Posted on by Renee Meyer

Bankrupt Without Love {14 Days of Love}

How would you define love?

Is love a feeling? A choice? Is love weak or strong? Can we live without love?

Bankrupt Without Love: Day 1 from "14 Days of Love: A Devotional Journey in 1 Corinthians 13" (click through for your free PDF!)

 

Our culture (even within the church) idealizes and idolizes romantic love. The love Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians is agape, the love of God (“for God so loved the world…”) and our response of love to God and one another (“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another…”).

My expository dictionary’s entry on Agape says: “Love seeks the welfare of all, Romans 15:2 , and works no ill to any, 13:8-10; love seeks opportunity to do good to ‘all men, and especially toward them that are of the household of the faith,’ Galatians 6:10.” (Hogg & Vine)

In your life and history, which have you valued more, romantic love or this agape love? Why?

 

 

Think about the different activities that take up your time throughout any given week. Your job, your classes if you’re a student, errands you run, tasks you accomplish, relationships in which you invest.

What does it look like when you’re doing those things

With love?

 

Without love?

 

 

And maybe the most important question I could ask:

Do you believe you are worthy of being loved? Really loved, unconditionally, success or failure, for who you really are? Why or why not?

 

Taking a break today from the NO FEAR series to post day 1 from “14 Days of Love: A Devotional Journey through 1 Corinthians 13.” Get your free copy when you sign up for the Reemail, my weekly update newsletter.

Spend a couple of weeks thinking about God's love, and asking how you can RECEIVE God's love and OFFER love to others.

Posted on by Renee Meyer

The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and Learn REST

“Come to Me, (JESUS SAYS) all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11)

I have always understood this invitation “come to Me and I will give you rest” by itself, as if Jesus is saying “Come to me, TAKE A NAP. I’ll do everything else.” And Jesus has done it ALL. All our spiritual needs are met in Him. The search is over. When we find Jesus, we’ve found God. And there’s nothing wrong with a good nap.

But a spiritual nap is not what Jesus is promising here. Because to find the promised REST, we have to “take His yoke upon us and learn from Him”. Read more

Posted on by Renee Meyer

The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and Learn to be a Daughter or Son

“Come to Me, (JESUS SAYS) all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

We step into Matthew’s story as Jesus is addressing the crowds. Earlier in Matthew 11, Jesus received messengers from His cousin John the Baptist, in prison and wondering if Jesus is indeed the Messiah (spoiler alert: He is).

Then Jesus denounces the cities where He performed miracles because they saw Him and did not recognize Him.

Those near Jesus, who saw Him perform miraculous healing did not all believe and respond to Him.

So Jesus breaks into prayer:

“I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.  Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.  All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

The wise and intelligent (religious leaders) couldn’t receive the things of God in the package of Jesus. Here in Matthew, Jesus is saying, “If you can’t see who Father is in Me, then you can’t see the Father.”

When Jesus talks about knowing His Father, He’s not talking about book learning, a life of studying about the Father.

He learned what His Father was like the way every child understands her parents: not by studying books , but by living His life with Him. Jesus learned what His Father was like by listening for his voice, and learning from him.

A son learns to be like his father by living in His father’s house, by growing up with him.

So as the Son, the One who best knows the Father’s heart, Jesus makes this invitation:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Jesus is inviting us to come and learn. And the first thing we learn from Jesus is SONSHIP. This is the yoke of Jesus, the yoke of Sonship, of a dearly beloved child.

If I’m not functioning as one dearly beloved of the Father, then I’m not functioning out of the yoke of Jesus.

If our view of the Father doesn’t match up with the love demonstrated by Jesus, who said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father”? Then we’re not functioning out of the yoke of Jesus.

I learned and am still learning to lay down the old yoke, my old ways of being OK in the world. And I am learning (slowly, day by day) to come to Jesus and let Him teach me the way of sonship, the way of the Beloved of the Father. I am learning to be a daughter. The way of the Beloved.

This is the way of rest. And it is good.

Come to Me and Learn to be a daughter quote (1)

Over the next few weeks, I’m sharing my own lessons and thoughts from a Bible study I wrote with my friend Stacey and did with a group of (amazing) women last Fall. This 8 week study, The Call of Jesus, is available for free here or by clicking the “Free Bible Studies and Resources” link in my blog header. If you’re looking for a Bible study to do yourself or with friends this Fall, check it out!

Posted on by Renee Meyer

The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and LEARN a New Way

Growing up my value system was unknowingly ruled by 3 main things, 3 ways I managed life in order to know that I was OK.

Reputation. I was a hard worker, not for the sake of achievement or because I valued excellence really, but because I valued being thought well of. I was driven by reputation.

Relationship.  I felt good about myself because of who my friends were. And I was a good and caring friend – sometimes at the expense of my own needs, and in spite of my better judgment. I was a good and caring friend so that people would like me. Because I needed them to be my friend, I needed them to like me, I needed to be needed.

Responsibility. As the oldest child in a split and blended family, I felt responsible for everyone. I was aware that the younger ones were watching, that I was expected to be a good influence. I was always aware of my responsibility. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I see: I thought I could overcome the hurt and pain and unpredictability in our family for myself, my siblings, even my parents, by the power of my own responsibility and reliability. W

This was my value system, my way of managing life and being OK: Reputation, Relationship and Responsibility (and I was much better at being responsible for others than I was for myself.) That is how I was OK in the world.

Then, halfway through college, I met Jesus. I fell head over heels in love with Him. He filled up empty spaces I didn’t even know I had.

For years, this is how I shared my story: Before Jesus, I found safety, security, LIFE in relationships & reputation. But then I met Jesus and learned to find safety, security, life in Him.

I had been a Christian and telling this story for over 10 years before I realized it was a lie. Read more

Posted on by Renee Meyer

What does it mean to be a Christian? {Easter Thoughts}

Am I a Christian because I go to church on Sunday (and many of the other days)? Am I a Christian because of what I think about Jesus? Because I celebrate Christmas and Easter? Because I was raised to be a Christian? (I wasn’t, actually.)

I am a Christian because I believe Jesus is the Son of God, He is MY God. I have answered the great call to Follow Jesus. But as we slide down the last days of Lent into Easter weekend, I thinking about how easy it is for Christians to live as functional non-believers – myself included. We say we follow Jesus, but our lives bear no mark of Him. What better time than Easter weekend to contemplate what it really means to be a Christian, to follow Jesus.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.

Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded…

So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.

Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. (John 13:1-17)

Jesus loved by lowering. John sees the love of Christ in the kneeling, serving Jesus. Jesus stripped, laying aside the garments of leader and teacher and taking the costume of a servant. Jesus washed even the feet of His betrayer, demonstrating love and service even for the hands that would slay Him. Read more

Posted on by Renee Meyer

The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and find REST

“Come to Me, (JESUS SAYS) all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11)

I have always understood this invitation “come to Me and I will give you rest” by itself, as if Jesus is saying “Come to me, TAKE A NAP. I’ll do everything else.” And Jesus has done it ALL. All our spiritual needs are met in Him. The search is over. When we find Jesus, we’ve found God. And there’s nothing wrong with a good nap.

But a spiritual nap is not what Jesus is promising here. Because to find the promised REST, we have to “take His yoke upon us and learn from Him”. Read more

Posted on by Renee Meyer · 2 Comments

The Call of Jesus: Come to Me and learn Sonship

Growing up, my value system was unknowingly ruled by 3 main things, 3 ways I managed life in order to know that I was OK.

Achievement. I was a hard worker, not for the sake of hard work or because I valued excellence really, but because I valued being thought well of. I was driven by reputation.

Relationship.  I felt good about myself because of who my friends were. And I was a good and caring friend – sometimes at the expense of my own needs, and in spite of my better judgment. I was a good and caring friend so that people would like me. Because I needed them to be my friend, I needed them to like me.

Responsibility. As the oldest child in a broken home, I felt responsible for others, aware that the younger ones were watching, that I was expected to be a good influence. I was always aware of my responsibility. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I see that I thought I could overcome the hurt and pain and unpredictability in our family for myself and my siblings, by the power of my own responsibility and reliability. When I went off to college and left this role, predictably I went a little wild.

This was my value system, my way of managing life and being OK: Reputation, Relationship and Responsibility (and I was much better at being responsible for others than I was for myself.) That is how I was OK in the world.

Then, halfway through college, I met Jesus. I fell head over heels in love with Him, He filled up empty spaces I didn’t even know I had.

For years, this is how I shared my story: Before Jesus, I found safety, security, LIFE in relationships & reputation. But then I met Jesus and learned to find safety, security, life in Him.

I had been a Christian and telling this story for over 10 years before I realized it was a lie. Read more

Posted on by Renee Meyer

Who are you going to believe? {Living on the Rock}

This week in Living on the Rock, we are discussing our heavenly Father’s love. Along with verses and verses of Scripture, we asked ourselves:

How has your relationship with your earthly father affected how you see God as your Father?

The Father’s love for us is a key truth that shapes our God view. Maybe this is universal for men and women – I don’t know, I’ve only ever been a women. But as women I think our God view can be unduly influenced by the men in our lives – our fathers, but also other men. 

So my question for us this week is this:  

Who are you going to believe?

Read more