Do more blessing and less cursing

How sad that certain journalists are trying to mar the Queens Platinum Jubilee anniversary with raising the issue of forgiveness and the sins of one of her sons. Archbishop Welby was simply answering the question on what is the central principle of Christianity and you could see how careful he was with his chosen words. Still, the journalist created a story! This kind of story sells papers.

The world loves to hate and even more so when we have just cause to do so.

A quote attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. stated that: “The old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind.”

The ‘partygate’ scandal is a scandal and it was unusual to see a Prime Minister apologise and it was right he did. But I also know of people who though they are cursing others now were also guilty of breaking the lockdown rules then and abusing the furlough scheme where nearly £6 billion was wasted in fraudulent claims.

Even the cursed love to curse.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Romans 12:14

Most of us go through life and have to carry the problem of people not liking us and even worse, though we have tried to fix the situation we seem to be their enemy. They really don’t like us! They hold a grudge or they speak ill against us and they want to do as much damage to our reputation as possible.

I remember the phone call from one such man in the year 2000, “We will bring you down!” it was very unnerving as I pondered what that would mean exactly. They did try but the opposite happened as God lifted me up! I and the church I pastored were taken to an employment tribunal for an unfair dismissal charge. The charges were littered with lies. However, those that brought them really did believe they were handled unfairly. They hated me with a passion and they were determined to finish me. They cursed me and believed God was behind the curse. They had joined some jihad. What surprised me was I found that even though we won the case unanimously, (in fact the judge said ‘there was no case to answer’) the real battle began inside of me after it was all over. The temptation to curse was so alive in me and I knew if I didn’t master it then it would be the cursing that would bring me down. I discovered that though I was not naturally a cursing person, when I was wrongfully cursed the temptation to curse back, to get even, to let the world know was a new monster to face. I had to fight not to become one of the many angry people that walk around in religious clothing.

It would seem that these things are expected: You will have enemies; there will be people who hate you; they will curse you; they will ill-treat you; they will insult you; they will steal from you. The kingdom principle is to do the opposite of what comes your way and not the same response. To love, to do good, to bless, to pray, to not retaliate and to give what they need or want. To bless is to live in the place of forgiveness. To bless is to live large and accepting. To bless is to permit the sinner to come back into your space, with consequences perhaps, but not with cursing.

Hard that this is, it is the only way to stay in the kingdom and to let God reign in your life. Above all, it is the only way to keep your love sincere.

I was on the border of India and Nepal and I had just checked into my hotel at 5 dollars per night. It was a bargain I thought until I opened my bedroom door to find 2 monkeys sat on my bed. I went down to the reception and after asking if I had paid extra for the monkeys demanded they be removed. They had entered through an open window. It was then I did think about moving hotels.

“Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practise hospitality.” Romans 12:13

We were in Burkina Faso and had stayed the night in a Pastors home, 3 men all so tired (that was my excuse) and we laid down to sleep in the same room on straw mats. It wasn’t ideal but we were glad for somewhere to stay and we were soon in dreamy land. In the morning we were woken by the children laughing as 3 white men were laid on their floor snoring louder than the cockerels outside. The children had never seen white men and they had never heard such a noise!

The stories could continue! I am sure you have many stories too of staying in strange and yet wonderful places. Thankful for the hospitality offered to you.

At a time and in a culture when hospitality gave the opportunity for refreshing the dusty feet, receiving scented oil, food, shelter and friendship, Paul gives further instruction springing from love needing to be sincere. Share and do hospitality.

I have another place which has become a refuge type place; a haven; a couple who we have known for many years; I have a room there. It’s not my room obviously but they call it ‘Paul’s room’. When I go in the towels are on the bed and there are chocolates on the pillow, a news magazine on the desk, next to the kettle are my favourite one-cup coffee filters; toiletries are in the en-suite. Now, do I need all those things? I don’t think so. But maybe this couple think I have other needs which their hospitality is actually meeting and they would be right, it is. One thing I know is their love for me is indeed sincere!

The world is better for homes such as In Burkina or my haven home; but not so better for having hotels with the monkeys perhaps!

The last of the 3: joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

Pray and don’t give up: Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up… And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? Luke 18: 1-7

Pray with listening: I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Habakkuk 2:1

Pray with an awareness of the battle: Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5: 8

Never stop praying. If you have, start it up again. Make a determined effort to pray every day and throughout the day. Stay up late and pray. Get up early and pray. Spend the night in prayer. Fast things so you can pray more.

For when you are praying you are hoping. You are waiting. You are expecting God to answer. When you are praying you are focused on Him. Prayer keeps your eyes lifted upwards even when your heart maybe heavy. When we pray we are acknowledging that we are not alone in this life but there is another presence, the Living God.

There it is, Romans 12:12. One of the 3 instructions in this short verse. But so deeply challenging.

Paul doesn’t doubt it. It’s a given. Suffering is coming. So hold on, don’t back away under the trial, endure, bear with it a bit longer. Your positive approach to people, loving them with sincerity will not produce a perfect world for you. We are all sinners and capable of hurting anyone but further to this we all arty many difficulties with health and other seemingly impossible situations.

Jesus said we will have trouble in this world. But to take heart because he has overcome the world.

Today, you carry the name above all other names, even if you are not called Joshua.

The Apostle Paul tells us, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body”. 2 Corinthians 4:10

A Saviour is one who intervenes, who steps in and rescues from either physical or spiritual suffering. We carry His name and His presence in our lives today. We may not have done much in our lives but He has done it all!

Believe that your Saviour can rescue you from your enemy’s hands: “My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies” Psalm 31:15

So in whatever affliction you are experiencing stay where you are today. There is in the suffering a hidden mystery. It is Jesus Himself. The impatient miss Him. They want it over with. They want to move on and move out. And in doing so they miss the fellowship of Jesus in the sufferings.

Being patient doesn’t mean you do nothing. It is not limbo. You are not wasting any time. You are active.

This life and the set of circumstances that you are going through are not where your life truly abides. Jesus is more than a name. He is precious to you. You have surrendered your life to Him. You belong to Him. He is in your life and His presence is greater than the one outside of you. God gave you a new foundation of life and that is the exalted, victoriously ascended Christ.

So, ‘Be joyful in hope’, Romans 12: 12

On Ascension Sunday today we think of the disciples looking to the skies and seeing the Lord ascended they were filled with this joyful hope as they received this message: “‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’” Acts 1:11

So today let us all put our eyes on Jesus and not the circumstances outside or inside of us. We will see Him!

Love will cause you to do things that you would never do. Love will cause you to work harder, run faster or even drop everything to go and be and do and with and for love.
Romans 12:11 “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.”
Never and always… for Him.

Paul doesn’t say what we should have zeal for. But it is in the context of our relationship with others. It is part of the list flowing from the title, ‘Love must be sincere.’
Work at it, with people, with your love, don’t be half-hearted, don’t be lazy in your approach. Even when your emotions say otherwise and even when you don’t feel like it. Never put up the drawbridge, never back off, never say “I’m not going to bother with that person anymore,’
But hold on. That just sounds like a lot of legalistic hard work!
But we have a positive alongside the negative. We have the always pairing with the never.

Always be boiling over in your spirit towards never backing away from people. It’s not just hard work that we are called to bring but our very heart, our feelings, fervency, passion for people. Don’t be disengaged from the inner enthusiastic desire to honour others above yourself. Do it with all your might, heart, strength, mind, put all of you into this life of loving with sincerity. Isn’t that something of the great commandment?
It matters whether you smile. Joy is crucially important. If you don’t have it pray for it.

Never and always, why? for Him

Your commitment to work at this with a passionate heart is done for no other reason but that of serving the Lord. Working hard has no value in itself; fervency has no value in itself; but both together done for that of serving Jesus, then that is the value. These 2 things hang on the greatest opportunity in the world, to do it all for Him.

Do you know the experience of having that great idea but someone else gets the credit for it?

Have you been treated poorly but now have the opportunity to treat the same person a whole lot better?

Are you actually more deserving of gratefulness than the other person who you are now thinking of showing gratefulness to?

When the meal is finished in the restaurant are you more eager than anyone around the table to get the bill?

Do the opportunities to love with words and action come at the most inconvenient of times?

If so then you are very close to this next part of sincere love. Honour one another above yourselves, Romans 12:10

Honour: elevating someone else, high respect, esteeming them for who they are and what they have done.

In my culture we do this really well, when the person is dead. Not so much when they are alive!

We need to find new ways in fact many ways to bring honour to the person and their work.

We need to find the words.

We need to find the responses and the right reactions that will deflect from our thoughts and feelings to the elevation of the other. We need to become less …

The family in the home is one of the basic centres of the Kingdom of God. Before there was a Church there was a family, before there was anything created there was a family, before God was Creator or Saviour He was Father.

The home and the family was instituted by God, it is exalted in the Bible, it is the symbol of something greater, it is one of the main foundations of society and it is the primary influence on character development.

Yet we live today in a society where the family is threatened from all sides. The home is threatened. But the Church is here to restore the family. To not only repair it and stand for it but to become a family for the fatherless and the widow. The sincerity of the Church’s love is seen in its creation of family. “We are family here.” “Come and join the family of God.”

Love must be sincere: “Be devoted to one another in love.” (Romans 12 v 10) Or as the NASB rightly helps us, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.” The word Paul uses for love is philadelphia and it was used for the love amongst the family, hence, brotherly love. Paul is saying we should have devotion, tender family love towards each other. That is what we find in every Church, right?

I am sure we can all think of examples where we are devoted to that person in brotherly love. We can also think of those people who we struggle to love. They are the people who hurt you, spoken against you and who do not even like you never mind reciprocate any love you might have for them. How do we show brotherly love to these people? “… in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” v1-2.

Make the list. That’s who we are called to offer sincere love to. That’s who we show family love to. We need the Spirit’s help of course for we still have a long way to go to become like Christ.

But this is the battle the Church has to win. We must reveal philadelphia to a world who was robbed of that experience. “It doesn’t matter who you are; or how damaged you are; it doesn’t matter how hurtful or proud you have become; we leave all that to the head of the family, to the Father; our role is to philadephia you; that’s what you get here; welcome.”

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12 v 9)

“Nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas.” That’s what we wake up to this morning.

We cannot be silent about that. We cannot be numbed into a shrug of the shoulders.

Can we?

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

The Syrian refugee crisis had been taking place for 4 years before the world was shocked on 2^nd September 2015 by a little 2 year old boy, Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless body, still wearing his bright-red T-shirt and shorts, was carried and laid face down on the beach not far from Turkey’s wealthy town of Bodrum. The Twitter hashtag that went viral was ‘humanity washed ashore’.

Surely this stopped everything. We couldn’t just carry on with our lives could we?

The world’s largest displacement crisis is still Syria 11 years on from when it started. More than 13 million people have been displaced.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

If love is going to be sincere then we are going to have to respond.

We are not loving if we allow bullies to bully, killers to kill, rapists to rape, abusers to abuse.

We are not loving if we say nothing about the selfishness around us; the consumerism and greed in our society; the family breakdown in our neighbourhood; poverty, violence and racism; the list goes on; evil is here.

There is evil and there is good. It isn’t what we call it. It already exists. It was there before we were born and it will be there after we die. In order to demonstrate love then get involved with both. With the evil abhor it. Call it what it is. Take it on. Detest it enough to defeat it. With the good then cling to it. Paul uses the word in 1 Corinthians 6:16 for the uniting of 2 bodies into one. Be glued to the good. In all of the evils find the good.

The horror of December 2012 is etched in our minds when 26 school children were murdered at Sandy Hook. One 7 year old boy called Daniel, a victim of this evil, was unusually compassionate and always concerned for the special needs girl who he sat with in class making sure she was okay. When she would lose her glasses Daniel would find them. His parents clung to the good and launched a campaign called, ‘What would Daniel do?’ encouraging others to follow Daniel’s legacy of kindness.

Within the horrors of the Syrian camps is a father, Osama, who in being supported by the UNCHR is now able to support his family having been given 5 sheep. One of which gave birth so he has now six! “I’m happy because I can feed my family and sell the milk and cheese at the market,” he said, tenderly holding his young son.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Today let us not sit back. But let us get involved and let our love be sincere.

Love is all around me apparently, so the song tells me. I feel it in my fingers and in my toes. Apparently, though I’ve never watched, there is a new season of an island of love about to start on the TV. An island of love! That must be some island!

If you wanted to read everything on the internet about love then you would need to sit down in front of approximately 4,600,000,000 articles, so that’s 4 billion 600 million things to read today about love. Or you could just read these 4 words:

“Love must be sincere.” (Romans 12 v 9)

Love from the centre of who you are; don’t fake it. (Message)

Let love be without hypocrisy. (NASB)

Let love be genuine. (ESV)

Paul is about to list how love is seen. But it is seen. If it is real love it is more than words, it impacts, it changes the atmosphere, it influences for the good and it is more powerful than any evil.

Eva Mozes Kor had forgiven the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele. However her adoption of the grandson of Rudolf Hoss, the SS Commander of Auschwitz, revealed genuine, extreme and sincere love. “I’m proud to be his grandmother. I admire and love him. He had the need of love from a family he never had.”

Jung Jin-Wook and her husband had been Korean missionaries in Turkey since 2015, they were great evangelists. Then one day her husband, Kim, was attacked in the street whilst evangelising, he was fatally stabbed twice in the chest and once in the back. He was 41 years old. Later she wrote to her husband’s killer facing court: “I do not understand why you did this, but I cannot be angry at you. Many people want the court to give you a heavy punishment. But I and my husband don’t want this. We pray that you become worthy of heaven, because we believe in the worth of people. God sent his Son Jesus, who forgave those who persecuted him. We also believe in that and we pray that you would also repent of your sin.” It revealed genuine, extreme and sincere love.

The horrendous picture of the naked girl in 1972 running for her life with the other children from the napalm bombs dropped in the Vietnam War went global. But so did her genuine, extreme and sincere love in 1996 at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C when she forgave the pilot who dropped the bombs.

Demonstrate sincere love today, let it be seen, the world is waiting.