"Love" - Perspective for March 28, 2011

“Love” is perhaps over used and used incorrectly by proper English grammar. The grammatically correct rule is one loves people and likes things. But for all my life I have heard others use English incorrectly:

• I love my jacket
• I love to hike
• I love pizza
• I love doing crossword puzzles, etc.

As I was thinking of this word “Love” this morning, I began to think of an example of love that is very close to my heart. In 1975 I met a young lady who had gorgeous dark hair that flowed all the way down her back almost to her waistline. She had been a softball player and a cheerleader in high school and she was shaped in all the right places to catch a young 18 year old adolescent’s eyes. We met the very first day we stepped onto the college campus in Nyack, NY. Three weeks later I asked her out for our first date. I was so stinkin' scared that she would turn me down that I barely had the nerve to form the words with my cotton-dry mouth. What a rush when she replied, “I’d love to go see Gone with the Wind with you, Brent”.  WoW!

I was certainly infatuated with her that day, but I did not love her…yet. In fact, I don’t know what day my love for her started, nor hers for me. However, 35 1/2 years later I am helplessly in love with that girl!  She has changed a bit. Her hair is short now. Lady Clairol comes to visit with her every once in a while. She doesn’t play softball very well anymore…but my-oh- my, does she still cheer. And her favorite guy in the whole world to cheer is me! She whispers things to me, that are our secret! She knows when I am discouraged, tired, or frustrated, and she always seems to know what to say and do to brighten my day. She has served me so faithfully for over 3 decades of marriage.   She has never complained about being the primary cook in the family. She has never complained that she does way more loads of laundry than I do. She has complained over the years that I leave my dirty socks on the floor occasionally. So, I try to get it right all the time now.

Susan will always stand out to me as the best example of ‘love’ that I have ever consistently seen in my life. I would hate to think of life without her companionship and friendship. She loves me and I love her.

This marriage relationship is the one God uses to describe His love for you, the “Church”. He loves us unconditionally and gave himself for us! He calls us to also love Him. As a man is called by God to be faithful to his wife and a wife to her husband, so God calls us to express our love for Him by living a life of PURITY.

God would love to have you express you love to him right now. Would you take a minute to tell Him how much you love him and renew your commitment to walk in the purity of that love today?

This is my Perspective. What is yours as you read 1 John 3:7-10?  

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Have a great day!

Brent

Perspective for March 23, 2011

Samuel Zwemer, famous for his missionary work among the Muslims, gives a stirring witness to the joy of sacrifice. In 1897, he and his wife and two daughters sailed to the Persian Gulf to work among the Muslims of Bahrein. Their evangelism was largely fruitless. The temperatures soared regularly to 107 degrees “in the coolest part of the Verandah”. In July 1904, both his daughters, ages four and seven, died within eight days of each other. Nevertheless, 50 years later Zwemer looked back on this period and wrote, “The sheer joy of it all comes back. Gladly would I do it all over again.” (From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya. P277 Tucker)

As a former missionary of 10 years in West Africa, I read this brief biography of Samuel Zwemer. The reality of 107 degree air, open sewers, malarial fevers, and sleepless nights of tossing and turning covered with wet towels and ceiling fans turned to their highest speed in an effort to get cool enough to be comfortable are all part of my memories of missionary life. Nothing about that 107 degree air brings back pleasant thoughts to me as I relate to Zwemer.

The responsiveness of the Burkinabe to the gospel, however, was so positive. When we set up an open-air evangelism rally, people almost always prayed with us to accept Jesus as Savior. The method was simple; using a bed sheet stretched by two metal poles on the back of a pick-up and a 16 mm projector to show the Jesus film. The preacher was always long-winded and the story was told on the level a third grade student would understand.  But people…adults…young and old, came to Jesus!

Zwemer never knew that kind of harvest.

One of my three children was born in Africa….but I never buried one there! Zwemer knew the agony of that; I never did. Samuel Zwemer spent five decades working on foreign soil; I spent only one. Zwemer looked back and into the darkest moments of his service and stated that he would go back and do it all over again. Knowing what I know about daily life on the mission field in the tropics, I have the utmost respect for Mr. Zwemer!

I am challenged to renew my passion for Jesus and the spread of His Kingdom as I read of men like John Hyde, Samuel Zwemer, William Carey, Adoniran Judson, J. Hudson Taylor or women like Amy Carmichael and Lottie Moon.

Jesus said we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him…

Would you be willing to sit down and write out a prayer to God right now telling Him about the sacrifice you are planning to make as part of your “cross bearing” today? It should be easier said…than done! But in the end it should be done!

This is my perspective, what’s yours?

Brent