Tag: Love

Reflecting at Christmas

This is by far the busiest times of the year and it’s not because of all the shopping. Actually, according to Shopify, November is the busiest commercial month of the year. I think it’s all the end of year rush, last-minute work targets and personal goals we want to achieve all between now and the 31st 23:59 which gets us all worked up. And on top of all that we want to enjoy the festivities and rest. We will soon discover that we cannot rest if we don’t eliminate the stressors in our way. At this time though I would say that one of the most important and beneficial things you can do for yourself is to spend time in reflection. When I’m reflecting or journaling it is in these moments when I’m most aware of what God has been teaching me through the day or the year. We need to intentionally create moments where we have epiphanies based on what is happening. Significant changes do not happen with the turn of a calendar it happens when we allow our minds to receive and engage with what is happening in our environments. We are praying for God to change our stories in the new year or decade, but we must ask ourselves what God has been engraving on the tables of our hearts over the last year or even decade that we haven’t paid attention to.

Beyond the feelings and the goosebumps, we might get when we encounter God, there are notable changes that take place in less spectacular ways inside of us. Being a lot more reflective, has help me understand that I ought to look for the mundane. Looking for God in the silence and seemingly insignificant is how Elijah got his life back as he stood on the mountain of God at the brink of depression.

I’m thinking about my life and things I want to focus on improving and things that I should keep and be more consistent with. Reflectively, I can say that I have grown over the last year. One of the key areas I have experienced growth and change in is how I think about giving and receiving love. It’s important to regularly reflect on how we relate with people and things.

Earlier in the year I had a conversation with someone that helped bring the thought process to mind and I can say that on reflecting on my understanding of extending love and hearing what the other person had to say, I found myself thinking that maybe I didn’t quite have a full understanding of what love – the God kind of Love – is. Maybe my limited understanding of how vast God’s love is keeping me from receiving all the wonderful gifts of God’s awesome love. I’ve begun thinking of love in a different way which has led to changes in how I practice love. Nothing drastic or dramatic, but significant enough for me to desire and chase after more of God’s kind of love in my heart. It is the kind of love that chases you and woos you regardless of how you are or what you’ve done. That love, loves you just because and nothing you could do could make it grow or diminish. Can I be that way towards myself and the people in my life? Can I be more loving regardless of what if?

At this point, I can say that any work that you catch me doing is related to reflecting and checking that the plans I make for the coming year are in line with the work that He has already begun in me. After all, what good is a perfect gift if I don’t take out the time to enjoy and use it?

Christmas blessings!

Unequally Yoked

The answer to the question of what it means to be unequally yoked is clearly addressed in the scripture.

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”, 2 Corinthians 6:14 (ESV).
The intimation is that you will be unevenly matched if you are married with a person who does not believe in God. So, as a Christian the scripture is clearly letting us know that we should not be married or emotional and romantically involved with a non-christian. The more intimate a relationship gets the more important a commonality in faith and believe is. If you already disagree on the basic foundation issues, your lifestyle choices as a believer and your relationship with the individual will be affected.

A lot of people believe that you can make it work, having different believes and still get married. But the issue is that the relationship with your god will suffer if you priorities your spouse. For instance, as a Christian I believe in tithing and giving offerings or love gifts to church. I believe in spending time in devotion, praying and worshipping God. I believe in being filled with the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues. This will sound very crazy to someone who is not a believer. He/she might say it’s cute and might be okay with it. He/she might be the nicest guy in the world, but eventually the natural trials of life will test the strength of the relationship. The different approaches to solving the problems we are both facing will inevitably cause tension and friction in our relationship. A weak belief system will not be able to handle this wear and tear leading to a relationship break down.

With a little bit of thought and honesty you can see why God commands not to be unequally yoked. However, the question that I have heard a few times now is whether you can be unequally yoked, spiritually miss matched, with someone who is a Christian. I think that it is possible. Coming back to my earlier example of being in a relationship with someone of a different belief, there are lifestyle choices that are attached and connected to your spiritual commitment to God, that will influence the life choices you make. Now imagine you are both Christians, but one of us has a different understanding. Theological differences existed in the bible, too. Just read the book of Acts and you’ll see members of the early church and even some of the apostles disagreeing over scriptures. It’s important to make sure you believe in the same things and understand the bible in the same way.

So, yes, unequal yoked to an unbeliever can include being in the same religion but still having differences in beliefs. A Christian can still have his or her idols, such as alcohol, sex, past relationships and other hidden sins or past habits that are difficult to shake. Yes, we all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but when we make a habit of sinning we are forsaking relationship with him. Our relationship with God is the foundation for our relationship with our spouse, because it is intended to be a reflection of what we have with God.

My sweet Valentine, how Far is too Far?

Love is in the air! It’s thick and almost tangible. All the love songs on the radio tell us to get it on tonight. The retailers encourage us to seize the day and incentivise us with great sales. With the whole world telling us to translate every feeling we feel into action and gratify our pleasure glands with every desire, where do we draw the boundary lines? 

There is that dreaded question that is always asked at every singles seminar or conference, especially when the topic of sex and abstinence comes up. I’m always praying nobody asks, because it gets awkward very quickly amidst all the pre-adolescent euphemisms and the desire of the singles who want explicit and clear boundaries laid when they ask, “how far is too far?”. There is always one person who asks this question. Actually, I wish I could say that this is the single most awkward inquiry made at this sort of events (sadly, it isn’t).

This is the question a single person asks only because they think that they might have taken it too far with someone either physically or emotionally and want to clear their conscience of the guilt that is weighing on them. Of course, I think that it”s important to know where the boundaries are; every Christian single should know the boundaries. We should all live with the consciousness of  always wanting to honour God.
Yet, the question, I think, is far more suggestive than that. It implies a desire to know how much you can get away with without falling into sin. You are living on the edge and will only end up falling of the cliff. God will surely catch us when we fall, but He would rather not have us tempt Him in this way (Luke 4:12).

The problem with this line of inquiry is that rather than submitting our desires under the authority of God and managing these desires and appetites, we want the word of God – our standard for living and the authority – to conform to our earthly/ physical desires. If we can find a scripture that supports how far we want to go then we’ll hold unto that scripture and use it to support our actions. In doing so we run the risk of taking the scriptures out of its intended context. What’s even worse is that we often take the absence of an issue in the bible to mean that it’s okay to do something, when it really isn’t the case. 

A good example of this is the issue of kissing; is an unmarried couple allowed to kiss? Is kissing permissible in a dating relationship? There are those who say ‘yes’ and there are those who emphatically say ‘no’. This is one of those issues where the bible is silent on, but I have heard people misuse Paul’s words by saying, that we should greet each other with a holy kiss, so it is okay for two dating people to kiss [Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26].  This is obviously a misuse of that verse, as the context had nothing to do with dating or romantic or erotic love. In fact, Paul was encouraging them to uphold their purity, dignity and honour of each other as they love each other in a non-romantic way.  

When it comes to honouring God and seeking first His will for our lives, the question should never be how far is too far. Instead, it should be how much more can I honour God with my actions and behaviour? How much more can I give up? How much more can I honour and respect this person I am in a relationship with? In what more ways can we promote holiness and preserve the sanctity of our physical bodies (the temple of God)?  
This is what God’s word says to this:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.                                                                            (Romans 12:1-2)

God wants us to live sacrificially, which means that we will make daily sacrifices concerning our wants and desires, always presenting ourselves as honourable vessels before him. But in verse two, God let’s us know that there is no way we can be holy and acceptable before Him with our bodies, if we do not renew our minds. Our thinking will inform what we do and there is no way on earth, as long as we are alive, that we will ever do anything without our bodies being involved. If I am already thinking how far is too far, it means that I am playing with the ideas of wanting more rather than allowing my mind to be introduced to the ideas of true sacrifice. 

When our minds are renewed by the word of God, that is Christ, our old mind is being exchanged for the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5). The mind of Christ thinks sacrificially how it can give more, rather than thinking how much it can get or what it can get away with. Sacrificial living and thinking means having a mindset that is willing to give up anything at the instance of it being required.

We can celebrate LOVE today because God gave us everything. He went far beyond the limits of what the princes of this world thought he could, just to prove His undying love for us. If there is anything we can learn from the life of Christ then it is this; nothing proves the presence of love more than sacrifice.