Can you imagine having such a faith that forgives someone AS they are doing something to you? Check out this 92 year old lady who talked about forgiveness to the man who was mugging her. Gotta love this lady!

I read many blogs from around the blogsphere. Reading blogs allows you to see things from other’s perspectives. It was interesting the other day when I read Cobb’s Seven Rules of Love. Now, Cobb comes from a different perspective than myself and his intention was probably different than the way I interpreted it but I found his thoughts moving. Below is his thoughts with my additions in italics

Cobb’s Seven Rules of Love

Real
Love must be felt, not simulated, not imagined or faked. This is the first and most important thing about love.

Real love is a choice. God doesn’t just love us because we exist, He loves us by choice. And God has given us the choice about whether to love Him or not.

True
Love must be singular. There can only be one object of your loving affection. Love must be faithful, gladly.

True love is about only One. Love God with all that you are, have and will be. It is by loving God alone, that in turn we are filled with His overflowing love to divert towards others

Free
Love must be voluntary and not coerced. You should not feel obligated to love but genuinely desire to love.

God has the power to force us to love Him. He chose not to use that power as He knows that love is meant to be freely given just like when a child says to his parent’s “I love you” and they haven’t given him or promised him anything (something of my experience there)

Pure
You must love the person for who they are and who they want to be, wholly. Not because of their car. Not because it feels good to be in love. Not for whom you wish they would be.

Love for God is not about what He will do for you, get for you or promises of heaven. Love for God is because He is an awesome God who is pure, holy, righteous and just. Normally, those who choose not to love Him because they don’t understand who He is

Hot
You must desire their physical company. You physically change in the presence of your lover.

For those of you who love God, do you desire to be in His presence? Do you long for Jesus’ return? Think about the story of the virgins (bridesmaids) waiting for the bridegroom in Matthew 25. Do you have your oil?

Deep
Love must affect you profoundly, make you willing to make sacrifices. You cannot merely turn it on and turn it off, it must be something near the center of your life.

Do you love God because its convenient? Is it a love to get what you want but when there’s a choice to be made, the love subsides? Loving God requires that you give up your “rights”. He alone is what matters. In many countries today, to love God (the true God) - you have to be willing to sacrifice all that you have. Now that’s love

I hope that these definitions make you think about what you believe is love and how to live that out.

By Dr. Michael A. Halleen

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Clarence Roddy was an old-time Baptist minister from Maine who taught preaching at Fuller Seminary when I was an undergraduate there 40 years ago. The notes I took in his classes filled no more than two pages in three years, but the inspiration he gave to budding young preachers filled heart after heart. He spoke little about how to prepare and deliver sermons, focusing instead on the person who was doing it. “Preaching is you,” he said—over and over. Patiently, daily, he listened to our struggling beginners’ efforts, always encouraging us to believe that we were gifted to fulfill the marvelous opportunities before us. “There is no higher calling than that which God has given you!” he insisted.

I wondered at his optimism. There was little about myself that I could see to justify it, but I decided to believe him. Being yourself is enough . . . Your way is the best way . . . They expect judgment; give them grace . . . The high road gives the long view . . . No higher calling!

A few years after I left seminary, Roddy died. At his memorial a member of one of his former churches in Maine told this story:

Let me tell you something about Roddy. . . . My wife and I had a son who was institutionalized for many years because of a brain injury. It’s hard to admit, but we had stopped loving him, wife and I. We visited him often, but our feelings for him had begun to die. Then one day when we came to see him, we found Pastor Roddy in our son’s room. He was talking to him—as if our son could hear. He read the Bible to him—as if he could understand. He prayed with our son—as if he could share in the prayer. My first impulse was to say, “Roddy, you fool, don’t you know about our son?” Then it dawned on me. Of course he knew. But he cared for our son as if the boy were whole and well. He saw him through eyes of faith. . . . Roddy renewed in us something we had almost lost, the capacity to love our son.

Then I knew why Roddy had been such an encouragement to so many of his students. He saw us through eyes of faith— sure of what he hoped for each of us and certain of what none of us could yet see. Faith views others not as they are but as they can be. There is no higher calling.

today’sTHOT============================

Keep the faith…just not from others.

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This was from a daily feed called www.mikeysFunnies.com

Lord, help us the next time we see someone to view them through the eyes of faith and not the eyes of judgement

The other day I was driving to German class when traffic caused me to stop. I was stopped a little bit longer than I had expected when all of the sudden I realized that there was a man at my window speaking rather loudly at me. I quickly determined that he was upset because I had stopped covering the crosswalk. He was speaking in German but I could tell he was telling me that I should have thought about where I stopped (I got this mainly because he was pointing to his head and had a face full of disgust.) I had flashbacks to my childhood where my dad would lecture me about how this was a world of thinkers and I must always be thinking. I got over that flashback though. Then I rolled down my window and purposely used the wrong words for “Excuse me” hoping that he would realize that I am a foreigner and that that might be some kind of excuse. It didn’t work. He ranted on even more. When I realized that in his vocalizing his concern about my driving, he was spitting on me. I decided to then roll up my window. Luckily, the traffic had moved on and so I decided it was time for us to do likewise. I looked in the rearview mirror to see him still standing there in the middle of the road mouthing words and making hand gestures (I don’t think they were vulgar gestures though, just more of a “I can’t believe he didn’t stay here to hear more of what I was saying” gestures).

This was not a time for me to practice my German. As the man clearly did not like the way I drove in his country, I do not believe he would have taken kindly to me butchering his language. Its hard to find the right places where its safe to practice German. You are looking to converse with someone who is understanding and forgiving. Who will gently correct you when you say something wrong. Who will help fill in the word gaps that you have when you are trying to say something. And above all they have to be patient and willing to take the time to have a conversation when speaking takes three or more times as long.

Then it dawned on me. We need a safe environment in which to learn German just as a new Christian needs a safe environment to learn what it means to be a follower of Christ. And the environments are the similar in nature. Just as we need to be able to speak with people who are willing to answer our questions (no matter how simple they may be) and with people that set a tone that any question can be asked. And the same thing holds true for a new Christian. We need people who have the patience to listen to us and help us fill the word gaps in our speech just as a new Christian does. We need someone who is going to show us grace when we mess up and in a nurturing way show us where in our text book (or other reliable literature) we have gone astray just as a new Christian, who is pursuing living a life as a Christ follower, needs people to surround them, encouraging them, and showing them grace when they mess up and in a loving way, show them where in our life’s manual (i.e. the Bible) they have gone astray.

Is your community of Christ followers a safe environment for a new Christian?

There’s a story out there about how one time Albert Einstein, the well known Physicists, when he got onto a train going from Princeton, NJ to Boston. Soon after he got on the train, he began searching for his ticket. When the conductor arrived at Einstein’s seat the conductor said, “Mr. Einstein, I, and everyone else on this train know who you are and I am sure you have a ticket, rest assured that you have a seat on this train”. Einstein was relieved momentarily but then continued to frantically look for his ticket. When the conductor had finished checking everyone’s ticket, he noticed Einstein still trying to find the lost ticket. The conductor walked down the aisle and tapped Einstein on the shoulder and said, “Dear sir, I have total faith and confidence that you have a ticket. Please take your seat and be sure you can ride this train”. To which Einstein replied, “Thank you again, kind sir, but I need to locate that train ticket to find out where I am going!”

As many of you know, Einstein is one of my heros. Not because of his accomplishments or fame and definitely not his religious beliefs, but because of his “out of the box” thinking. He would look at things from different perspectives not allowing the perceptions of history and personal bias to matter when looking from the other perspectives. He included these perspectives in his overall conclusions but he isolated each perspective and then evaluated each perspective to draw up his conclusions. This sometimes made him lose touch with the reality that he was living in, hence the need to look at his train ticket to know where he was going.

I think this process of thinking plays well into the realm of God. So many of the arguments I hear are full of the single perspective of one’s self clouded with their perception of history and their personal biases. So many times we go to understand God from the perspectives of this world pushing our ideas of reality onto God saying “He must fit into this mold because this is how I see the world around me working!” But if we open our mind to go to another perspective, removing our notions of how the world works, from perceptions of history that may or may not be accurate, and look at God as the creator of all things. Look at God as if He truly were all powerful and that all things revolve around Him and not us. Now from that perspective, what are we able to see about God? What are we able to see about the world around us? What are we able to see about ourselves?

So as I read Scripture, I like to look at it from different perspectives. Sometimes from my personal perspective, sometimes from the perspective of the culture it was originally written in, sometimes from the perspective of a culture totally different than me, and sometimes from the perspective of a perfect God. Then I also like to do the same thing with the world around me. I again look at it from many different perspectives. Looking at the different perspectives - my conclusion is this: The perspective from a merciful and just God is the one that makes the most sense.

From what perspectives have you looked at life lately?