What is the opposite of love?

It seems there is a lot in this world that pulls us away from love. But what is the opposite of love?
As one of my friends said to me recently the easy answer for this question is hate, but that is not truly the opposite of Love. He said the opposite of love is indifference. I believe he is right.
As the video below from Desperate Housewives shows, hate is not the opposite of love, because love like hate takes work, it takes commitment, it takes involvement. Indifference is a slide away from any commitment to the other. If I am indifferent towards you I do not care if you are well, or if you are hurting. I could not care less if you are in my life at all… Indifference is the place we can not be.
Some would say that fear is the opposite of love. And love can lead us to fear what might happen to those we love, but that is not the opposite of love. Fear is a byproduct of love, but a 1 John says, perfect love dispels fear. God has no fear in what will happen to us, as he already knows and loves us inspoute of how we will hate him and turn our backs on him. God is never indifferent to us. He always had and always will love us, but that does not mean there is not hardships or pruning. God loves us, but loves us enough to not leave us the way we are. He is always molding us into the person he calls us to be, the person his unfailing love is bringing us to be.
Live in the love that we have, because he first loved us, and share that love with others. Being the person to speak the words in truth to the person who is sinning and acting like nothing is happening. To the person who seems blind to the way they are headed. Love is kind and patient, but it is also something that can not let others destroy themselves. Love can be tough, as intervention, and helping others become who they can be. Love.

Who keeps you intentionally focused on God?

Is it not interesting that we are drawn to a community if believers by a need to find a higher power, by the need to find God. We are drawn into the community because of our desire to seek out God and find how he can have significance in our lives. We are usually drawn to the scriptures to study and prayer, to a life that exemplifies the life of Christ. We search with all of our being to be like the one we are seeking after…

But then we join the community and the fire seems to go out of our souls…
We start to read our Bible less and less…
We stop praying all the time…
We lose the connection we fought so hard to get with the God who never stops fighting for us…

What is it that we do to keep our selves intentionally grounded in the Word and in God?
Go to church on Sunday? Take communion weekly? Listen to the Bible being read to us, and only the portions picked by those who devised the Revised Common Lectionary? Is this really keeping us intentionally grounded in God or a ploy used by the Devil to make us think we are being disciples, when we are really no where close to sitting at the feet of Jesus?

We all need a way to be intentional about sitting at Jesus’ feet and learning from our Lord and Savior. We all need a way to keep us grounded in the Word of God. We all need to be reading our Bible daily, not weekly or weakly as the case may be, or just listening to someone read the passages for the week while we gather with the community to do our weekly job of being a christian. Jesus did not come to make us christians, He came to help us see the way to live, to redeem us to the relationship God created us for. He does not want us to live one way Sunday morning and another all week long. He is calling us to a deeper relationship, a discipleship.

We have to be intentional about changing our lives to match what Jesus calls us to be. We have to intentionally enter relationships with others around us that we can trust to keep us grounded in the Word and in God. We need a group of people, that will be there to lift us up in prayer, to read the scriptures with, to hear our confessions and give us absolution, to confess to us to get absolution, to support one another in our daily lives and walk.

Do you have this group? Do you have 2 people who are always there that you can open your soul to? Do you have 2 people that can look at the blackness in your being and still say that God forgives you and loves you and so do I and I will walk with you and journey as we strive to sit at Jesus’ feet and be the disciples that will change the world? Are there 2 people you can call on and meet with weekly, to read and discuss the scripture?

If not I challenge you to find these people. Start a weekly meeting, and read the scripture, pray togehter and open your souls up to each other. Create the relationship that will bind you together and lead you to be the disciples that God has called you to be. This group will guide you into a deeper relationship with your creator that will enliven your life.

I am taking up this callenge and I challenge you to do the same. Relationships take work, and it takes more than 1 day a week. And sometimes you need support. Live in the relationship that Christ has called us to, and do not fear, but know that love will abound.

Prayer from Merton

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

What is life?

The Message version of Colossians 3:3 says: “Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God.” This is where our life is. This is our life. That fact that God is our life through Christ. He has hidden the word He wants to speak through us to the world around us deep with in us and hidden it even from our selves. How is it that we might grasp hold of this word and unite it with the fire of our soul to feed ourselves and the world around us. What is the life we pretend to have? What is the word that God is trying to speak to you and through you to ignite you and the world around you?

Your real life, is Christ in and through you. Live that life to the fullest so that every one comes to see the fire they might have.

Shocking Poem

I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money! twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Herb, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake.
‘And why’s everyone so quiet,
So somber – give me a clue.’
‘Hush, child,’ He said, ‘they’re all in shock.
No one thought they’d be seeing you.’

JUDGE NOT.

Remember…Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian
any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

Every saint has a PAST….
Every sinner has a FUTURE!