If you do it…

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. Many people were coming and going, so there was no time to eat. He said to the apostles, “Come by yourselves to a secluded place and rest for a while.” They departed in a boat by themselves for a deserted place. Many people saw them leaving and recognized them, so they ran ahead from all the cities and arrived before them. When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:30-34, CEB)

Maybe a little twist on if you build it, they will come.

If you preach it, they will come.

When we read Acts and the stories in the gospels about people finding the disciples and Jesus, it isn’t the disciples and Jesus trying to convert people. They are loving like God loves and God is the one doing the converting.

We are called to be and do love.

Do not worry about the rest.

God has got this.

Just love.

Loving People. Loving God.

Speak the word

While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple guard, and the Sadducees confronted them. They were incensed that the apostles were teaching the people and announcing that the resurrection of the dead was happening because of Jesus. They seized Peter and John and put them in prison until the next day. (It was already evening.) Many who heard the word became believers, and their number grew to about five thousand. (Acts 4:1-4, CEB)

Many were incensed because they were preaching the good news.

Do it anyway!

We are witnesses to the Love of God. If we don’t speak the rocks will cry out and imagine how they will react then!

Love like Jesus and tell the world!

Loving People. Loving God.

Turn back

“Brothers and sisters, I know you acted in ignorance. So did your rulers. But this is how God fulfilled what he foretold through all the prophets: that his Christ would suffer. Change your hearts and lives! Turn back to God so that your sins may be wiped away. Then the Lord will provide a season of relief from the distress of this age and he will send Jesus, whom he handpicked to be your Christ. Jesus must remain in heaven until the restoration of all things, about which God spoke long ago through his holy prophets. Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up from your own people a prophet like me. Listen to whatever he tells you. Whoever doesn’t listen to that prophet will be totally cut off from the people. All the prophets who spoke—from Samuel forward—announced these days. You are the heirs of the prophets and the covenant that God made with your ancestors when he told Abraham, Through your descendants, all the families on earth will be blessed. After God raised his servant, he sent him to you first—to bless you by enabling each of you to turn from your evil ways.” (Acts 3:17-26, CEB)

Everyone acted in ignorance.

We all need to turn back.

Refocus our lives on Jesus and follow where God is leading us.

All of us have fallen short, but God always loves us.

Love like God.

Loving People. Loving God.

Add on…

[They promptly reported all of the young man’s instructions to those who were with Peter. Afterward, through the work of his disciples, Jesus sent out, from the east to the west, the sacred and undying message of eternal salvation. Amen. ][[After Jesus rose up early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to the ones who had been with him, who were mourning and weeping. But even after they heard the news, they didn’t believe that Jesus was alive and that Mary had seen him. After that he appeared in a different form to two of them who were walking along in the countryside. When they returned, they reported it to the others, but they didn’t believe them. Finally he appeared to the eleven while they were eating. Jesus criticized their unbelief and stubbornness because they didn’t believe those who saw him after he was raised up. He said to them, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever doesn’t believe will be condemned. These signs will be associated with those who believe: they will throw out demons in my name. They will speak in new languages. They will pick up snakes with their hands. If they drink anything poisonous, it will not hurt them. They will place their hands on the sick, and they will get well.” (Mark 16:9-18, CEB)

The gospel of Mark is thought by the majority of scholars to end at verse 16:8. The woman left the tomb and said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.

But obviously, some scribe didn’t like that because now we have Mark 16:9-18…

Why are we so hung up on making sure we know that they really didn’t speak?

Why can’t we let the author of Mark use the literary understanding that the beginning of the good news doesn’t end with women not telling? It is gospel is only the beginning. We continue the story today.

So go and tell the good news.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

live in love

From the elder. To the chosen gentlewoman and her children, whom I truly love (and I am not the only one, but also all who know the truth), because of the truth that remains with us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, will be ours who live in truth and love. I was overjoyed to find some of your children living in the truth, just as we had been commanded by the Father. Now, dear friends, I am requesting that we love each other. It’s not as though I’m writing a new command to you, but it’s one we have had from the beginning. This is love: that we live according to his commands. This is the command that you heard from the beginning: live in love. (2 John 1:1-6, CEB)

The world would be a better place for you and for me if everyone would just live in love. If everything we did was about loving the other, and allowing all to know and understand they are loved, just think how great the world would be.

If love ruled, how great would life be?

Love like Jesus.

Live in Love.

Loving People. Loving God.

love…

This is how God’s children and the devil’s children are apparent: everyone who doesn’t practice righteousness is not from God, including the person who doesn’t love a brother or sister. This is the message that you heard from the beginning: love each other. Don’t behave like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he kill him? He killed him because his own works were evil, but the works of his brother were righteous. Don’t be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have transferred from death to life, because we love the brothers and sisters. The person who does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that murderers don’t have eternal life residing in them. This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (1 John 3:10-16, CEB)

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Love is laying down your life for someone else. Who is ready to do that?

Most of us will not even stand up for someone else and tell those hurting them to stop. Most of us will not vocalize our disdain for the powers that be that want to eradicate a group of people. But here we are told that love is laying down your life for someone else.

We need to be willing to face danger and physical harm to show love.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

witnesses

While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” They were terrified and afraid. They thought they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you startled? Why are doubts arising in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. It’s really me! Touch me and see, for a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones like you see I have.” As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Because they were wondering and questioning in the midst of their happiness, he said to them, “Do you have anything to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish. Taking it, he ate it in front of them. Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the Law from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. He said to them, “This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and a change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:36-48, CEB)

Easter week 3 this year is Luke. In this season of Easter we have had Mark, on Easter Sunday, John, and the text we always have on Easter 2, that doesn’t have the word doubt in it, and now week three from Luke. Which does actually have the doubt in it.

Why do doubts arise in your heart?

Why do people doubt followers of Jesus?

Or is it they doubt Jesus?

I work in campus ministry and the majority of the people I meet that have doubts about faith it is about the church and not about Jesus.

They hear about love and feel persecution.

They hear about acceptance and are made to change to belong.

They hear about forgiveness and get more charges brought against them.

They hear about freedom and are chained in bondage.

Why do we doubt?

Because the witnesses get in the way.

You have the greatest gift of all to be a witness to the love the world needs.

Will you be open to that and be a witness or will you continue in hate and block those who need God’s love from it?

Love like Jesus.

Be a witness to the love of a resurrection God that brings new life!

Loving People. Loving God.

greater…

An argument broke out among the disciples over which one of them should be regarded as the greatest. But Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles rule over their subjects, and those in authority over them are called ‘friends of the people.’ But that’s not the way it will be with you. Instead, the greatest among you must become like a person of lower status and the leader like a servant. So which one is greater, the one who is seated at the table or the one who serves at the table? Isn’t it the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. “You are the ones who have continued with me in my trials. And I confer royal power on you just as my Father granted royal power to me. Thus you will eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones overseeing the twelve tribes of Israel. (Luke 22:24-30, CEB)

Who is greater?

Jesus came not to be served but to serve. And isn’t Jesus the greatest?

So then, the one who serves is greater.

But we shouldn’t be concerned with who is greater. We should be concerned with doing what Jesus called and told us to do. Love. Love God and love neighbor.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

relationship

I write these things to you about those who are attempting to deceive you. As for you, the anointing that you received from him remains on you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you the truth. But since his anointing teaches you about all things (it’s true and not a lie), remain in relationship to him just as he taught you. And now, little children, remain in relationship to Jesus, so that when he appears we can have confidence and not be ashamed in front of him when he comes. (1 John 2:26-28, CEB)

do not be deceived by those who want to make your faith is a list of dos and don’ts and not about being in a relationship with a creator that loves you and everything else they created.

When faith becomes about living a certain way and following rules it is not about the relationship and has become something God never intended.

Be in a relationship with God and love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.

Figured out…

Little children, it is the last hour. Just as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really part of us. If they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. But by going out from us, they showed they all are not part of us. But you have an anointing from the holy one, and all of you know the truth. I don’t write to you because you don’t know the truth but because you know it. You know that no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? Isn’t it the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This person is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father, but the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, what you heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you will also remain in relationship to the Son and in the Father. This is the promise that he himself gave us: eternal life. (1 John 2:18-25, CEB)

So who is the antichrist?

I have seen a lot of people inserted into this name over the years and many I probably haven’t seen. The one thing I have come to know is true is that when someone says someone else is the antichrist they are usually wrong.

And this text says that many antichrists have appeared. Who is to say we all aren’t antichrists? We all falter and do things that will cause some one to think they can not be a part of the community. Not on purpose but it happens.

When we lead someone astray from knowing Jesus loves them, aren’t we an antichrist?

We should focus on showing love and being Jesus to the world, rather than on who the antichrist is and when the end will happen.

Love like Jesus.

Loving People. Loving God.