Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Good Intentions (2 Sam. 7:1-7)
God’s Intentions (2 Sam. 7:11b-16)
Humble Submission (2 Sam. 7:18-21)

Background Passage:
2 Samuel 7:1-29

Focal Passages:
2 Samuel 7:1-7,11b-16,18-21

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson is about choosing to align our lives with God’s purposes.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
This lesson will help you keep your life focused on God’s purposes, not on selfish interests.

Background Passage: Exodus 13:17–15:21
Lesson Passages:  Exodus 13:17-18; 14:9-18,31

LESSON PASSAGES OUTLINE
1. Following Where God Directs (Ex. 13:17-18)
2. Standing Firm When Fears Arise (Ex. 14:9-14)
3. Obeying What God Commands (Ex. 14:15-18)
4. Attesting What God Accomplishes (Ex. 14:31)

BIBLICAL TRUTH
God wants His people to persevere in their faith and encourages them about how they can do so.

LIFE GOAL
To help adults persevere in their faith in God

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
When Wills Clash (Jonah 1:1-3,17)
Concerning Grace and Second Chances (Jonah 3:1-5,10)
What God Cares About Most (Jonah 4:5-11)

Background Passage:
Jonah 1–4

Focal Passages:
Jonah 1:1-3,17; 3:1-5,10; 4:5-11

What This Lesson Is About:
This lesson is about those who claim they want to know God’s will but resist carrying out clear, divine instructions when they learn God’s will differs from their desires.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
You can admit that any believer may be tempted to resist carrying out God’s clear instructions if those instructions differ from his or her own desires. You can appreciate that God is gracious toward those who initially resist Him, and can discover that following God’s will always relates to helping fulfill His redemptive purpose.

Deuteronomy 4:1-14

4:1. “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.
4:2. “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.
–NKJ

Let’s look at some keywords in this passage. Listen, observe, live, possess, given, add, take, keep, and command. If you notice, these are all verbs. All but two are things that we humans are to do. The others are A promise from God and his command that this is true, and the right things he wants for us.

God is speaking to the nation of Israel as they are about to enter the promised land. They have been wandering in their sins in the desert, and are on the threshold of something good. It is a message that we can still experience in our own parallel lives. We get into a rut of daily drudgery, but that isn’t what God wants for us. At some point he gets our attention. Are you out there, blaming God, or going through thoughts of doubt. Good, that means that thoughts of God are going through your mind. He has blessings and promises he wants to give.

Read More…

Genesis 12:1-3

12:1. Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.
12:2. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.
12:3. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
–NKJ

God is good. He has a plan. Maybe Abram didn’t fully know what it was to be, but he knew that God was about to use him, and bless him in a big way. I like the way it appears in the original Hebrew grammar. Using double words to show the emphasis on the actions that Abram is to do, and the actions that God will do.

GEN 12:1 And said, Yahweh to Abram, “to walk to walk from your land, and from your birthplace,
and from house of your father, unto the land which I show you.
GEN 12:2 And I’ll make you into a nation great, and I’ll bless you,
and I’ll enlarge you, your name, and you’ll be a prosperity.
GEN 12:3 And I’ll bless you, and from blessing you, and from you acutely curse,
and please to bless them, in you, all, families, of the earth.

Now you can appreciate your nifty, easy to read, English translation a little better.

Because of the context that this incident takes place, and the grammar style, the English version comes out slightly different. Here’s why. Abram was told to leave, or walk and walk, away from his country and family. Literally the word can mean birthplace, but the land where Abram was living was not the place where he was born. Several years earlier, he and his entire family transplanted themselves there. So the correct sense this word means is to leave the country that he was living, and to leave the family who he was born among. Abram was being commanded to strike out on his own. Abram was to leave his father’s household because God wanted his entire blessing to be channeled through Abram alone.

For that total dedication, God would do a few things for Abram. He would be made into a great nation. The word nation is actually a borrowed word. It was normally used to indicate a foreign nation, because the Hebrew people at the time were so small, it was inconceivable that they might have numbers so large as some of the neighboring, foreign nations. Abram was to become a great name, and be blessed. The words for great and enlarge come from similar root words. Also the words for bless and prosperity come from similar root words. But wait, there’s more words about blessing.

Although the actual phrase reads, “And I’ll bless you, and from blessing you, and from you acutely curse,” the thing that God is really saying here is that he is bestowing a tremendous blessing on Abram, one that will spill out from him and bless all those around him. Then if anybody should hold a grudge and deserve a curse poured out on their head, it is given to Abram to have authority to do so. The follow up phrase, “and please to bless them,” shows that it is actually Gods pleasure and desire to bless all the families of the earth.

When we follow the will of God, we also are granted blessings, even to the point of being a blessing to those around us. The source of those blessings come from God.

Have you ever been in a situation where your world seemed to be falling apart, yet your life reflected joy? So much so that other people noticed and had to stop and ask, “How do you do it? With all that is happening to you, you don’t seem to let it ruffle you. I’d be falling to pieces if it were me?” Maybe you have never been the joyful person in that scene. Maybe it’s been you who have asked that question to someone else. The answer is simple. That joyful person isn’t doing it. They aren’t strong. There is no joy except what comes from God. You follow and do his will, and he carries you. You focus on him and he outshines the troubles of the world. It’s his joy pouring into you, and overflowing out of you to others.

There’s one more concept here. I’ll be as brief as possible. In English versions it seems to state that God will bless any others who bless Abram, and curse any who would curse him. The original language seems to be saying that God is a one way channel of blessing. A source from where only blessings can come. The mention of cursing others seems to make Abram the source of the curse that might come. It is almost as if God is saying, “I’m going to bless and bless, and there will be so much overflow that others will be blessed. But if in all this blessing, if somebody crosses your path who you feel deserves a sharply bitter curse, go ahead and I’ll back you up.” The source of curses towards other humans comes from other humans.

Using Abram’s example, he found himself in various conflicts. After traveling to his promised lands he continued to Egypt where his wife was taken from him. He never broke down and claimed a curse upon the land or people. He had conflict with his nephew Lot and between their shepherds. Abram chose to resolve the conflict in a peaceable way and not to place curses. Take time to look for other events in Abram’s life and notice the lack of curses when he might easily have done so. God gives us that same set of blessings, curses, and the choice to make our own decisions.

Just because a power is within our ability, doesn’t mean we have to act that way. Show grace and choose to not curse others. God’s preference is to be a blessing to all the wworld, keep his preference and keep extending grace and blessing to others.

Focal Passage Outline and Scripture Passages:
Do You Obey Christ? (1 John 2:3-6)
Do You Love Others? (1 John 2:7-11)
Do You Avoid Worldly Influences? (1 John 2:15-17)

Background Passage:
1 John 2:3-17

Focal Passages:
1 John 2:3-11,15-17

What This Lesson Is About:
Keeping Christ’s commandments, loving one another, and avoiding worldly influences are actions by which Christians can be certain they know God.

How This Lesson Can Impact Your Life:
You will be directed to examine your life for evidences of knowing God, and you will be challenged to become truer to the Christian actions of living obediently, loving others, and avoiding worldly influences.

Joshua 2:21
Then she said, “According to your words, so be it.” And she sent them away, and they departed. And she bound the scarlet cord in the window.
–NKJ

What a simple message. The men here were sent to scout things out before the city of Jericho was to be taken over and destroyed. Rahab had helped the men. They had given her a sign, just hang a red cord from the house, and the invaders wouldn’t molest anyone in her house.

Her responce: “According to your words, so be it.”

Sometimes God speaks to us so clearly that we have no doubts about what action we should take. Just as plainly as these two men who came and told her to just hang out a red chord, our correct responce is to just do it.

She wasn’t asked to help fight. She wasn’t being asked to flee the city. She was just being told to stay right where she was and hold out this sign. Her hard work was already done before the battle started. She helped the men, even at risk to herself.

While praying for direction from God, just stop and listen. He might just be giving you some similar task. Just stay put and hold out your sign that marks you for protection. It might just be that you already did a ministry for his cause.

Praise God for the difficult things we are asked to do, but praise him for the easy things we do, and recieve his protection.

Jeremiah 1:1–17

Summary:

The time
And the calling of Jeremiah
His prophetical visions of an almond rod and a seething pot
His heavy message against Judah
God encourages him with his promise of assistance

 1:1.  The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin,
 1:2.  to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.
 1:3.  It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.

 1:4.  Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
 1:5.  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
 1:6.  Then said I: “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.”
 1:7.  But the Lord said to me: “Do not say, `I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
 1:8.  Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.
 1:9.  Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
 1:10.  See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.”

 1:11.  Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”
 1:12.  Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.”
 1:13.  And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, and it is facing away from the north.”
 1:14.  Then the Lord said to me: “Out of the north calamity shall break forth on all the inhabitants of the land.

 1:15.  For behold, I am calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says the Lord; “they shall come and each one set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.
 1:16.  I will utter My judgments against them concerning all their wickedness, because they have forsaken Me, burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.

 1:17.  Therefore prepare yourself and arise, and speak to them all that I command you. Do not be dismayed before their faces, lest I dismay you before them.

Comments:

So what does this passage have to do with “many kings”, as mentioned in the lesson title? We’ll get to that. First a little about this reading.

Jeremiah was from a priestly family. Born in the land of Benjamin. He recieved God’s call, but was reluctant because of his young age. It was during the days of the last kings over Israel. A time when the condition of Israel was so bad, it was about to be scattered and taken into captivity.

God had a purpose for Jeremiah since before he was born. God promised he would be there to deliver Jeremiah, no matter how bad it might go for him. God put his words in Jeremiah’s mouth to speak.

God ordained Jeremiah to have power over the nation, to pluck up or to plant. Jeremiah was given visions, and God made it known what they meant. People from all around the country would be drawn to Jerusalem to listen to God’s words through Jeremiah. Words of judgement on all the evil deeds that had been going on.

Did the people heed his warning? No, but Jeremiah wasn’t there to save the people. He himselfwas to be protected by God, but his duty was to deliver God’s message of judgement.

For many years, and through many kings, the leadership of the people had reached such decline, and the morality of the people had taken a turn in the direction away from God. It was time to take drastic measures. Get rid of the dead weight. Strip away the excess and get down to those people who might remain with that small spark of desire for serving him.

Too many kings, for too long had been failures. God, in his usual style, wants people to know that he is present and at work. He wants people to be alerted to what his intentions are. Before God performs a major work, he sends a messenger. He warned Noah of the coming flood. He warned Lot about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He sent Moses to warn the Pharoah before taking the Israelites out.

Now he was sending Jeremiah to warn people of what was to come. Those who chose to take it to heart would be prepared. Those who ignored the judgements of their evil behavior were about to be killed, scattered, scoffed at, taken into captivity, and generally lose their identity as a nation.

It is possible to be physically prosperous outside the desire of God. People can have material wealth and be totally ungodly. There is a moral deadness. That kind of prosperity won’t last. God has his ways to see that it doesn’t. He wants us to prosper, but he also wants us to have a wake up call and learn to love him.

If the things of this world are leading you down the path away from God, listen to his message of warning. Choose for yourself. It’s a message of judgement, sorry, but at the same time the warnings come because God cares, and wants us to choose correctly. He wants to be part of your solution to a better life that involves a relationship with him.

1 Samuel 15:17–23

Summary:
Samuel denounces unto Saul God’s rejection of him for his disobedience

 15:17.  So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?
 15:18.  “Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, `Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’
 15:19.  “Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”
 15:20.  And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
 15:21.  “But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
 15:22.  Then Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.
 15:23.  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

Comments:

Saul was a tall man. He is said to have stood head and shoulders above the rest. Yet when he was first appointed king, he considered himself small. He was afraid and hid himself. From that humble beginning, he was now king. He had been taking charge, unified the kingdom, won battles, and was beginning to establish Israel’s identity as a nation.

God had allowed Saul to be king. God had set him out with specific instructions. Saul was to utterly destroy the enemies. That means no survivors. He was to leave the property alone. No plundering.

Saul denied any wrongdoing. He tried to justify his actions. He did wipe out the enemy, but he showed mercy on their king. Not what he was commanded to do.

He says it was “the people” who took the spoils, and that they used the bounty to offer sacrifices. Noble, but not what God had commanded. God didn’t ask for a sacrifice, he asked that the spoils of war just not be touched. Leave it all alone.

Well, that makes no sense. kill all the people and just leave all those goodies just laying around? Surely God will need some help in cleaning up the aftermath. It seems like such a waste… People will think we are some kind of wierd, strange people or something.

Saul tried to justify his decisions about how he dealt with the plundered goods. He claims to have sacrificed them. Good intention, but not what God had commanded. They were to utterly destroy everything. It may seem like a minor difference to us, but the problem was that the word of God was not fully carried out.

Samuel called Saul’s stubbornness and rebellion the same as idolatry and witchcraft. Pretty hefty sins against God. Ultimately, the liberties Saul has taken would be the thing that removes him from God’s favor, and removes him from being king.

Everybody fails God at sometime or other. Even the next king, who was chosen by God, had times where he fell short. The lesson to be learned is how you deal with that shortcoming. Saul went into denial mode. David faced his sin and always came back to God. God’s promises are always there. His mercies are new each day. Earthly rulers and society may fail and lead us astray, but God never will.

Judges 2:10–19

Summary:

The wickedness of the new generation after Joshua
God’s anger and pity towards them

 2:10.  When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.
 2:11.  Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals;
 2:12.  and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the Lord to anger.
 2:13.  They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.

 2:14.  And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. So He delivered them into the hands of plunderers who despoiled them; and He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.
 2:15.  Wherever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord had sworn to them. And they were greatly distressed.
 2:16.  Then the Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.
 2:17.  Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked, in obeying the commandments of the Lord; they did not do so.
 2:18.  And when the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed them and harassed them.
 2:19.  And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they reverted and behaved more corruptly than their fathers, by following other gods, to serve them and bow down to them. They did not cease from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

Comments:

The generation of Joshua had been diing off. The upcoming generation hadn’t experienced God on the same personal level. Their morality was definitely of a lower standard. They worshiped the idols of the world and not God. God began to get angry.

Remember God’s promise? He wants his people to draw close to him, to know him and obey him. To live a law abiding, moral life is to be granted prosperity and abundance. Whether the generations of people during the time of the Judges never had the words of God taught to them, at home, or when they were in, or walking on the road, or had them written on the house, or door posts, and so on. Or maybe they did, but chose to ignore those words.

The people had broken their promise. Their quality of lifestyle slipped, and God took away their prosperity. He lifted the protection that he had granted to them and let other nations oppress the people. God’s promises is a garantee, but it is based on a two way commitment. Follow his ways, live right by him and with our fellow human beings, and we have full benefit of his promises. Choose to live against those ways that have been clearly layed down, and lose those Godly promises.

Still, when God moves, and raises up a leader, his will and purpose gets done. When God is part of life, things go well. Though these judges that were used by God at this time had success while they were in charge, there was still no clear leadership. People still had desire to follow the convenient little gods of this world. They stubbornly clung to the things that they knew and could see. Much the same as society today doesn’t want to believe in things that can’t be scientifically proven. People can be forced to go through the motions of religion, but if the heart isn’t in it, it is in vain.

Though this kind of behavior makes God mad, he still extends his offer of protection. Not because we deserve it, but to preserve even a spark of desire for him, until a time where people will once again flock to him and have a desire for honoring him.

This passage ends on a downward note. God’s own people had left him behind and were stubbornly pursuing life outside his laws. It might seem right, like the logical choice, but it isn’t in line with the laws, commands and rules that were given straight from the hand of God.

Deuteronomy 6:1-9; 11:13–21

Summary:
The end of the law is obedience
An exhortation thereto
by promise of God’s great blessings
and by threatenings
A careful study is required in God’s words

 6:1.  “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess,
 6:2.  “that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.
 6:3.  “Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you `a land flowing with milk and honey.’
 6:4.  “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!
 6:5.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
 6:6.  “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart;
 6:7.  “you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
 6:8.  “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
 6:9.  “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

 11:13.  `And it shall be that if you diligently obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,
 11:14.  `then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil.
 11:15.  `And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’
 11:16.  “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them,
 11:17.  “lest the Lord’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord is giving you.
 11:18.  “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
 11:19.  “You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
 11:20.  “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
 11:21.  “that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.

Comments:

God announces, through his prophet Moses, a list of rules to live by. Laws that are intended for good, to make life pleasant. Commands that aren’t burdens or restrictions, but liberating.

God wants us to worship him, and give him respect and reverence. We are told to fear him, but the responce he is looking for is to return love to him. He is our one and only God, and we should love him with all our heart, soul, and strength. With all our heart, or emotions. With all our soul, or mental ability, or thoughts. With all our strength, or vitality, or physical activity.

Do what ever you like, but be aware and ask yourself, “is the things I am doing, the thoughts that I have ones that honor God?” Make an effort to learn new behavior that does honor him. Our emotions are a reflection of how we feel. Use your positive energy to honor him, and when things are not so good, take those emotions to him and let him guide you through.

Keep God in the front of your life. There is power in his words. Talk about his word in your home, and everywhere.

God promises prosperity and abundance if we keep his commands and love him. Even God’s chosen people were warned that they could lose his favor, and have their prosperity and land taken away if they stopped following his laws. Plants need a time of rain to start growing, they also need sunlight and heat, finally more rain to help finishthe maturing. Just as with crops, God sends us spiritual rain when we need it to help us grow and mature. 

Again, keep the words of God in the foreground. Teach them to our children at home and when we are out doing activities. God promises to bless us and make us to prosper.

Background passage: Isaiah 5:1-14

Biblical Insight

How can there be expectations for something that is a free gift?

The offer of salvation is a free gift. It is a gift of grace offered to anyone who will accept the gift of salvation. However, receiving a gift has some
assumptions. The assumption is that we will use the gift in the way it was intended. If you gave a painting as a gift and they never displayed the painting,
you would wonder why. You gave it with the expectation that they would display it. We confuse the nature of salvation with the nature of the Christian
life.

Key Scripture:
John 15:10. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

Key Idea:
Perfect conformity to the Vine is one of the most precious of the lessons of the branch. It was by obedience Christ as Vine honored the Father as Husbandman; it is by obedience the believer as branch honors Christ as Vine. Obey and abide–That was the law of Christ’s life as much as it is to be that of ours. He was made like us in all things, that we might be like Him in all things. He opened up a path in which we may walk even as He walked. He took our human nature to teach us how to wear it, and show us how obedience, as it is the first duty of the creature, is the only way to abide in the favor of God and enter into His glory.
– Murray

Pray for revelation:
Saviour, help me, that obedience may indeed be the link between Thee and me.
– Murray

Key words:

Obey, Abide, Just As.

There are those words again, we are to obey his commandments. We are to abide. But if you really desire to know God and what he wants, you will find that those are the same things that you should want for yourself. His ways and his commands are burdens that are light and easy to carry out. Even so, don’t think that obeying God is too much to do. Don’t think that he is out of touch and doesn’t know what life as a human is like. That is part of the purpose why Jesus became human, grew up like each of us, lived like each of us, but died in such a way that we all can inherit a place in God’s kingdom.

His life, as recorded in the books of the Bible demonstrate how he lived. His life is the model that we can and should use for our lives. Jesus lived his life on earth in conditions that are generally less than comfortable. God doesn’t call us to a life in poverty, but that of prosperity. Our richest living conditions here on earth are poor when compared to what awaits in God’s kingdom. The model of Jesus life is the spiritual things he did, his attitude, his relationships to the people around him as wel as to God.

The call is to live just exactly as Jesus did. Exactly as Jesus talked to and did what he God do, he did. To him, God wasn’t some supernatural being, he was Father. God was relevant and there was a distinct relationship there. Jesus had problems with the engrained religious types. He still loved them, but just didn’t like the things of religion that should be meant to worship God, being used to build walls between men and God. Jesus loved those who were on the outside of proper culture. Basically he loved people who are unlovely.

That brings me to the real hard thing about love. It is so easy to receive and be smothered in it. Sharing love has it’s challenges. Loving those who are friends, family, or otherwise loveable is easy, but can still lead to a broken heart. Ask a parent. If you are a parent and wonder when the heartbreaks will stop, ask a grandparent, or one with adult children.

Love the unloveable. Forget walking up and giving a hug and wet sloppy kiss to that homeless guy. Well, unless that’s just your personality. Still don’t let appearances fool you. Under that surface appearance of ragged cothes, or tattoos and body piercings, there is a real person with real life issues. Get past the walls that people set up with attitude or rough behavior. Show kindness, even in small ways. People can see through surface smiles and mindless politeness. Make the effort to be sincere.

Loving the unlovely is a messy process, but a worthy one. Exactly as Jesus did it, we need to obey and follow the commands that direct us in that way.