone but I suspect this TV character is correct. Is dishonesty the new best policy?

Colossians 3:9-10 gives a good reason for honesty: “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (NIV).

Paul said we died and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God and he is our life (verses 3-4), so the old self, with its earthly nature (verse 5) needs to be put to death as well. According to Paul, this isn’t automatic, but something we must give attention to as we go through the process of being transformed and renewed.

As new creatures in Christ, we are experiencing the lavish love of God and have abundant life in him. C. Baxter Kruger, in an interview on the GCI website, said the abundance of God as Father, Son and Spirit is expressed in us. This allows us to give ourselves away entirely and then receive ourselves back from God and one another. He goes on to say our understanding of our acceptance and of being included in Christ allows us to let things go, to just be in Christ. This means we are not in a self-centered mode, but calm and assured, free of fear (my paraphrasing).

This means we don’t need to fear telling the truth, to others or to ourselves. We have nothing to hide, we don’t need to protect ourselves and we have nothing to gain by lying. Life is complicated enough with having to make up or remember stories. And the truth comes out in the end anyway.

Our new selves are being renewed in the image of our Creator. As we grow in grace and knowledge of him, his honesty, transparency, candor and forthrightness will shine brighter and brighter in us as light in the darkness. Does everyone lie? Perhaps; we’re still human. But let’s surrender ourselves to the renewal and transformation of the Holy Spirit and just be honest.

When we pray, we usually expect an answer, either yes, no or wait. Some cite the story of the persistent woman and the unjust judge in Luke 18 as an example of how we should keep praying until we get the answer we want. One author likens our prayers to filling up a prayer bowl and when it gets full, we can expect something to happen.

But what if getting an answer isn’t what prayer is all about? Can we be satisfied with no answers?

The story of Job is an encouraging if puzzling example of God’s presence but lack of answers during difficult times. Job asked many questions of God including the age-old Why? Why did he lose his family? Was God punishing him for sin as his friends suggested? Why did this calamity happen?

God didn’t directly answer his questions. He pointed Job and his friends to himself, to his omniscience and his omnipotence.

Boiled down to the simplest element, God’s answer was I AM. Job must have realized this was enough because in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 40, Job said: “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more” (NIV throughout).

Then God told Job to brace himself and be ready to give some answers while God asked the questions. And he asked some good ones, including, “Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (verse 8b). Later in chapter 42, verse 5, Job repented, saying his ears had heard of God but now his eyes had seen him (verse 3). He had nothing more to say.

There often are no answers to the hard questions, particularly Why? Many think God should be answering these questions and when he doesn’t, they turn away in disbelief, becoming skeptical of his very existence. It’s hard to accept that in this life we won’t always receive the answers we want and hard to explain this to others to their satisfaction.

I want answers too, but for now the only answer we need is God himself. Job realized this after going through tremendous grief and pain. Paul learned of the sufficiency of God’s grace after receiving no relief from his affliction (2 Corinthians 12:9). We too must learn and accept this, not out of resignation to victimhood or giving up in hopelessness, but out of the realization that God himself is our salvation, our sufficiency and our hope.

Psalm 73:26 says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

We will have problems. Bad things will continue to happen. We will still pray and expect God to answer, but many answers will elude us. God’s grace is always sufficient. Resting in his love and grace will ease our questioning minds more than all the answers in the world.

My dad used to say time goes so fast it seems as if every other day is Thursday. When time goes that quickly, the seconds, minutes and hours of life can run together and get lost. James was right—life is like a mist that appears for a little while then vanishes (James 4:14).

“Teach us to number our days aright,” Moses asked God, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12, NIV). How do we do this? Author Mark Buchanan suggests we “work out where time and eternity meet. Pay attention to how God is afoot in the mystery of each moment, in its mad rush or maddening plod. He is present in both. But too often, we are so time-obsessed that we take no time to really notice” (The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabbath, Word, 2005).

Do you pay attention to how God is afoot in the mystery of each moment? Or do you let them blur together in a mad rush to get everything done?

I may have mentioned a time or two I’m a big Star Trek fan. I enjoyed all the movies (even the odd-numbered ones). In Insurrection, a Ba’ku woman named Anij teaches Captain Jean-Luc Picard how to capture a single moment. She slows time, allowing him to see the beating wings of a hummingbird as it hovers over a flower. When her life is in danger, he practices this technique and is able to keep her alive until help arrives.

While we can’t slow time (I wish), we can pause to notice the mystery of God in our moments. Pick a moment and focus on where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re with and how God is present. Take a mental snapshot and praise God for what you see. In a way, time will slow down and you’ll be fully in the moment.

I remember doing this one day when my kids and I were at a park. It was a beautiful day – perfect weather, everyone was happy and healthy. We were with a good friend and my kids were playing and laughing. As I watched them, I realized this was one of those perfect moments in time that would never come again. I took a mental snapshot, noting every detail of the moment. I can still picture it in my mind, many years later.

Why is this important, you may be wondering? We are told in 1 Peter 1:24 (NLT): “People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field. The grass withers and the flower fades.” We aren’t here long, and we look forward to a better future with the Lord. But while we’re here we may as well enjoy it. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

Let yourself slow down a little and enjoy God, giving him glory and thanks as you go through your day. He is present in the meeting of time and eternity as we live, move and have our being in him.

In some fellowships, communion or the Lord’s Supper is a quiet, solemn occasion, at times almost funereal. I used to be afraid to talk before or after our ceremony in an effort to preserve the solemnity. It was almost worse than a funeral. But it’s not a funeral, even though we remember the One who died shortly after sharing a last supper with his friends. Jesus said whenever we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we are to remember him.

But how should we remember him? Should we wail and grieve like a group of paid mourners? Should we cry and be sad? Do we remember him by being guilt ridden and apologetic because our sins caused him to go through an awful death— a criminal’s death—on a Roman instrument of torture? Perhaps there’s a time and place for that—not the guilt, but a time of repentance and confession. Possibly that is best done in private, although sometimes those emotions come out when we think on Jesus’ death.

But what if we approach this time of remembrance from a different point of view? Jesus had a lot on his mind the night he sat down with his disciples to eat his last meal and talk with them one more time. He had spent three and a half years with these men and felt great affection for them. In Luke 22:15 he said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (NIV). In Matthew 26:18 he said he was planning to celebrate it with them. He knew he wouldn’t eat it again until the Kingdom of God.

Let’s remember him (Luke 22:19) as the son of God who came to earth to live among us and to be one of us. He’s the One who gave us, in the form of his person, freedom from the law, the chains of sin and the oppression of death. He gave us freedom from fear of the future, freedom to know the Father and freedom to be called children of God.

Let’s be joyful as we remember the One God anointed to preach good news to the poor, who was sent to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and to release the prisoners from darkness. He came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, to comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who grieve. He bestows on us a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair (Isaiah 61).

Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. It’s hard to imagine joy so great. It certainly was not human or earthly joy. It had to be the joy of being God! The joy of heaven! The joy of eternity! It’s joy we can’t begin to imagine or describe!

This is the One we remember—the One who changed our grief into joy and who invites us to share his life, now and in eternity. Let’s remember him with smiles on our faces, a shout of joy on our lips and with light hearts filled with the delight of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord!

I’m not a big sports fan and seldom use sports analogies in my articles. Football bores me and the squeaky shoes in a basketball game get on my nerves. I won’t even say what I think of car racing and wrestling. But I do love a good tennis match. Don’t bother me during one of the grand slam tournaments!

I watched Roger Federer school his opponent on the finer points of tennis during the final of the Australian Open in January. A commentator remarked that Federer was in the zone, and I started thinking.

I and others have opined how Christians need to get out of their comfort zones to move past complacency. It can be a good thing to be made uncomfortable. I’ve been there many times, and it’s helped me grow. I’ve learned I can do things I never would have tried if circumstances hadn’t pushed me out of my safe place and into new territory. I also learned which things I shouldn’t do again, as I either didn’t do a good job or felt like a fish out of water who didn’t accomplish much except gasp and flop around.

Being in the zone in sports means everything is working just right. All the training and preparation come together to bring a win or even make a champion. When a tennis player such as Roger Federer gets in the zone, it’s like watching poetry in motion.

Can a Christian be in the zone the same as an athlete? Why not? Perhaps we could call it being in the zone of the Holy Spirit. When we are serving in our area of giftedness, we show our excitement, we see results and most importantly, we feel in tune with the Holy Spirit. Everything works right and good things happen.

How does one get in the zone? It doesn’t happen by magic. Yes, it comes through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, but it also comes through deliberate effort on our part. Dallas Willard—in his book, Renovation of the Heart, suggests the reason many of us do not achieve true inner spiritual transformation is we don’t follow the general pattern of transformation—vision, intention and means.

Vision means we begin to live life in the kingdom of God here and now. This is not something we can do on our own; it comes from God as a gift. He has already given us this vision through his son Jesus and it becomes clearer to us as we trust and rely on him.

Intention means we decide to believe and choose to obey. It’s possible to believe, but if we don’t make a conscious choice to obey every day, chances are we will either on purpose or by neglect choose to disobey.

We find the means for spiritual transformation in the example and teachings of Jesus, in the Scriptures generally and in his people. Willard says while not all of the means are under our control (some are actions of God in and toward us) some are. He recommends off-the-spot training, where we put good principles and actions into practice in the little areas of life, much as an athlete puts in his or her time in the gym during the off season.

If we practice vision, intentionality and means in our daily lives, we will be prepared for the big moments, the championship matches, when everything comes together and we enter the zone. We too can be poetry in motion for Jesus in the zone with the Holy Spirit.

Are you still a little afraid of God? If you grew up in a church that regularly put the fear in people, you may worry he has something against you. Many preachers claim you can’t possibly be forgiven until you repent of every sin you’ve ever committed. Continuing in a state of forgiveness depends on how often and how deeply you repent of ongoing sins. Even if you’ve long understood God’s grace, you may have lingering fear of not repenting enough. One author uses 1 John 1:9 to back up this assumption: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

I don’t doubt this verse is true—I’m sure John was inspired! But I would like to offer another perspective, based on my little bit of understanding of God’s loving nature. In Hosea, God told the prophet to marry a prostitute, and he did. Their marriage produced children and Hosea loved his unnamed wife. She eventually went back to her immoral ways. In the same way Hosea didn’t stop loving his wife, God never stopped loving his chosen people. They often repented, but repeatedly turned back to idolatry.

The Good Samaritan who stopped to help a Jew in distress also showed one-sided love. In the course of normal, everyday life, the Jew and the Samaritan would have snarled at each other as they passed on the road. The Samaritan laid aside his hatred and prejudice to help a man who would just as soon spit in his face.

The father of the prodigal son didn’t wait for his son to drop to his knees, begging and pleading to be taken back, even as a servant. He ran to his son crying, elated to have him back, before his son had spoken a word.

We tend to think God is like our parents or teachers, peering over reading glasses, looking down his nose, waiting for us to sheepishly or desperately admit our sins and ask for all to be forgiven before giving us the well, OK, but don’t do it again condescending nod.    And then we may or may not get the ruler on the knuckles before he sends us on our way.

Growing in grace and knowledge means we must put aside our childish notions of an anthropomorphic God who thinks and acts as we do. He is not like us; his thoughts and ways are not like ours. He is not a petty, malicious, self-centered being who gets offended when we sin and then peevishly waits for us to crawl to him on bloody knees. Just as in the examples of Hosea, the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, our God loves and forgives us even while we are sinning! Christ died for the ungodly. His love is not conditional and his forgiveness is ours before we even think to repent.

God does desire our repentance. He wants us to understand our nature and proclivity to evil. But what exactly does repentance mean? It means to change, to turn around, to go a different direction. It doesn’t mean drumming up artificial sorrow, especially when half the time, the sin was enjoyable and we’re only sorry because we got caught. The only way we can truly change our ways is in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Through the Holy Spirit, through him who is also God, we are enabled to turn our lives over and surrender to him to live as new creatures in Christ. Through him we can also surrender our fear and even dread of the angry, vengeful God we’ve been told is waiting to punish us.

God is not mad and he has not turned away from us. He stands at the door, anxiously awaiting our return, though we must return daily or even hourly. He lovingly awaits those who still feed at the pig troughs, no matter how long it takes. His love is unfailing and his grace is never ending.

As ministers of the gospel of grace, we need to let fearful people know—and remind ourselves—who God really is, not a cruelly gleeful, knuckle-rapping schoolmaster, but the loving father of his prodigal sons and daughters.

“Captain, we’ve entered some kind of space-time continuum. Time is accelerating and we can’t slow it down. It’s already 2010!” Yes, I know Star Trek is science fiction but as quickly as 2009 flew by, sometimes I wonder if we’re caught in some kind of time warp. It seems I just started my read-the-Bible-in-a-year program. I’m happy to report I finished it on time, even though I fell behind a few times.

I’m glad I did this. It’s been years since I had read some books in the Bible. Reading straight through has one major drawback, however. It allows no time for lingering over interesting passages or doing extra reading on the background and context. This year I’ve decided to go back and spend time in the passages and subjects I found intriguing. It’s like walking slowly through a park rather than jogging. I plan to take my time, pick up rocks and leaves, sit on the grass, watch the clouds go by and smell the flowers. Both are acceptable ways to read the Bible. It was good to read straight through because it left me wanting more.

How are you reading the Bible? Are you reading it? It’s easy to put it off, especially if you’ve been reading it for years and feel familiar with it. While we don’t worship the book itself as some do, we realize the Bible is the inspired Word of God. As Paul told Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NLT).

Reading the Bible from this perspective is good. After all, Paul was speaking under inspiration. But if we only read it this way, we may miss something important. If I had approached my year-long Bible reading with the goal of being corrected and taught to do right, I might have missed the overarching purpose of the whole of Scripture. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus opened up the Scriptures to the disciples, showing them how they pointed to him (Luke 24:27). He didn’t point out their sins; he showed how the Old Testament was all about Jesus.

I remember when I stopped reading the Bible simply to discern right and wrong and started reading it to see Jesus. Not only my perspective but my whole attitude toward the Bible changed. I wasn’t reading it as a handbook for living so much as a way to know Jesus. When we read the Word of God, we are reading the Word of God, the living Word, the Logos of John 1. As we read the Bible, the Word comes alive in the form of Jesus and he is the reason, the center and the point of Scripture.

I may not read straight through the Bible again for some time, but I will be spending time with the Word – Jesus – as I walk through the park and linger beside the still waters with him.

By Tammy Tkach

My sister and I had a discussion about God. The god she believes in is an impersonal force, out there somewhere; she’s not sure exactly where. She believes in reincarnation, sort of. Through her studies of world religions, she has developed a belief system that works for her. She didn’t agree with what I had to say about God, but she did acknowledge my belief system works for me and she’s OK with that.

Many people look at religions as belief systems and that’s what they are. Belief systems provide a framework for life, defining behaviors and providing guidance in difficult circumstances. Some have nothing to do with religion. Others are based on bits and pieces from many religions and some are all about a religious figure or supernatural phenomena. A person doesn’t have to be religious to have a belief system, but religious people always have one.

Jesus was born into a belief system set up by God himself, one with laws, rules and regulations, and rewards based on obedience. By Jesus’ time, of course, the religious leaders had embellished this belief system, adding a lot of dos and don’ts. It may appear from his teachings that Jesus was merely bringing a new belief system to the world, one that emphasized love, mercy and even poverty. Most people agree he was a great teacher. But a lot of his sayings seemed to lay even heavier burdens on the faithful. Consider his teaching on adultery: Mosaic Law said it was wrong to commit adultery, but Jesus said looking on someone with lust is a sin. Did he wrap the laws even more tightly around our necks, making it virtually impossible to obey God?

On the other hand, Jesus didn’t seem to go along with that belief system very well, did he? He healed people on the Sabbath, picked and ate grain on the Sabbath and kept company with sinners. He pretty much flaunted the rules and called the ones overly concerned with these things hypocrites. So what are we supposed to do with Jesus’ example? Flaunt the rules or keep them even more rigidly? What so many don’t understand is that Jesus didn’t bring a new belief system at all – he brought himself. Christianity is not about rules of behavior or conforming to a set of laws and regulations. It’s not about looking, acting and thinking as a uniform group of brainwashed automatons. It’s about him.

Jesus is not a belief system. From the beginning, he’s the one who was God, with God and through whom everything that exists was created. He’s the Lord of the universe and the Savior of all mankind. Christians follow him, not a set of rules. Now we look to him, not to laws and regulations, walking in the spirit by faith.

Some things we all know and believe: he lived and died for us. His is the only name under heaven by which we can be saved. He finished his saving work on the cross. We will be as he is and we will be with him for all eternity.

When Jesus was born as a helpless infant into this evil world, he didn’t come to enhance the Old Covenant belief system or to bring a New Covenant one. God sent his only son to be everything for us. Thanks to God for Emmanuel – God with us. Merry Christmas!

Have you ever been told you lacked faith? Perhaps you prayed for healing and didn’t get the answer you wanted. Or maybe you didn’t get a job you prayed for and were told it was because you didn’t have enough faith. Christians are sometimes judgmental toward others when prayers aren’t answered according to plan.

Several times, Jesus told the disciples they either lacked faith or had very little. When Peter walked on the water toward Jesus, looked down and sank beneath the waves, Jesus pointed out Peter’s little faith. We tend to think Jesus was criticizing and judging him for his lack of faith and then by extension, carry the criticism over to ourselves and others. But maybe it wasn’t so much a condemnation as an observation on humanity. We all lack faith. We all have trouble believing at times.

The man who came to Jesus for help and then admitted his lack of faith is familiar to us. I know I pray his words. I’m sure you do too. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. We believe and we doubt. Sometimes our faith seems strong and sometimes it seems nonexistent.

In both these instances, Peter taking a dunking and the man admitting his faith was weak, Jesus came through. He didn’t walk away in disgust and leave them hanging. He pulled Peter out of the water and helped him back to the boat. He healed the man’s son (Mark 9). In neither case was lack of faith the deal breaker. Lack of faith noted; prayer answered.

It might help us of little faith to take another look at what having faith really means. We already know if God depended on our faith and faithfulness, the world would have ended a long time ago. Our faith is just not enough and never has been. But God hears our prayers and answers us in our unbelief. Why? Because the faith we need is not our own but the faith of Jesus. It’s his faith and his belief that make the difference. We depend on it.

Jesus trusted the Father. Jesus is the only one with perfect faith. The faith of Jesus saves us, heals us and keeps us going. He’s already done everything else for us so it makes sense his faith is what we cling to, not our own. If we make faith a measurable thing that determines answers to prayer, spiritual growth and maturity and how much we accomplish for God, we are changing grace into works. I’ve never been able to get past “very little” on the faith meter. It’s not something we can measure, work up or do on our own. We do live by faith – by the faith of Jesus.

Once again, I’m encouraged to know it’s not up to me. Nothing is. I cling to the Vine with my feeble strength and desire, knowing it’s Jesus who helps me have even that little bit of strength and desire. He’s the one who provides and sustains my faith. Oh ye of little faith? Yes, but he of perfect faith is my perfect Savior.