In this blog, we'll focus on the working being done at Sligo Presbyterian Church, Sligo, Pennsylvania. We'll also look at what's happening in Sligo, Rimersburg, Clarion, and all the other communities served by our congregation.
Paul faced a problem. One of the churches he’d planted in Greece was being torn apart by factions and internal conflict, a situation that sounds an awful lot like what we see within the modern church. These divisions not only endangered its ability to share the Christian faith within a pagan world, they also threatened the unity of the church itself. In this letter, Paul challenged these Christians to put aside their animosities and refocus their faith on Jesus Christ. In each session, we’ll consider a part of Paul’s letter as follows:
If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.
During the season of Advent, we talked about how we might unwrap some of the gifts given to us by God through Jesus Christ. Well, now that Christmas is over, we've shifted gears and considered the gifts we might offer God. Beginning on Sunday, December 28, we started to focus on the following:
During the season of Advent, we talked about how we might unwrap some of the gifts given to us by God through Jesus Christ. Well, now that Christmas is over, we've shifted gears and considered the gifts we might offer God. Beginning on Sunday, December 28, we started to focus on the following:
PTL. Yesterday, the sun was out. The temperature was in the upper 40s. And according to the forecast, by Thursday, we may be in the mid-50s. In your face, Punxsutawney Phil. Six more weeks of winter, I don’t think so. You had your fun, but now it’s our turn, right? Of course, since we’re still in February and there’s a reason people say “March comes in like a lion, out like a lamb,” well, we’d probably be wise not to be too emotional at the movement.
And you know, when you think about it, that’s really an interesting thing to say immediately after the one day a year that’s all about emotion, and I’m talking about Valentine’s Day, a time of love and affection and joy for everyone in any kind of relationship, unless you forget about it or fail to buy your wife, let’s call her Debbie, those gifts that Jordan has been reminding me to get for the last three weeks: flowers and chocolate. Of course, if you do blow it, as I’ve done a few times, there’ll still be plenty of emotion, but they’re more like the kind you see on 48 Hours than a Hallmark movie. Fortunately, though, for me, this year, man, I thought I had it nailed. Now, y’all may not know this, but Debbie absolutely loves Snoopy, you know, from Peanuts. And so, instead of flowers and candy and a card, I bought her a Snoopy Valentine’s Day shirt. Pretty cute, right? I think so. In fact, I was so confident that I’d nailed it, when I placed the order, I could just imagine how happy she was going to be, when I handed her a little wrapped box with her favorite cartoon character hugging his very best friend with hearts popping out all over the place. Let’s just say, I was expecting to see a large deposit made to my account in the Rudiger “Love Bank,” which would be great because, to be honest, not only has my balance been pretty low for a while, I’ve been bouncing more than a few checks lately. But that was going to change, because thanks to my profound insight and incredible sensitivity, love was going to be in the air on February 14.
And you know, it’s also in the air today, because we’ve reached the last topic in the series we started right after Christmas entitled Our Gifts to God: Offering Ourselves to Our Heavenly Father. Now, as y’all know, for the last seven weeks, we’ve been talking about some of the gifts we can offer God. And during that time, we’ve considered why and how we might offer him our praise and our attention, our time and our talents, our treasures and our energy. And last week we focused on how we might give to God some of our enthusiasm and some of our passion and some of our emotions. And this morning, we’re going to tie it up by talking about offering God our love, something that, when push comes to shove, we might be better discussing and promising than actually accomplishing. And to do that, we’ll be answering two questions I know y’all have seen before: why should we offer to God our love and how might we actually do it. Now that’s the plan. And by the time we leave here, we should have a better idea about why and how we might channel our love toward the one who already loves us.
Of course, before we can talk about the method, I think it’s important to consider the reasons. In other words, why should we offer to God our gift of love? I mean, why should we offer to him our affection and our devotion? And why should we approach him with compassion and respect? Simply put, why should giving God our love be a big deal? Now, that’s the question. And I’ll tell you, based on what it says in Scripture, I think we have two excellent reasons.
You see, in my opinion, on one hand we should offer God our love, because it’s important to God. In other words, this is something that he really wants us to do. I mean, just listen to this exchange between a Pharisee and Jesus right near the end of his time here on earth, as recorded by the Evangelist Matthew.
After Jesus had made the Sadducees look foolish, the Pharisees heard about it and got together. One of them was an expert in the Jewish Law. So he tried to test Jesus by asking, “Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?”
Jesus answered:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment. [Matthew 22:34-38, CEV]
Now that’s what Jesus said; therefore, I think it’s safe to say that our love is important to God.
And you know, that just makes sense. I mean, our love for God shows that we really value the relationship into which we’ve been called and that we truly appreciate the love that he’s already shown us. And maybe that’s why, according to scripture, it’s the most important duty for all Christians. In other words, our most important responsibility isn’t accepting him and it’s not believing in him and it’s not even obeying him, although all those things are important. No, for God, our first and foremost obligation is to love him, because it’s through our love, we enter into a deep and intimate relationship with our creator, in other words, the kind of relationship he wants us to have. And it’s through our love that we ultimately have fellowship with Jesus, something I believe God also desires. I mean, remember Christ himself said, “If anyone loves me, they will obey me. Then my Father will love them, and we will come to them and live in them.” [John 14:23, CEV] You know, as I learned from some painful experience in my own life, it really doesn’t matter how much you love a person, if that person doesn’t love you back, you don’t have a relationship. And brothers and sisters, God wants to be in a relationship with us. And I’ll tell you, on one hand, that’s why I believe our love is so important to God.
But you know, on the other hand, our willingness to love God, man, I think it’s good for us. I mean, it’s good for us as we try to live the best lives we can live. You see, our love for God makes doing that easier and less painful. And I think that’s what the Psalmist was getting at when he wrote this:
Our Lord, everything you do is kind and thoughtful, and you are near to everyone whose prayers are sincere. You satisfy the desires of all your worshipers, and you come to save them when they ask for help. You take care of everyone who loves you, but you destroy the wicked.
I will praise you, Lord, and everyone will respect your holy name forever. [Psalm 14:17-21, CEV]
You see, when we decide to love God, I think it connects us to him, and I’m talking about the one who already loves us. In other words, it completes that relationship circle, in which he loves us and we love him back. And I’ll tell you, when that happens, I believe we can experience peace, peace as we look at ourselves and our own weaknesses, trusting that God’s mercy is eternal and his grace is irresistible. And we can find comfort, comfort as we live our lives and face our fears, trusting that the one who loves us is in control and that he’s working behind the scenes for his children, just like Paul said when he wrote to the Romans, “We know that God is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him. They are the ones God has chosen for his purpose” [Romans 8:28, CEV] And we can feel confidence, confidence as we move forward into the future, trusting that regardless of where we go or what we face, regardless of the difficulties we endure or the disappointments we experience, God is with us and he’s on our side and he will never, and I mean, never let us go, something that I think Paul understood when he wrote to the Corinthians, “But it is just as the Scriptures say, ‘What God has planned for people who love him is more than eyes have seen or ears have heard. It has never even entered our minds!’” [1 Corinthians 2:9, CEV] I’m telling you, when we respond to God’s love for us by loving him back, man, that’s going to be really good for us. And along with it being important to God, in my opinion, that’s why we should offer him our gift of love.
And how can we do it? How can we give back to God what he’s already given to us? In other words, what are some things we might do to show that his love for us is not one-sided? How can we offer God our love? Now, in my book, that’s a pretty important the question. And I think we can get a pretty good answer by going back to what Jesus said when he offered what he believed was the most important commandment of all, you know, to love God. Let me explain.
You see, first, we can decide to love God with all our heart. In other words, we can choose to look past the distractions and make him and his will a priority in our lives. As a matter of fact, I think it’s simply taking a step back and relaxing and allowing the one who already loves us to work within us, sort of like Paul described to the Romans, when he wrote,
Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to offer your bodies to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That's the most sensible way to serve God. Don't be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. [Romans 12:1-2, CEV]
You see, according to the Bible, our hearts aren’t just about one particular organ or one particular feeling. Instead, the heart represents our entire inner being. And so, when we’re loving God with our entire heart, I think we’re offering him our affection, the deepest emotions that we have and those aspects of our life that we cherish most. We’re also recognizing that he’s the Lord of our disappointments and our fears and our doubt, that all that’s part of us, and yet, he still loves us. Our affection belong to him. But that’s not all, because we’re also offering him our will, our intentions and our choices and our decisions. They now belong to the one who loved us before his laid the foundation of the universe. It’s sort of like that old saying, “If Christ is your copilot, change seats.” Our will belongs to God. And so do our thoughts, and I’m talking about our inner dialogue and those things on which we focus when we’re all alone. Of course, since we’re not perfect, I think we’re more of a work in progress rather than a finished product; therefore, we might want to show the same kind of patience to ourselves that God has shown to us. You see, for me, that’s part of loving God with all our heart.
And second, if we’re serious about offering to God our love, we can also decide to love him with all our soul. In other words, we can dedicate to him our entire being: our passions and our personalities and our priorities. In a real way, it’s anchoring our identity in God’s truth, using our talents for his purpose, and making choices that reflect his values and not the nonsense promoted by the world. As a matter of fact, I think it’s adopting the perspective of the Psalmist when he wrote this:
You are my God. I worship you. In my heart, I long for you, as I would long for a stream in a scorching desert.
I have seen your power and your glory in the place of worship. Your love means more than life to me, and I praise you. As long as I live, I will pray to you. I will sing joyful praises and be filled with excitement like a guest at a banquet.
I think about you, God, before I go to sleep, and my thoughts turn to you during the night. You have helped me, and I sing happy songs in the shadow of your wings. I stay close to you, and your powerful arm supports me. [Psalm 63:1-8, CEV]
Now, I think this is what loving with our soul is all about. You see, for me, it’s about surrendering, surrendering our identity to God and allowing him to shape our worth and our interests and our personalities rather than letting the world conform us to its mold. And it’s about following, following the example left by Jesus and to do it in a way that’s a whole lot more active and engaged than just talking about it or promising to do it. I mean, remember Jesus said, “If you love me, you will do what I have said, and my Father will love you. I will also love you and show you what I am like.” [John 14:21, CEV] And I think it’s also about resting, resting in God’s love. And even though that may sound a whole lot easier than surrendering and following, actually I think it’s a lot more challenging, because it means giving up some of the control that we value and some of the comfort that we crave and simply finding our security and peace and hope in God’s love and grace and mercy. Now, for me, this is how we can love God with all our souls.
And third, as it relates to our minds, I mean, as it relates to our thoughts and our imagination and reasoning, well, I think love is shown when we intentionally focus our attention on God, not unlike the people described by the writer of the first Psalm. He said,
God blesses those people who refuse evil advice and won't follow sinners or join in sneering at God. Instead, they find happiness in the Teaching of the Lord, and they think about it day and night.
They are like trees growing beside a stream, trees that produce fruit in season and always have leaves. Those people succeed in everything they do. [Psalm 1:1-3, CEV]
You see, if we want to love God with our minds, I mean, if we want to be like trees growing beside a stream, we might need to study and to learn, to study scripture and to learn more about the faith we claim and to move beyond just feeling God’s presence to actually understanding his nature. And we might need to seek out and to open up, to seek out ideas that might challenge some of our assumptions and to open up our perspectives so that we might understand more than we do right now and to shift from mindless distractions to intentional, focused thought. And finally, we might need to allow ourselves to change and to grow, to change when some of the stuff we’ve always thought no longer makes sense and to grow into the men and women God created us to be and to integrate what we know about God with our vision of ourselves and our world so that what we believe is in harmony with what we see. I’m telling you, we can love God with all our minds. And when you combine that with all our hearts and all our souls, for me, that’s how we can offer God our gift of love.
Of course, I sincerely hope this works out better for us than my Valentine gift did for me. I guess, you could say that I ran into a couple of potholes on the way to the Love Bank. You see, instead of having the shirt sent to the church, I had it delivered to the house. And since Debbie orders things from Amazon using my account (something I already knew), when it came on Tuesday, she opened it up, assuming it was one of those yard flags she’d ordered. Both the little wrapped box and the surprise were gone. But I’ll tell you, that really wasn’t the worst. You see, when she took it out of the package to show me, it looked kind of small, because that’s exactly what it was. For reasons I can’t even comprehend, I’d ordered a man’s small. No deposit for me, just another bounced checked. My gift to her wasn’t exactly the expression of love I’d hoped.
But you know, that doesn’t have to be the case with us, not as we make our own loving gift to God. You see, because we know it’s important to him and good for us, we can obey the command of Christ and offer God all our heart and all our soul and all our mind. This we can do. And I’ll tell you, when we do, I think we’ll be giving to God our gift of love.
During the season of Advent, we talked about how we might unwrap some of the gifts given to us by God through Jesus Christ. Well, now that Christmas is over, we're going to shift gears and consider the gifts we might offer God. Beginning on Sunday, December 28, we've considered the following:
As a kid, unwrapping Christmas presents is one of the highlights of the entire year. Even for adults, the mystery of what’s beneath the paper is still exciting. But we don’t want to forget that not all our gifts can be found under the tree. During the Sundays before Christmas, we’re going to focus on how we might unwrap four other gifts of Christmas that we’ve received from God himself:
On Sunday, we continued this series by looking at how we can celebrate the gift of love. During the service, Lundyn Gallagher sang and Lundyn and Raelyn Gallagher danced.Below is a video of the service, a video presentation for the sermon, some pictures of Lundyn and Raelyn, and a copy of the bulletin. You can stream the service by going to the Sligo Presbyterian Church YouTube Channel on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. (EDT). You can hear a podcast of the service at the Sligo Presbyterian Church YouTube Channel or the Sligo Presbyterian Spotify Page.
As a kid, unwrapping Christmas presents is one of the highlights of the entire year. Even for adults, the mystery of what’s beneath the paper is still exciting. But we don’t want to forget that not all our gifts can be found under the tree. During the Sundays before Christmas, we’re going to focus on how we might unwrap four other gifts of Christmas that we’ve received from God himself:
Well, I think we can all agree that, as it relates to Christmas, we’ve made the final turn and are now heading down the home stretch. I mean, this morning, we lit the last blue candle on the advent wreath. I’m sure TBS has dusted off A Christmas Story so that it can play on a loop in about three and half days. And yesterday, this was what looked back at me from the 365 Dogs calendar I have right beside the computer. I swear, I can almost hear sleigh bells jingling in the distance. Whether we like it or not, Christmas will be here in 3 days, 13 hours, and 30 minutes.
Which also means, this morning, we’re putting a bow on this Advent series dealing with unwrapping the four gifts of Christmas that are represented by the different candles on the wreath. Now, to this point, we’ve talked about the gift of hope, you know, how it’s liberating and eternal and constant; therefore, it can shape the way we view the past and the future and the present. And then we talked about the gift of peace and how we’ve received peace with God as well as peace from God. And then last week, as you remember, young dancers and musicians and singers reminded us of what the gift of Christmas joy is all about, something that can fill us with gratitude and comfort and confidence. And so, I guess you can say that covering hope, peace and joy is now a done deal.
And this morning, we’re moving on to the last Advent candle, the one that represents love. And you know, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, when I was growing up, well, that attitude just filled the Christmas season. For example, looking back, I think love was what motivated Dad to haul down all those decorations from the attic and mom to make all those Toll House cookies and chocolate crinkles with powdered sugar and of course, that fruit cake that only my father liked. And love was certainly there when we went out on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to Aunt Virginia and Aunt Irma and Aunt Margaret. And I’ll tell you, you could just feel it on Christmas evening, when my mom’s side of the family would get together at my great grandmother’s house on Willoughby Spit where my brother, sister and I could bring one toy that we really didn’t like all that much because we could be sure that my cousin Jerry would break anything we brought before we got home. It was a holiday tradition. You see, although I didn’t know it at the time, back in the sixties, Christmas really was about love.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning. But, of course, we won’t be looking at decorating or delivering or breaking. Instead, we’re going to focus on three ways God has shown and is showing his love for us through the one whose birth we’re going to celebrate in about three and a half days. And for each, we’ll use a little scripture to consider what it means and how we might respond.
For example, first, I think God shows his love by finding us, and I’m talking about by entering our time and space and by coming to where we are in a form that we can understand instead of expecting us to find him somewhere, up there, out there. You see, through Christ, we’ve been found. And I’ll tell you, I think that’s what Jesus was getting at when he said this to Nicodemas:
No one has gone up to heaven except the Son of Man, who came down from there. And the Son of Man must be lifted up, just as the metal snake was lifted up by Moses in the desert. Then everyone who has faith in the Son of Man will have eternal life.
God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them! No one who has faith in God’s Son will be condemned. But everyone who doesn’t have faith in him has already been condemned for not having faith in God’s only Son. [John 3:13-18, CEV]
Now, this is what God has done.
In other words, it was through Jesus that God revealed his nature and his intentions. I mean, just think about the life of Christ. My goodness, not only did God show his power and authority through the miracles that Jesus did, he also showed divine grace and mercy every time his Son healed the sick and fed the hungry and told his disciples that real greatness wasn’t shown by wealth and self-glory but rather by humility and self-sacrifice. Now that’s how Jesus lived. And then when he died, Jesus put into practice exactly what he taught. He humbly sacrificed himself for others; man, he humbly sacrificed himself for us, so that we no longer have to be bound to the past. Instead, we can move with hope and with peace and with joy into the future, confident that Paul knew exactly what he was talking about when he told the Romans that “nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” [Romans 8:39b, CEV] Now that’s why Jesus died. And through his resurrection, that amazing resurrection from the dead, Jesus pulled the curtain up on our own future. You see, because he was raised, we can believe that death just doesn’t have the last word and that there’s life and redemption and glory on the other side. You see, when God found us, I think he revealed his nature and intentions.
And you know, that’s something we can decide to trust. I mean, instead of being jerked around by values and priorities that seem to be constantly changing, we can trust that when Jesus said to deny self, he meant it. And when he said to take up the cross, he meant it. And when he said to follow him and his example and his word, man, he meant that too. And instead of assuming that we can never be better than we were and instead of believing that mistakes are suppose to haunt us like some kind of ghost of Christmas past, we can trust in the forgiveness, and we can trust in the cleansing, and we can trust in the freedom that just flows from the cross. And as we look forward, we don’t have to be distracted by all the problems and all the pain we might see and feel. You see, we can fix our vision on that empty tomb and we can listen for that trumpet sound and we can look forward to that time when “our dead and decaying bodies will be changed into bodies that won’t die or decay.” [1 Corinthians 15:53, CEV] You see, right here and now, we can decide to trust in God’s nature and intentions revealed through Jesus Christ. And that’s possible because, first, God shows his love by finding us.
And second, I think he also shows his love by adopting us. In other words, not only does he find us, for reasons we may never understand, he takes the next step and brings us into a relationship with himself. And I’ll tell you, I think that’s what John had in mind when he wrote this in his first letter:
Think how much the Father loves us. He loves us so much that he lets us be called his children, as we truly are. But since the people of this world did not know who Christ is, they don’t know who we are. My dear friends, we are already God’s children, though what we will be hasn’t yet been seen. But we do know when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is. This hope makes us keep ourselves holy, just as Christ is holy. [1 John 3:1-3, CEV]
You see, this is what God has done.
And just think about what it tells us about the one we worship. I mean, it shows us that God really wants us to be in his family, doesn’t he? You see, with all our wart and flaws, God desires a relationship with us. In other words, in spite of our tendency to create for ourselves gods that tell us what we want to hear and that pretty much do what we want them to do, the real Lord and Creator of the universe wants us to be part of his family, you know, to be his children, and for us to view him as our father. As a matter fact, it was through God and his Spirit that we’ve been brought together as a body, as a community, as a family, as a church, which means that, not only do we have a spiritual father who chose us but we also have spiritual brothers and sisters who can help us, who can show by their examples what it means to follow Jesus Christ and who can encourage us to live as Paul envisioned when he wrote that “anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new” [2 Corinthians 5:17, CEV] and who can redirect our focus when we feel almost crushed by all the nonsense that can just drain our strength and hope. You see, by his choice, God has adopted us as his sons and daughters.
And I’ll tell you, this is something we can decide to recognize. And you know, in my opinion, this is really exciting. I mean, we can recognize that God has chosen us, but not because we’re so loveable or so sweet or so deserving. Instead, God chose to love us because of God, not us. And we can recognize that his love for us is so perfect and so powerful and so intense that he made us his sons and daughters, and since that’s a relationship that we didn’t earn, it’s not something we can lose. Believe the good news, we are the children of God. Which also means we can recognize that we’re surrounded by our brothers and sisters in a new family created by God himself. Of course, like in every family, we might not always get along with one another, especially with folks who may really get on our last nerve. And there might be times when one of our siblings might disappoint us, maybe even hurt us. And when those times come, we might say or do something we may regret later. Still, there’s something greater than ourselves holding us together. I mean, you’ve heard people say, “Blood is thicker than water.” Well, brothers and sisters, there’s nothing thicker than the blood of Jesus Christ or more powerful than the grace of the Father or more lasting than the Holy Spirit. You see, right here and now, we can decide to recognize that we’re all members of the family of God. And that’s possible because, second, God shows his love by adopting us.
And third, I believe he also demonstrates his love for us by correcting us, in other words, by teaching us how we might live and by guiding us so that we’re actually able to do it. And I think that was the point made by the one who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews when he said this:
None of you have yet been hurt in your battle against sin. But you have forgotten that the Scriptures say to God’s children,
“When the Lord punishes you, don’t make light of it, and when he corrects you, don’t be discouraged. The Lord corrects the people he loves and disciplines those he calls his own.”
Be patient when you are being corrected! This is how God treats his children. Don’t all parents correct their children? God corrects all his children, and if he doesn’t correct you, then you don’t really belong to him. Our earthly fathers correct us, and we still respect them. Isn’t it even better to be given true life by letting our spiritual Father correct us?
Our human fathers correct us for a short time, and they do it as they think best. But God corrects us for our own good, because he wants us to be holy, as he is. It is never fun to be corrected. In fact, at the time it is always painful. But if we learn to obey by being corrected, we will do right and live at peace. [Hebrews 12:4-11, CEV]
Now that’s what it says.
And I don’t know about y’all, but just hearing it, man, it really makes a lot of sense. You see, like any good father, God corrects his children, you know, when we make mistakes and wander off. I mean, a parent who chooses to let his children run a mock, you know, to let them do whatever they want whenever they want to do it, I think we’d all agree that person probably shouldn’t have kids, right? And I believe we would probably say the same thing about a parent who uses violence and abuse as a learning tool. You see, through his word, God teaches us. And through his Spirit, he guides us. And through the other members of his family, and I’m talking about our brothers and sisters, he moves us in the direction we should go. And even though, as the writer to the Hebrews said, “it is never fun to be corrected,” [Hebrews 12:11a, CEV] (truer words have never been spoken), I think it’s really important for us to remember that the one who corrects and disciplines his children is also the one who, through his Son, Jesus Christ, said, “If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest. This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light.” [Matthew 11:28-30, CEV] You see, this is the one who corrects us.
But it’s going to do us absolutely no good, if we don’t accept it. I mean give me a break, although we are God’s children, we’re certainly not helping ourselves if we assume that we already know it all and treat the guidance and direction we’re receiving as a lot of white noise. You know, to learn anything we just might have to accept that there’s probably a reason why God gave us two ears and one mouth. My gosh, if I’m staring out the window, I’m probably going to miss the lecture. Man, to listen, we’ve got to decide that we’re going to pay attention and not doze off. But you know, all the listening in the world doesn’t mean a hill of beans if we don’t do anything in response to what we hear. As every parent knows, there’s a world of difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it. But it’s right there where the rubber hits the road. You see, we can decide to listen and to respond to the instructions we receive from our Heavenly Father, something that’s a whole lot easier when we accept that God shows his love by correcting us. And for me, that’s the third sign of his love.
Well, we’re now a little bit closer to Christmas than when we started. And even though Debbie and I don’t decorate and bake like mom and dad did when I was a kid, and even though we’re not going to pile into a Ford Fairlane and deliver presents to a bunch of aunts and even though I am absolutely certain that my cousin Jerry won’t be breaking any of my toys, I think there’ll still be a lot of love in the Rudiger house in about three days. You see, Maggie’s coming home. And I’m cooking a turkey. And some time on Christmas day, I can guarantee we’ll be watching Ralphie get his “official Red Ryder, carbine-action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” And I’ll tell you, that’s going to feel just like love to me.
And you know, as we all move toward the day on which we remember the birth of Jesus, let’s also remember we have an incredibly special gift from God. You see, for reasons we may never understand, God finds us, something we can trust. And he adopts us, something we can recognize. And he corrects us, something we can accept. And I’ll tell you, this can happen for us all, when we unwrap God’s gift of love.
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