“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:3)

            Burdens must be carried; joys are gratefully attended to.  A trip to run errands brings slowly shuffling feet and muttered assent from children.  A trip to the zoo leads to a mad scramble for shoes and joyous cheers as they pile into the vehicle.  Agreement to do a thing is not the same as rejoicing to do a thing.

            We cannot simply keep God’s commands and say we love Him… we must keep them and strive to treat those commands as a joy and not a burden.  Cheerful giving triumphs over mumbled obedience.

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“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7)

            There is something tantalizingly about trying food from another country.  Indian, Irish, Thai, Iranian, Pakistani, Italian, or Chinese… to try the food of a nation is to get a little taste of who they are and their culture.  The smells, the ingredients, the tastes: they all connect you to a new world – or if a native far from home, a meal from your nation of origin can transport you across foreign fields to your mother’s kitchen.

            Love is the food of heaven.  It is straight from the table of God.  To love others, to radically love those who neither deserve it nor, at times, even want it is to eat a meal from your Father’s table.  When we love one another, we learn something about God, and we come to know Him better.

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“We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3)

An invitation to a dinner party often comes with the need to anticipate the dress code.  How formal is too formal?  How casual is too casual?  You do your best to guess, but without specific instructions, you don’t entirely know how well you chose your adornment until the front door is opened and you are greeted by the host.  Their attire either confirms or refutes your clothing choices.

Someday, we will all meet Jesus and see Him as He really is.  When the gates of heaven are opened, and He descends from on high, we will see the glorified King… and with the anticipation of that meeting, those who hope for that day, purify themselves.  It’s a meeting with the King; I wish for my soul to be dressed in its finest.

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“I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.” (1 John 2:12)

God doesn’t forgive you because of you.  He forgives you because of Him.  If you are wondering how God could forgive such a sinner as you, chances are, you are fixating on the depths of your sin.

Forgiveness never makes sense when you look at the sinner – all the sinner shows you is concentric layers of shame and evil.  Forgiveness is about the grandness of the Redeemer.  Look at Jesus, and only then will forgiveness make any sense.  He forgave you for His name’s sake, not for yours.

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“These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.” (1 John 1:4)

Why did John write to the Christians?  When they obeyed God, which could only be done through reading the New Testament writings (see Romans 10:17), it brought John joy.

There is joy in teaching others.  When we live lives with teachers’ hearts, all whom we teach are presented an opportunity to find joy as we watch them learn.  Teach your children of the Lord, and their faith brings you joy.  Teach your neighbor about Jesus, and their opened eyes becomes a wellspring of jubilation in your heart.  When you share the faith and don’t just keep it, there is a whole new level of triumphant delight you will discover.

Say the things that matter.  Complete your joy.

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“Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.” (Titus 3:14)

We must be in the habit of doing good deeds because there will come times in your life when the needs are pressing and urgent, and, in that moment, your training and habit must kick in.  There will be inflection points in your life when you must choose to abandon the frivolous and do the necessary.

Will you drop your nets and follow the Master?  Will you choose the good part instead of the distraction?  Will you stop your journey to help the wounded on the side of the road?  The Bible is full of examples of opportunities to do good which only came around once, and if they missed it, they missed it completely.

We must learn to engage with needs so that we don’t become disengaged from the Lord’s plan for our lives.

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“…so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” (Titus 2:4-5)

Do we still consider these words to be honorable ones?  The image painted by the apostle Paul of the godly woman, working at home, breathing love into hearth and home is considered antiquated and vulgar by today’s standards (even misogynstic), yet the picture Paul describes is the loving home that every child and family yearns for, and statistically, the model that has been most successful.

Society has discouraged young women from being workers at home.  The Holy Spirit says we should encourage them to be workers at home.  We must decide which camp we shall join.

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“To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.” (Titus 1:15)

The Jews had become so accustomed to fixation on ceremony and the avoidance of unclean foods that they missed some of the deeper lessons.  Food can never defile the soul of a man; in fact, nothing external can.  The defilement of someone must come from within.  It is only when the inner mind objectifies the opposite gender that lust is born, and it is only when the covetous heart springs up that another’s success turns into jealousy and rivalry.

Gluttony, greed, lies, and a thousand other evils spring up from the wellsprings of the human heart.  The battle isn’t without – it is within.  Once we subdue the inner man, the outer world cannot harm us, and we can find purity even in the darkest hours of our life.  Paul and Silas sang with reverence from a prison, and Herod mocked God from his palatial estate.  Give a godly soul any experience and they can make it pure… give a villain any setting and he can defile it.

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“But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:4)

            If we are to be sober in all things, it is best that we always consider the effects of any substance that is known to impair sobriety before consumption or usage.

            We have work to fulfill, and as Christians, we are always on duty.

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“For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy…” (2 Timothy 3:2)

            Paul warned Timothy that one of the signs of the deterioration of a society is that people will become lovers of self.  Interestingly enough, the modern mantra that you must “love yourself” has become so ubiquitous that it is generally acknowledged as a basic truth that we should, at all times, love ourselves.  Scriptures instead say the opposite.

            There are parts of myself I believe I should not love at all, and I suspect the same is true for you.  Some aspects of my character and my desires are entirely reprehensible and not deserving of love – in fact, they ought to be expunged completely.  To love myself as I am assumes that there is nothing about me that is anything less than perfect, and to say that is to call God a liar (see 1 John 1:8) and nullify the cross.

            There are parts of all of us which are so miserably unlovable and wretched that we should weep over them (see James 4:9).  To love myself is not the answer, nor is it the philosophy to live by.  I need saving.  I need Jesus (see Romans 7:24-25).

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