The Greatest Truth I Know
Kingdom Journey: Day 183
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Today’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1
Some time ago I was flying on a 10 p.m. flight. Earlier that day I’d preached four messages. I was exhausted. I noticed the man sitting next to me was reading Heaven Is for Real.
This is good. He is a Christian, I thought. I can go to sleep because we are both going to heaven.
He saw my Bible, which I’d pulled out to read, and began talking to me—a lot. Come to find out, he was part of a cult. I prayed the strangest prayer that flight: “God, I am so tired. Please don’t use me. Find someone else. But I do ask that You don’t let this kid die and go to hell.” I felt terrible praying that way, but I simply didn’t have the energy to engage him in conversation.
As disappointing as I know I must have been to God, the amazing thing is that I was still secure in God’s love for me. His love did not decrease one ounce because of my poor tired attitude. He loved me exactly the same when I prayed that lame prayer as when I preached for Him.
One of the saddest things that happens in Christianity is that we overemphasize what we do for God rather than what God has done for us. I used to think God loved me only when I was doing good. But 1 Thessalonians reminds me of the truth.
Paul starts chapter 1 with a thunderbolt. In fact, I consider it the greatest truth I know, and it’s all in verse 4: “My dear friends, God loves you” (CEV). God loves you! Those words change everything and cost everything.
I came from a background in Christianity where the emphasis was on how much we love God and not on how much God loves us. In fact, I thought my actions determined how much God loves me.
But there is not one thing you and I can do to make God love us any more than He does right now. We believe this in theory but we don’t live this way. We think God loves us more when we are at our spiritual best. Here is good news: God loves us the same when we are at our worst on planes praying Don’t use me prayers.
William Coffin reminds us: “God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value.” Every religion in the world is based on what we do. The stars in those other religions is anyone who dies a martyr, carries a briefcase, rides a bike, or gives up years on the mission field. In Christianity, however, it’s all about what God has done.
One of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning, said: “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” That’s the scandal and that’s the deal of the century. So if those words, God loves you, are difficult to accept, let me help you today.
There is no greater place to deal with doubts of God’s love than at the only place that settles the question—and that’s at the cross. In the man Jesus, the invisible God became visible and audible. God can’t not love us. The cross is the proof of His love—love that He demonstrated at Calvary. The well-known saying goes like this: I asked God how much He loves me, and He said this much. And He held His hands wide to his side and died for me.
When you look at the cross, you see what price you are worth to God. God loves you just as you are and not as you should be. He died for you at your worst. He did not wait for you to change in order to die for you. Isn’t it staggering to think you are worth the death of someone and most of all, God? That is what puts a large gulf between Christianity and other religions, such as Islam. Islam asks you to die for Allah, but Christianity has God dying for you.
Brennan Manning tells an amazing story in Souvenirs of Solitude:
More than a hundred years ago the atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche reproached a group of Christians: “Yuck, you make me sick!” When their spokesman asked why, he answered, “Because you Redeemed don’t look like you’re redeemed. You’re as fearful, guilt-ridden, anxious, confused, and adrift in an alien environment as I am. I’m allowed. I don’t believe. I have nothing to hope for. But you people claim you have a Savior. Why don’t you look like you are saved?”
In Matthew 22 Jesus described the kingdom of God as a wedding feast. Do you really trust that you are going to a wedding feast that has already begun? Do you really believe that God loves you unconditionally and as you are? Are you committed to the idea that the nature of the world is to be a celebration? If you are, then in the words of Father John Powell, S. J., “Please notify your face.”
You have something to be happy about: God loves you for who you are.
Christianity is not a moral code but a love affair.
Excerpt from:
Dilena, Tim. The 260 Journey. Colorado Springs, CO, Book Villages, 2001.
260journey.com
Some time ago I was flying on a 10 p.m. flight. Earlier that day I’d preached four messages. I was exhausted. I noticed the man sitting next to me was reading Heaven Is for Real.
This is good. He is a Christian, I thought. I can go to sleep because we are both going to heaven.
He saw my Bible, which I’d pulled out to read, and began talking to me—a lot. Come to find out, he was part of a cult. I prayed the strangest prayer that flight: “God, I am so tired. Please don’t use me. Find someone else. But I do ask that You don’t let this kid die and go to hell.” I felt terrible praying that way, but I simply didn’t have the energy to engage him in conversation.
As disappointing as I know I must have been to God, the amazing thing is that I was still secure in God’s love for me. His love did not decrease one ounce because of my poor tired attitude. He loved me exactly the same when I prayed that lame prayer as when I preached for Him.
One of the saddest things that happens in Christianity is that we overemphasize what we do for God rather than what God has done for us. I used to think God loved me only when I was doing good. But 1 Thessalonians reminds me of the truth.
Paul starts chapter 1 with a thunderbolt. In fact, I consider it the greatest truth I know, and it’s all in verse 4: “My dear friends, God loves you” (CEV). God loves you! Those words change everything and cost everything.
I came from a background in Christianity where the emphasis was on how much we love God and not on how much God loves us. In fact, I thought my actions determined how much God loves me.
But there is not one thing you and I can do to make God love us any more than He does right now. We believe this in theory but we don’t live this way. We think God loves us more when we are at our spiritual best. Here is good news: God loves us the same when we are at our worst on planes praying Don’t use me prayers.
William Coffin reminds us: “God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value.” Every religion in the world is based on what we do. The stars in those other religions is anyone who dies a martyr, carries a briefcase, rides a bike, or gives up years on the mission field. In Christianity, however, it’s all about what God has done.
One of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning, said: “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” That’s the scandal and that’s the deal of the century. So if those words, God loves you, are difficult to accept, let me help you today.
There is no greater place to deal with doubts of God’s love than at the only place that settles the question—and that’s at the cross. In the man Jesus, the invisible God became visible and audible. God can’t not love us. The cross is the proof of His love—love that He demonstrated at Calvary. The well-known saying goes like this: I asked God how much He loves me, and He said this much. And He held His hands wide to his side and died for me.
When you look at the cross, you see what price you are worth to God. God loves you just as you are and not as you should be. He died for you at your worst. He did not wait for you to change in order to die for you. Isn’t it staggering to think you are worth the death of someone and most of all, God? That is what puts a large gulf between Christianity and other religions, such as Islam. Islam asks you to die for Allah, but Christianity has God dying for you.
Brennan Manning tells an amazing story in Souvenirs of Solitude:
More than a hundred years ago the atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche reproached a group of Christians: “Yuck, you make me sick!” When their spokesman asked why, he answered, “Because you Redeemed don’t look like you’re redeemed. You’re as fearful, guilt-ridden, anxious, confused, and adrift in an alien environment as I am. I’m allowed. I don’t believe. I have nothing to hope for. But you people claim you have a Savior. Why don’t you look like you are saved?”
In Matthew 22 Jesus described the kingdom of God as a wedding feast. Do you really trust that you are going to a wedding feast that has already begun? Do you really believe that God loves you unconditionally and as you are? Are you committed to the idea that the nature of the world is to be a celebration? If you are, then in the words of Father John Powell, S. J., “Please notify your face.”
You have something to be happy about: God loves you for who you are.
Christianity is not a moral code but a love affair.
Excerpt from:
Dilena, Tim. The 260 Journey. Colorado Springs, CO, Book Villages, 2001.
260journey.com
Posted in Kingdom Journey
Recent
Archive
2023
January
Getting Rid of Your LabelsAlways One Step AheadHearing the Most Important VoiceWhy You Are a TargetJesus’ Prescription for HappinessThe Paycheck is Really Good—So Show UpLogs and SpecksEight is MondayHow Big Is Your Faith?God’s People Are Different and That’s GoodHow Exclamations Turn into Question MarksTaking My 18,000 Real SeriouslyWhy Is It Hard for Me to Read the Bible?When Someone I Love DiesFighting to Get My AnswerSome Days Simon, Some Days Peter, and Some Days SatanA Private “Why”An Incredible Promise of His PresenceDo You Know Someone Who Needs to Be Saved?God’s Generosity Goes Beyond What’s FairTwo Hurdles Away from Moving a MountainChange Starts with Love
February
Hypocrite!The Day the Curtains Come DownThree Stories That Remind Me of ForeverHow Can You Be That Far Off?The Tearful Eye or the Broken NeckThe First Words of the Resurrected JesusDemon Prayers and Fever PrayersFour of a Kind Beats a Full HouseJesus Pulls a WebsterTwo Storms StoriesThe Man Who Lived in a CemeteryLimiting JesusPutting the Word of God in a WheelchairI Don’t Want to Be Known As 409Seized StatementsJesus Gets a TestWhat Stops Mountains from Ending Up in the Ocean?When the Renters Think They Are the OwnersThe Best Way to Study End TimesWhat Were You Thinking at #1?
March
Can You Imagine if Your Dad Carried Jesus’ Cross?The Big Rock Story Sounds like a Big Bang StoryYou Never Know What Could Happen if You just Show UpLosing JesusJohn the Baptist’s Water Baptism Instructional ClassSatan Quotes the BibleI Want My Own Fish StoryA Christian’s Retaliation ResponseWhat Do I Do With All These Tears?Living a High-Def Life“Jesus, You Promised and Now I Can’t—I Don’t Understand”Helping People I HateI Am Not Going to Have Another Unused GiftMy, My, My, MyHow to Face Tragic DeathExcuses! Excuses! Excuses!The Father Is More Prodigal Than the SonHell Is a Real PlaceGetting More Than You Asked ForIt Should Be Easy to Pick Out Who God Likes Best . . . or Maybe NotDesperate Times Call for Desperate MeasuresTaking a Page From Jesus’ Method in Hostile EnvironmentsNo Noise Offerings
April
Plotting Satan and Praying ChristJust BreatheA Fire Seven Miles Outside of JerusalemThe First 10:00 A.M. ServiceBad Stuff Is Always Trying to Make Its Way Back in My LifeDon’t Make It Harder Than It IsTwo Truths for FreedomYou Don’t Need Bubbles AnymoreYou Should Have Stopped at the FishNow You Know the Rest of the StoryTrying to Declaw the LionI Once Was Blind but Now I SeeSheep Need a ShepherdNot Till It StinksParadoxical ChristiansFour Shouldn’t Follow ThreeOne Comes After Thirty-EightWill You Accept the Challenge?The Warning Sign or the HospitalLift Up Your Eyes in Prayer
May
What Kind of Pilate/Pilot Are You?You Can’t Hide One Hundred PoundsA Sunday-Night Message From JesusDropping the Light BulbHow Your Problems Can Be the Fulfillment of Your DreamHow Do You Face the Worst Times?3 P.M. ChristiansThe “Can’t Help It” ConditionIt May Look Exactly the Same but Be Drastically DifferentThe Reason It’s a Requirement: Because It Will Be Needed for a WeaponWhere Do Aliens Come From?Be Careful of Playing With FireHow a Really Bad Man Becomes the Greatest ChristianHow an Italian Met a JewOne of Three