No Wax

Romans 12:8 says we must love sincerely. It literally means without wax. The background of the word is best illustrated in art of that day. A sculptor would often use a wax to cover up mistakes on a sculpture. Done well these small places would be unnoticeable for years until dirt and age would show the imperfections. A sincere sculpture was one with no such cover ups. It was without wax.

I challenge you today to love without wax. The difficult part of such love is that we are imperfect and the people we love are imperfect. The Bible also teaches that love covers a multitude of sins.

Insecure love cannot cover sin. Sincere love is not a relationship that is right because there exists no wrong. Sincere love is a relationship that is right in spite of all wrong.

Sunday we will jump deeper into this passage to learn more about sincere love. Hope to see you at 8:30, 9:45 or 11 AM at Fellowship Church.

Love Big

Luke 10:25-37 teaches us we must LOVE BIG.

We must love the Lord our God with ALL our heart, soul, strength, and mind.  And because we love God with ALL we love ALL others as we do ourselves.

We often make a mistake when we think about loving big though.  It is common misperception.  This is a faulty line of thinking we have about marriage, parenting, and serving.

The faulty thinking is…I must DO big to love big.

Sometimes loving big is not in the big things at all.  Sometimes it is in the little things.

So love big today by doing what is needed whether big or small.

FCers, I encourage you to love BIG today by doing the little things for your neighbors.  Show up and help random strangers clean up their yard.  We might have some opportunities to go BIG into some of the areas that were affected worse by the storm in the days to come, but today you can love BIG right where you are.  People are gathering up at the church to go out today.  Show up and someone can tell you where to meet up.  Or just throw on your GO TEAM shirt and love on some neighbors by giving a helping hand with debris clean up.  If you need help call the church at 225-673-4735.

The Play Call

In football there is way more to what happens when the ball is snapped than meets the eye.  Players in every position are making adjustments based on formations and personnel on the field.  The defense shifts to adjust to the offense so the offense sends a guy in motion to adjust to the defense and so and so on.  You see today's quarterback's walk up to the line and make calls and adjustments and the linebacker across respond in kind.

The players process all kinds of information.  The receiver has to decide which route on his route tree he will run based on personnel, formation, down, and distance.  The quarterback has to see the same thing he sees and they have to work together.

If all these things do not happen, nothing works right.

But it all depends on one thing...the play call.

The formation, the routes, the blocking schemes...they all depend on the play call.

So let me give you the play call for followers of Jesus Christ.

Sure there are some more complicated things to figure out about how this works out in the world and in our daily lives.  But in all reality everything boils down to these two things.

Matthew 22:36-40  "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 
Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'  ALL of the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Join us Sunday morning at Fellowship Church to learn more about THE PLAY CALL.
Remember three services starting this week 8:30, 9:45, and 11AM.

Not Religion...Just Reality

When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it.  When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying,“He is good; his love endures forever.”  
2 Chronicles 7:1-3

Responding to God is not some odd act of religion.  It is reality.

The priests did not enter the temple because of a rule.  The did not enter the temple because they could not.  Why? Reality.  They were not capable of entering into the personal presence of God.

Why did the masses bow and worship and give thanks?  Reality.  Not because they were required to by some obligation but because they desired to out of recognition.

I encourage you in search for Truth and your quest for the Divine in your life to not simply look for religious experiences but to seek out real encounters with God.

When you ready yourself for reality instead of religion, religion becomes real.

Fools and Forgiveness

Have you ever had a conflict with someone that you felt reconciliation as possible and they refused to try?  It is in such moments that a person realizes that a friend was not a friend.  That a person they believed loved them did not actually love them.  It is in those painful moments in life that we learn some of the hardest lessons.  The problem is we learn the lesson, but we don’t learn what to do with that or how to feel about it.

Proverbs 14:9 says, “Fools mock at making amends for sin, but goodwill is found among the upright.”

So a fool does not forgive.  But, why?  A fool does not forgive because a fool does not love.  The reason a fool does not love is because a fool lives his life about himself. 

Forgiveness and reconciliation is something to mock for a fool because it is not worth the time and the effort.  Why?  Because people are not worth their time and the effort.

It is more important to the fool that they get what they want or say what they want or do they want than any relationship.  The fool values people and relationships solely by the convenience and betterment that relationship offers to their own life at that time.

That is a fool.  We all know some.  We all love some.

So what do you do?  Love the fool but don’t live their foolishness.

Let them go.  Let them do their thing. Let them speak their lies and their nonsense.  It always catches up to them.  But don’t pray that upon them.  Pray grace upon them.  Pray wisdom for them.

Letting them go means allowing them to separate from you in life.  It will probably hurt.  But one who carries the company of fools is a fool.

So how do you foolproof your own life?  Don’t be a fool.  Start with you.

Seek out reconciliation and forgiveness whether you wronged them or whether they wronged you.  That’s a good start.

Also, read a proverb a day, it might just keep the fool within and the fools without away.