Tag Archives: love

Am I A Good Person?

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Am I A Good Person?

People around me may applaud and praise me as being a “good” person, but am I? What does Jesus say?

You know, the hungry, the thirsty, those I do not know, the naked, the sick, those who are in prison? The people whom the Father wants to be safe and sound in His kingdom as sons and daughters, treated just as though they were His beloved Son because they are His kindred, they ARE His flesh and blood –what does *that* Jesus say about me?

Do I deal with them on the basis of how they can or cannot advance my interests?

Or, will I deal with them on the basis of having an intense intolerance for the incongruity of insufficiency, illness and imprisonment with God’s kingdom and act with a sincere desire to bring their circumstances in-line with His intent?

That’s what Jesus did, after all.

How I engage the inconvenient and disinherited is a more accurate reflection of who I am and whether I ever knew Jesus than praise from other self-promoting people who I trade favors among.

“Then He also said to him who invited Him, ‘When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.'”
—Luke 14:12-14

I have failed this test many times.

I repent.

Love seeks to remedy the inconsistencies between God’s heart and what’s happening, with whomever it’s happening, everywhere it’s happening.

“[Love] does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;”
—1 Corinthians 13:6

Love goes.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and COMING in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
-Philippians 2:5-8

Do you have such a heart? Is the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus? To go until there is no place that His light has not shined?

There is a lot of work to do Christians.

How “good” we are is determined by whether we share the same heart as the only One who is good, who so loved the WORLD that He sent His only begotten Son that they may not perish but have everlasting life.

A desire to see “Your kingdom come, Your will be done” EVERYWHERE determines whether we hear “Come, you blessed of my Father” (Matthew 25:34), or “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23, Matthew 25:41)

Love is the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

Let love be without hypocrisy. (Romans 12:9)

Father, help me to not be deceived by my own or the world’s sense of goodness. But, give me a heart that wants above all else to see Your kingdom come.

Create in me the heart to go, as Jesus did, to bring the Gospel not only to people’s hearing but also to what’s happening in their lives, to live as He lived that I may through obedience manifest the only One that is good: God, so that I can truly proclaim as my Lord did, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

I ask this in service to my Master, your only begotten Son Jesus’ name.

Amen.

As Christians our constant occupation should be where to bring the Gospel, both to ears (word) and circumstances (deed), next.

“My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
—1 John 3:18

That’s good.

Love Is More Than Kindness

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Love Is More Than Kindness

We often confuse a kind face with love. But love is not always approval, hugs and kisses. Sometimes love is resisting you to the face and telling you you’re wrong.

Love is much more than kindness.

Love will bruise you to make you better.

Love will brave the risk of your rejection and retaliation to help you.

Love will bear the expense for your profit, often ridicule and sorrow.

Love will boldly resist iniquity; what causes harm.

Love is so much more than kindness.

#perfectourlove

Victory In The Lord’s Communion

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Victory In The Lord's Communion

Something that’s still rippling through my heart is a word imparted by Alan Hawkins that I heard at New Horizons,

“The way of escape is the Lord’s communion.” 1 Corinthians 10:1-21

This coincides with something else burning on my heart: we NEED each other.

It is not enough to have weapons or to even know how to use them, I need HELP!

I need my fellow soldiers because the war we fight is multifaceted and I wasn’t given all the gifts.

I was intentionally given a subset of the gifts; 1. for specialization and 2. so I’d have to depend on my fellow beloved to avert pride -one of the deadliest of Satan’s weapons!

To go into this war alone is unwise.

“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment.”
— Proverbs 18:1

It doesn’t take many but it definitely takes more than me.

“Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight;
your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.”
— Leviticus 26:8

There are many challenges on this battlefield that different members of the body are especially equipped to handle. Despite personality differences or how I might feel about them, I cannot afford to be separated from these resources.

Did you know that disruption of logistics is a common military tactic?

The way to victory is the Lord’s communion!

But we’ve been disrupted!

Our primary objective as believers today should overcoming the divisions that have cut us off from each other.

We should be laying aside anything that separates us and fight toward each other!

Victory is in the Lord’s communion!

When we are together in Christ, then we can bind the strong man and plunder his goods, taking back from Satan all that he’s taken in deceit. (Mark 3:24-27)

Wake up church! We can win: our marriages, families, communities and the redemption of all things!

God has given us victory in the Lord’s communion.

We need each other.

Love.

#spiritualwarfare #perfectourlove

How God’s Love Is Different

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - How God's Love Is Different

One of many ways the love of God is different:

God’s love is not transactional, it’s relational.

When I love you with God’s love, I love you, not on the basis of what you do or even who you are, or not even because of my relationship to you, but I love you based on my relationship to God.

The beginning of love is not the appreciation of some virtue in the subject.

Love is like light. There is no virtue in the darkness that activates light. Light shines simply because that’s what light does.

The beginning of love is God. Loves does what love is. Said another way, Love does who God is.

The question is, do I have Him [love], or perhaps better said, does love [God] have me?

If so, love is just going to do what it do and there should be nothing the subject can do to stop that.

The principal thing then, is to know Love, to have Him and Him have me.

Abide.

Only then am I in a position to love.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.”
-John 15:9

#perfectourlove

Bad Love

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Bad Love

Hardly anything is more destructive than a bad definition of love.

We do more harm to each other in the name of what we think is love than we do with hate.

At least with outright hate, it’s clear who the enemy is so you can avoid them or defend yourself.

But, I find that most of the harm that people suffer, and the most devastating came at the hands of people we thought were for us and who were actually well meaning (to the extent of their ability), sincerely thinking they were loving when they were doing the opposite.

Examples:
A guy who claims he loves a girl but is defiling her.

A parent who thinks they’re loving a child but is actually teaching them to hate themselves.

A person who think they’re helping the disadvantaged but is only further setting them back.

Me doing something that feels good or seems good that makes me worse off.

Etc.

But, Jesus came so we’d have an accurate definition, to teach us Love that “does no harm”.

If you want to know how to truly love: yourself, your spouse, your child, your family, your friends, your neighbor, God, look to Christ.

“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Matthew 6:23

#perfectourlove

Why I Hate This Cross

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Why I Hate The Starkville Cross Of Christ
Photo Courtesy Of Columbus Dispatch

Someone asked me privately why “I hate this thing” referring to the Starkville Cross of Christ as I mentioned in a previous post.

The ultimate point of that post was not the cross but how those of us in Christ can, by His grace, push past even very strongly held positions to fight toward each other in love.

Notwithstanding, I think it would be helpful to the cause of “fighting toward each other in love” to understand why I disdain this monument.

Despite a lot of responses to the post focusing on it, for me, it is not about the money or what it could have been better spent toward. That’s tertiary, at best.

But as I have written previously, I find the giant cross problematic, “not because of what it is but because of what it was erected in the absence of”.

The absence I’m referring to is love, basically.

Everything else is derivative.

It’s unfortunate that this cross was erected during one of the most divisive times in history, meanwhile:

there is no concerted effort by the Christian community here to address the schisms in the church. Sunday remains the most segregated day of the week.

there is no concerted effort by the church to address schisms in our community. We remain very divided.

and, there are a host of community challenges we, as the church, are well equipped and well resourced to address, yet no concerted effort.

We seem happy with the level of suffering around us, but erect a giant cross to symbolize Christ’s love.

Sigh.

Love is the primary thing.

And, that is what I find absent.

Building shelters, providing food banks, or erecting giant crosses will all be ultimately unprofitable without love.

As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, I can do all sorts of amazing and even extreme things like selling everything I have to feed the poor or even giving my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Christ’s love is supernatural because it’s God’s love.

That love will transform our community and us.

That love will engender the response appropriate to meet the specific need of each individual and branches properly to connect them all (to God).

It’s only something that those of us who are called by Christ can do.

Tactics ain’t gonna get it.

At the very most basic application, I can tell you that no one I love is going without anything if I can help it.

The problem is we don’t love each other.

Is there truly a God?

I believe there is.

Prove it.

Love miracuously.

One More

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - One More

Something that struck me today as we were reflecting on the last utterances of Jesus from the cross…

There’s no indication that the Man had eaten.

He’s likely dizzy from the blood loss of the scourging alone. ¹

He struggles to carry the implement of His torture, weighing upwards of 175 lbs (79kg), for more than 650 yards (600m). ²

When He finally gets to the hill, He’s rewarded with nails driven through His flesh to fix Him to the cross. ³

He’s struggling to breath from the asphyxiation the cross was designed to produce.

He’s being humiliated, openly mocked even by both of the thieves He’s being crucified between. ⁴

But somewhere along the way, one thief has a change of heart. ⁵

Bloodied, beaten and dying, what does our Lord think?

One more.

Hallelujah.

In His state, Jesus makes the time for a thief, a “convicted felon” as someone put it today, to accept his repentance and to assure his salvation because the condemned man simply believed Jesus was a King not of this world. (Luke 23:39)

Jesus makes time for him in the midst of all He was going through to minister to him and say, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.” ⁶

To His dying breath, Jesus used every ounce of strength He had to do His Father’s will.

This illuminates John 13:1,
“[…] Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” -John 13:1

He loved them to end with everything that He had -love that reconciled them to the Father.

That’s the standard.

This is a Perfect Picture of what it looks like to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. ⁷

My Lord and My God.

What excuse do I possibly have for not loving to the very end, especially since I “have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin”?! (Hebrews 12:4)

The calling is indeed high. So, “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12)

When I am tired, hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, and beat down ⁸, by His grace I aim to be like my Savior and think, “One more.”

¹ Matthew 27:26, John 19:1
² Matthew 27:29
³ John 20:25
⁴ Matthew 27:44
⁵ Luke 23:38-42
⁶ Luke 23:43
⁷ Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:29-31
⁸ 2 Corinthians 4:7

A True Safe Sure Love

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - A True Safe Sure Love

If I’m accepted and loved on the basis of my appearance, then I’m doomed to abandonment –we all are, eventually.

That is why I am so glad that Someone loved me on the basis of who God is rather than who I am.

That Someone loved me on the basis of God’s character which is sure and never changes, and that Someone therefore chooses to love me simply because He (God) is resolved to.

There is nowhere more safe or more certain than that.

Being a recipient of such great a love, I want and strive to love like that.

This love is needed and applies to every relationship in every sphere, but here’s a practical example of how it plays out at home and in my marriage.

My wife will occasionally ask me, “Why do you love me?”

My response is always the same.

“Because you’re mine to love.”

Jesus taught me that.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” -Romans 5:8

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” -John 15:9

True love requires knowing God.
Knowing God requires knowing Jesus.
Knowing Jesus requires believing what the Holy Spirit revealed about Jesus.
Believing what the Holy Spirit revealed requires receiving what He’s given: Holy Scripture.

Read the Bible seeking.
Believe Jesus.
Love.

#perfectourlove

Three States Of Marriage Triangle

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Three States Of Marriage Triangle
3 States Of Marriage Triangle

This is something my wife and I cover with couples in counseling in preparation for their wedding day. I’m sharing it in hopes it will be a blessing to someone else.

The Three States Of Marriage Triangle

Marriage is God making two –a husband and a wife, one in Him.

No power is capable of facilitating this union and holding it together other than God’s love.

God is love.

We cannot love without love.

Therefore, everything starts with Him and is done through Him.

“We love because He first loved us.” -1 John 4:19

Love begins with His revelation and then our acceptance of His love for us.

Thereby, we see what love is, what is good, what is true and how it’s done.

We, as a husband or a wife, participate in marriage by being loved by God, modeling ourselves after God, and ministering the love of God to each other.

In a healthy marriage, the husband and wife minister the love of God toward each other, a perpetual process of perfecting –sanctification: that reveals, cleanses and draws.

Through this process they increasingly become One until the distinction between husband and wife is nearly indiscernible except that they’re merely different expressions of the same life-giving whole.

Attending to this process should be a husband’s top priority and occupation.

As a husband, he should be diligent to know the state of his wife and their marriage, careful to cultivate, water and fertilize with the nurture of God’s Love.

A husband should also be vigilant against evil, careful to weed and prune anything hindering their growth.

If it so happens that a husband or wife becomes distant (out of fellowship with God and therefore out of fellowship with the spouse), the marriage becomes anemic.

Our tendency is to look toward our spouse and concentrate on what we’re not getting that we think we should. This only causes more harm and it’s not God’s way.

Consider Jesus. No matter what we did (or did not do that we should have), Jesus was not moved. He focused on the love between Him and the Father and ministered that love to us.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” – John 15:9

God is faithful and His love toward that drifting spouse remains constant. So, we look toward Him. We focus on His love toward us to get what we need and then minister His love toward our spouse.

Love from above. Love from below.

There is no better means or greater power to restore someone to fellowship than God’s love.

Enticements, appeasement, grand expressions, manipulation and coercion only work for a little while, if at all.

But, love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).

Receive Love.
Give Love.
Trust Love.

And, in the last state where both spouses are distant (out of fellowship with God therefore out of fellowship with each other), the marriage is broken. This condition should be avoided at all cost by personally always drawing near to the Savior, Jesus Christ.

But even in the worst case scenario, God gives a way back to fellowship. Just one needs to look up.

I began by saying marriage is God making two one. And, everything I have said applies to two believers.

Before you say “I do” to each other, make sure you’ve both said, “I do” to Jesus’s proposal.

To have a healthy marriage, it is vital to not be unequally yoked.

#perfectourlove

Join the discussion of this post on Facebook here.

Connect and share with me:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/brainflurry
Twitter – https://twitter.com/brainflurry

A Love So Different It’s Like Night And Day

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - A Love So Different It's Like Night And Day

A concept that has alluded me and that was so distant and alien to me, seems so plain and elementary to me now:

We believe that Jesus came down from heaven not only to save us but humbled Himself to serve those who should be serving Him to the extent that He gave His very life on the cross all because of His great love for us (Philippians 2:5-11).

But, that is not true.

Jesus did not do it because of His great love for us.

Jesus did it because of His great love for the Father (John 6:38, 14:31, Philippians 2:8).

Jesus was so faithful to His love for the Father that He was willing to give everything for it (John 8:29, 12:27-28, Philippians 2:8).

He loved God with all His heart, all His soul, with all His mind and with all His strength (John 4:34, Luke 22:41-44, Philippians 2:8).

True love has to start there.

That’s why it’s the first and greatest commandment (Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Mark 12:28-30).

“Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, ‘Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, ‘The first of all the commandments is: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. ‘ – Mark 12:28-30

The love of the world is like living our whole life under moonlight. It can be beautiful but that light is merely a reflection of the true source of light and it cannot give life.

While love that begins with God is like walking in the light of the sun which gives life. Moonlight is nothing in comparison.

What I thought love was and what Jesus is showing me Love is, is like night and day.

True love has to start with loving God.

Because Jesus’s love for us started there, He could not be moved.

He was not moved by temptation.

“‘Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” – Matthew 4:8-10

He was not moved by promises of power.

‘Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.’ – John 6:14-15

He was not moved by friends and people He loved.

‘From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”’ – Matthew 16:21-23

He was not moved by pain.

‘There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” And they divided His garments and cast lots. ‘ – Luke 23:32-34

Even as He hung, bled and was dying on a heavy, crude, splinter-ridden cross, stripped naked, exposed, mocked –humiliated, He did not revile in return, He did not speak curses but blessings (1 Peter 2:21-23), crying out “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Jesus was on that cross because “for God so loved the world that GOD gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). And Jesus wanted for them what the Father wanted for them (John 10:15-18,15:9).

“Ok,” I ask, “I get that You didn’t want those who believed in Your Son not to perish, but what’s that got to do with the people hurting and crucifying Him?!” Jesus answers, “I’m using everything, My suffering and even My death to draw all men to Myself for the glory of the Father. Remember the centurion.”

‘So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”’ – Mark 15:39

It occurs to me, that if Jesus allowed the destruction of those who were hurting Him, we’d all be destroyed because we’re all hurting Him (Romans 3:10). But even though we’re enemies, rather than destroying us, He continually offers us the opportunity to be friends, offering us everything we need, beginning with a new heart (being born again), and patiently teaching us how to be His friend. His goal is to draw us near to Himself where He is with God, in order to reconcile us to the Father (1 Colossians 1:19-23).

Jesus love for the Father kept Him on that cross, more securely than the nails driven through His body ever could (Mark 15:29-32).

Jesus was never moved from the Father’s love for us.

And that’s the way we are called to love one another (John 13:34, John 15:12, 1 John 3:16).

True love begins with loving God with all my heart, all my soul, with all my mind and with all my strength.

There is a reason this is the first and greatest commandment.

The second greatest is love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31).

“And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:31

I can’t do the second without the first.

If God is love, how can I love without love? (1 John 4:7-8)

I rejoice and thank God for this revelation of the Holy Spirit, but upon seeing it, I realize “Woe is me!” It is too wonderful for me.

Frankly, I cannot do any of it unless God does it in me (Philippian 2:13).

I want to love God with everything I have. I want to have His heart so that I can love those around me with His amazing love. I want to love like Jesus, with a love that desires for people what the Father desires for them, a love that no matter what people do or no matter what comes, I am immovable (1 Corinthians 15:58).

I confess I don’t love like this and I don’t know how (1 John 1:9).

Dear Father, help me! In Jesus name I ask this. Amen (1 John 5:14-15, John 16:24).

#perfectourlove