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God is Love
In a way, this post follows on from the previous one, in which Jesus demonstrates His love for Peter, and shows that there are no depths to which we can sink without God still loving us.
God is love...
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 1 John 4:16-17 NIV
One thing I am learning about and experiencing on a new level, through what has been going on in my life lately, is God's love. For reasons I am not going to explore in public, I have, on one level or another, often struggled to accept or understand that I am loved. In some ways it's been a bit of an alien concept - though less and less so as the years go by.
That simple three word sentence, "God is love", is anything but simple, particularly once it's been through my (peculiar/particular?) 'mental filters'. The fact of God's love is something which I have both known about and experienced on several levels in my Christian life, but there have always been parts of me that haven't really 'got it'.
Simon Peter
This is a continuation of my previous post, with a few random thoughts about the passage I quoted:
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don't be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' ” Mark 16:1-7 NIV
It's very clear from the early part of the passage, that these three women (presumably along with the rest of the disciples) had absolutely no idea what was to follow - they were expecting to find Jesus’ hastily-buried body in the tomb; they clearly hadn't understood Jesus' earlier teaching:
Sunrise
This morning’s sunrise was very beautiful:
A beautiful sunrise always makes me think of the first Easter…
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ” Mark 16: 1-7
My Rocky Road
Over the past few years, I have been on a journey. It has been a hard, rocky, road to travel, believe me. I was going to tell you all about it, but I don’t think that would be helpful, either for you or for me; not to mention that it would take far too many words to write, and far too long to read. Suffice it to say that losing my father this time last year was not the hardest thing I have had to deal with recently. It would feel as though I was beginning to get on with life again, and then THUD, something would come and knock me flat. I would pick myself up and carry on, only to be knocked flat again. Rinse and repeat, seemingly ad infinitum. It gets tiresome after a bit - almost not worth the bother of getting up again. ‘Bumping along the bottom’ was how I described it to one friend.
The tough time came to a head about a month ago. At that point, I really, really, knew that something was wrong.
Far too wrong for me to deal with it on my own.
And so I sent out a message to my close friends and prayer supporters. Here is a little of what I wrote:
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