Reconciling Love and War

Reconciling Love and War   

Luke 6:27-31    

One area of confusion about war is the apparent discrepancy between Jesus’ words and God’s approval of battle in the Old Testament. Can such dissimilar teachings be reconciled? How can the God who told Israel to destroy the Canaanites be the same one who said, “Love your enemies,do good to those who hate you” (v. 27)?

To clarify this issue, we must distinguish between commands issued to nations and instructions given to individuals. The Lord has bestowed certain responsibilities upon governments. He calls them ministers of
God for good and entrusts them with avenging evil (Rom. 13:4). But to individuals, He says, “Never take your own revenge” (12:19).

People are killed in war, but this isn’t the same as murder. A soldier on the battlefieldcarries out his duties under the authority of his government (Rom. 13:1-2). Murder, on the other hand, is an individual’s vengeful response to anger or jealousy and is motivated by a desire to destroy another person.

When governments avenge wrong, innocent people are protected, but when individuals seek their own revenge, they destroy themselves and others. In Luke, Jesus was speaking about personal conflicts, not national wars. He knows that loving our enemies is the only way to protect ourselves from bitterness.

Would we prefer to turn the responsibilities around—are we quick to fight personal battles, but slow to affirm the avenging of evil nationally? Sometimes the only way for a country to have peace is to go to war, but we’ll never experience inner peace if we battle with individuals who wrong us.

A Prayer for Faithful Dependence

A Prayer for Faithful Dependence   By Pete Briscoe    

Jesus doesn’t work harder for those who try harder. So if you’ve been busy muscling up some stellar faith, hoping someday you’d have just enough to have just a little more Jesus, you can stop. Jesus isn’t concerned about the quantity or quality of your faith. He just desires to be the object of your faith.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God... (Galatians 2:20)

When we depend upon someone other than Jesus, we are going to be disappointed. Our society offers a buffet of choices: health and wellness, dead people, spouses, careers, IRAs, and even pastors. All of them are imperfect and totally unqualified to become the object of your faith.

How about today’s gurus? They’re simply preaching secular legalism – teaching a different list of rules, but rules all the same. Rules can’t hold you up.

I remember my elementary science teacher explaining the human skeleton. If all went well, I’d never see my own bones; but without them, I’d be nothing more than a blob of flesh and muscle on pavement. Same goes with faith. People are always looking for a visible object of faith. Yet, it’s the ascended Christ and the invisible but indwelling Spirit who hold us up in this faith journey.

In fact, Scripture teaches that faith is produced by God’s Spirit in us. We have no control over its volume and quantity in our lives. But we do get to choose whom we trust.

What are you facing today? In whom or what will you put your faith?

Almighty God, renew our hearts so that we may give your words to others. Hold us up in faith and lead us in righteousness. Father, as we begin each day, remind us to place our full dependence on you. You are the author of all things, and through you we are blessed. Amen.

The Corinthian Man-Creed

The Corinthian Man-Creed   
by Shawn McEvoy    

Today's verse hangs on a board on the wall of my son. But years ago, long before my son was even an inkling, I came across that verse as I was sending my own father one of many letters I composed over the years to share with him the importance of salvation, and the value of life in Christ. My sister, mother, and I came to know the Lord in 1980, but it took another 17 years, seven months, and 26 days worth of praying, heart softening, and brokenness for Dan McEvoy to surrender.

And it wasn’t this letter or the above verse that pushed him into it. No, this letter I was writing simply to tell him how blessed I was to have begun dating a woman (who eventually became my wife) for whom faith came first, and I was giving God all the glory and credit and all that good stuff, and probably telling him how God delights in blessing those who trust in Him.

With the letter I enclosed a quick-and-dirty page of graphic art involving the aforementioned verse from Corinthians in some fancy font, with a clip-art picture of a sailboat, kind of as a visual aid to my letter, indicating, I suppose, what it was like for the man of God to live in this world under the Captaincy of Christ.

Well, so. After he died in 2001, I found that letter and piece of "art" in my father’s desk, looking as if it had been read and glanced at often. Something in me knew then that if I were ever to have a son, I’d commit to raising him to manhood under these same five principles:

• Be on your guard. Be ready, be alert. Expect God to be involved, expect Satan to attack. Let the wonder of creation still catch your eye.
• Stand firm in faith. Be unmoved because you know intimately that of which you believe in. Become biblically literate.
• Be a man of courage. Fear is not from God (2 Timothy 1:7), so go your way boldly. The worst that can happen – even death – still ends in victory and glory for the Christian.
• Be strong. Physically, yes, let’s take care of ourselves, and present our bodies as holy. But remember that the Lord is the strength of the strong (Ephesians 6:10), and that “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
• Do everything in love. Here’s your motivation, because he that doesn’t love doesn’t know God (1 John 4:8), and the world shall know you by your love (John 13:35).

So when Jordan was born, and we had the dedication service at our church, that’s the verse we selected to have read. When he was about two-and-a-half, he started reciting it by memory and making up arm/hand motions to go with it. We call it our “Man-Creed.”

But here’s the secret: these couple verses from the closing of Paul’s first letter to Corinth aren’t first-and-foremost for Jordan… they’re for me.

When I first realized that, it caught me, ironically enough, "off my guard." I had been more than happy to tell my own father how to "be a man," and was perfectly willing to raise my son to be one according to the Word. How, I wonder, did I intend to do so without living out the credo, making it my own?

The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible comments upon the 1 Corinthians passage thusly: "[Paul] shows that they ought to make their hopes of salvation to depend not on Apollos or any other teacher; that it rests with themselves." Yes, and on how I am willing to live, or better, whether I am willing to let my life be of greater worth than my words.

I don’t know about the other guys out there, but it definitely helps me to have something to live by, to recite, to write on my heart, ponder the meaning of, and connect to other scriptures as I strive to be a man after God’s own heart. And it doesn’t hurt that this creed I now try to follow is affecting its third generation in my family.