Paul Shares the Love
Paul likes to mix it up in this letter to His dear friends in Philppi. Here's a quick look at what he's got mixed up.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11
In the introduction of his letter, he mixed love with growth in Christ.
From this text I suggest a simple formula,
love = spiritual growth.
The reverse would be, no love = no growth.
I said it was simple. At least in description. Unfortunately, we see too many instances where it is not simple to achieve.
I have been to quite a few museums over the years, maybe some day I'll list them. I would go back to any of them given the chance and take a look at the exhibits again with renewed interest and enthusiasm. I went out to the Charles M. Russel museum a few years ago and would love to go back there in central Montana to see the great paintings of the plains Indians and the rugged mountains of the west. My spirit rises in that place with every painting or sketch I view.
Museums do that for me. All except one. I will never go back to this museum. It is in Jerusalem, called Yad Vashem . This museum wrecked me and is killing me as I write about it at this very moment. And I haven't been back there for years. I've been to Jerusalem twice now. The first time I went into Yad Vashem and was overwhelmed with horror. The second time, years later, when everyone got off the bus to go into the museam, I stayed put. I would not, could not go in. I prayed. Actually, I argued with God. I did not need to go into the museum to see the pictures and artifacts a second time. They were still fresh in my mind. They never left.
Pictures like this one haunt my mind.
I imagine this is a father and daughter, holding his precious child in his arms during the last moments of their lives. I don't know the story very well, but I don't need to know the details. I know the tragedy. That is what Yad Vahsem did to me, it made me see the lowest lows of some of the lowest times in our world. It made me scream. It made me certain. It made me wonder. It convinced me that there was a great hole in our hearts and our world.
This man and child did not deserve this. Nor did any of the other millions of martyr's who were murdered. I do my best to move beyond this picture every day, but it never seems to leave my shadow. It is a grief that never is gotten over, only compartmentalized. I will not go back to Yad Vashem even though they have a new location and larger, more interesting or comprehensive museum now.
I go to Philippians as much as I can. I try to get a different picture in my mind. It is a picture of Paul, chained and imprisoned in some place. In his letter to them, you can imagine that he is holding his children in his arms, the Phillippian church in this case. All his love is wrapped around them. All of his heart is theirs. He has lived and will die for them.
As deep and dark and tragic and beyond horrible descriptions that the Holocaust is, the church deserves to be the reverse. The church is called to be the brightest and most beautiful and most secure place in the world. Paul suggested that the church at Phillipi was to be completely the opposite of Yad Vashem's tragic story. If you sit in Yad Vashem long enough, you begin to see it there as well. It begins to slowly appear to you in the lives and faces, and resignation of the martyrs. Many of their last acts were acts of bravery, courage, commitment and love toward another, like this father and maybe even this child toward the father.
I don't know how, but I know what I want. I want to be as loving and caring and I want my church to be as loving and caring as these people were evil and completely lost about the purpose of their lives. The soldier holding the rifle is probably dead now. I know nothing of him except what this picture infers. But he represents how bad it can be. I want my church and my life to represent how good it can be. I want my life and my church to be the center of hope, courage, faith and love. I want it to liberate, empower, strengthen and build people into the Christ character that Paul prays for in Philippians. I say I don't know how. Actually I do. It's in Paul's prayer as I make it my own.
My prayer today is that your love may abound more and more until that day when Jesus Himself will put His arms around us and save us from the last evils that haunt us in this world, as Paul said, "to the glory and praise of God."
This man and child did not deserve this. Nor did any of the other millions of martyr's who were murdered. I do my best to move beyond this picture every day, but it never seems to leave my shadow. It is a grief that never is gotten over, only compartmentalized. I will not go back to Yad Vashem even though they have a new location and larger, more interesting or comprehensive museum now.
I go to Philippians as much as I can. I try to get a different picture in my mind. It is a picture of Paul, chained and imprisoned in some place. In his letter to them, you can imagine that he is holding his children in his arms, the Phillippian church in this case. All his love is wrapped around them. All of his heart is theirs. He has lived and will die for them.
As deep and dark and tragic and beyond horrible descriptions that the Holocaust is, the church deserves to be the reverse. The church is called to be the brightest and most beautiful and most secure place in the world. Paul suggested that the church at Phillipi was to be completely the opposite of Yad Vashem's tragic story. If you sit in Yad Vashem long enough, you begin to see it there as well. It begins to slowly appear to you in the lives and faces, and resignation of the martyrs. Many of their last acts were acts of bravery, courage, commitment and love toward another, like this father and maybe even this child toward the father.
I don't know how, but I know what I want. I want to be as loving and caring and I want my church to be as loving and caring as these people were evil and completely lost about the purpose of their lives. The soldier holding the rifle is probably dead now. I know nothing of him except what this picture infers. But he represents how bad it can be. I want my church and my life to represent how good it can be. I want my life and my church to be the center of hope, courage, faith and love. I want it to liberate, empower, strengthen and build people into the Christ character that Paul prays for in Philippians. I say I don't know how. Actually I do. It's in Paul's prayer as I make it my own.
My prayer today is that your love may abound more and more until that day when Jesus Himself will put His arms around us and save us from the last evils that haunt us in this world, as Paul said, "to the glory and praise of God."
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