Love Does: Sniper Fire

Chapter 2 of Love Does

"I used to think I had to act a certain way to follow God, but now I know God doesn't want us to be typical."

Typical.

Bob shares about his first encounter with Jesus and it didn't come through a lot of talking or preaching, but through watching someone live life who was a follower of Jesus. Bob was in high school hanging out with Doug and doing things boys do: shoot BB guns. Along the way of playing, Doug shot Bob in the belly. "I liked how Doug could be friends with Jesus and still shoot pellet guns."

Following Jesus may begin as a person being typical. But, intense intimacy with Jesus results in people not being typical. We are real with life and faith. Our love for people transcends all that we thought. Jesus changes us into fully loving and fully living creatures.

To be honest, I'm not sure what this means. I never thought of myself as being typical. Does typical mean traditional? Does it mean that we don't put people or ourselves in a box and think, "God can only work within the confines of that situation?" Does it mean that we stop trying to please the church and what they deem acceptable behavior?

Jesus didn't speak to typical people. He went to the poor, the suffering, the outcasts, the unpopular. When the rich or literate did come his way he generally showed them what they had gained was not what he was necessarily looking for in a person.

Maybe the key really is just to be yourself and not care what people think about you.

The other big reminder from this reading is life does need to be lived and people will see more of what you do than what you say (yet our words can't contradict our living).

It reminds me of a great t-shirt we had at college: Walk=Talk

Love Does: I'm With You

Chapter 1 of Love Does by Bob Goff.

"I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them."

The culmination of this chapter was Bob realizing that his high school buddy (Randy) who had traveled with him to Yosemite had just gotten married, but rather than letting his good friend go off on life on his own (and staying home with his new bride) told him , "Bob, I'm with you." 

My first impression from this was I'm not sure I would be this unselfish at that moment in time. In fact, I know I wouldn't drop everything like this. Randy had been spending time with Bob. So, he was invested in his life. Bob wasn't yet a follower of Jesus. So, Randy took off with this kid to go to a place, probably, far away.

It reminds me of Phil Floyd from high school and how this guy invested in us high school students. He had us over for sleep overs, watching "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" all night, spending time with us young guys. Phil was newly married as well. But, instead of spending alone time with his wife, Lori, he spent a lot of his free time with us guys.

He was with us.

Who am I with? Am I even with my kids wherever they go? Sure, I try to take them places and go to soccer games, drill team events, matches where Tyson referee's, but what kind of time am I really investing in their lives. Maybe it's not that bad. I know I tend to think I'm always the worst and I could always be better.

I've got friends, but what about people I've just met and barely know?

I thought it was also great that Randy offered Bob truth and perspective during any trials that may come along. He didn't correct, but encouraged.

That's a great challenge for me in my life. How can I be this type of person?

Lord, help me to be bold and help me to be a friend that goes along and invests without asking for anything in return.

Holiness of God - Chapter 9

God in the Hand of Angry Sinners

Most famous sermon is probably Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God." But, this sermon probably doesn't have much place in churches today. "Ours is an upbeat generation with the accent on self-improvement and a broad-minded view of sin." We tend to think that "His love and mercy override His holy justice." And so we don't want to think He possesses wrath.

But, by truly understanding God's holiness we must see that God is angry with us because we violate His holiness and He does possess justice. This is what Jonathan Edwards was getting at, not to guilt trip his listeners but to "awakening them to the peril they faced if they remained unconverted."

"O sinner! consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder." 

Edwards states that a holy God must also be a wrathful God.

1. God's wrath is divine. Human wrath terminates, but God's wrath can go on forever.
2. God's wrath is fierce. God's wrath is a consuming rage against the unrepentant. 
3. God's wrath is everlasting. There is no end.

And yet this doesn't quicken us with an urgency to believe nor tell others. Our problem is we think the best of ourselves and think the way we get out of judgement is by living a good life. We have changed God into our idol and made him something we are more comfortable with.

Edwards had a sequel sermon called "Men's Naturally God's Enemies." Sproul would say, "God in the Hands of Angry Sinners." "If we are unconverted, one thing is absolutely certain: We hate God."  And in turn we are God's enemies. We have all been at this point. Romans 5:10 declares, "When we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son." Thus, we have a need for reconciliation. Our tendency is to flee from Him. What we often want from God is only the riches; only the gifts and the good stuff. We want everything our way. For natural man God "represents the highest possible threat to our sinful desires." 


Those that have been reconciled are friends of God. Yet "our natural human natures were not annihilated."