[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, February 1, 2014

[Paul]

Well folks, February 1 is here, like it or not.  When I think of February I think of love, the celebration of U.S. presidents and their accomplishments and Black History Month here in the U.S., among other things.  Today and for the next few days the subject of love will fill these posts.  Our contributor for today is Pastor Bob Preuss of Cross Lutheran Church in Maplewood MN, a suburb of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  The title of his submission is "God's Selfless Love" and is rendered as follows:

In Paul's letter to the Philippians he writes that he wants to "know the Lord, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings" ... This is also the blessing and inheritance we were given in our baptism.

To assume that our Lord wants us to suffer the pain that he suffered as He was tortured and crucified is to miss the point of both Paul's words and the baptismal blessing.  We know that not all suffering is God's will.  That is why we look to the Lord and pray for help and healing when the life or health of a child of God is broken or being taken from them.  In fact God encourages us to pray in the face of such suffering when He inspired the psalmist to write "Call on Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me."

The suffering that God does will for us is that which is most reflective of Jesus' own; that is His suffering for others.  This is the truth that makes clear that the biblical understanding of love is not what about I can convince or coerce or manipulate someone else to do for or give me.  Rather, the biblical understanding of love is selfless, not self-centered.  This sort of love involves self-sacrifice, and a willingness to suffer with and for another, because we belong to Jesus Christ.

Some of us know more about self-sacrifice than others because of the people we have been called and chosen to love and care for; and that love has cost us even as it was a reflection of Jesus' own costly love.  The spouse who cares for their partner when they are stricken with cancer, the parents of a child born with cerebral palsy who cannot walk, the son or daughter who cares for a parent with dementia, the examples are endless.  The cancer or palsy or dementia are not the suffering God wills for His children; but the willingness and sacrifices made by those who care for God's children is.

Some of us also know something about the fellowship of Jesus' suffering because we recognize that we are the ones for whom someone else has made personal sacrifices to love us, and in so doing they have shared the love of Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings for us.

Only in the Scriptures as they point to our Lord's own selfless love and sacrifice, are we given a true understanding of the love that includes the assurance of God's forgiveness and grace, not because we can love or when we do love as He does, but because we are His beloved children.  And only in the Scriptures are we blessed and called not only to receive such a great gift, but to reflect and share it as we "know the Lord, the power of His resurrection, and the power of His sufferings."

And there you have Pastor Preuss' article for today which I hope and pray was a blessing to you.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  I stated above that articles for the next few days will be on the subject of love.  However tomorrow will be the Bible poem, for which I'd like you to get your Bible thinking cap and see if you can guess the identity of the book and chapter.  Lord willing, tomorrow that will be presented in this space.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul