This may be a story in search of an application, but the end of last Saturday’s game between Baylor (ranked #9) and Oklahoma State (ranked #5) for the Big 12 Championship is worth thinking about. Baylor jumped out to a 21 – 3 lead in the first half and scored NO points after that. OK State chipped away: 21 – 6, 21 – 13, 21 – 16. Then came the last few minutes where the (usually) higher-ranked team does its final drive to win, much like Alabama came back against Auburn the week before. Anyway, down the field came OK State. With about 90 seconds left, they were first and goal on the 2. Just two yards for a touchdown and the win.

• They ran the ball twice with the offensive and defensive lineman doing their best to push each other out of the way. The result? Third and goal from the 1. One yard for a touchdown and the win.
• Third down was an incomplete pass.
• Now with about 30 seconds left, OK State has one play for a touchdown and a win. This time their running back sprints to the left, and there are only two guys involved in the play. The runner and the Baylor defender. They are step for step until the runner dives for the pylon with the defender hanging on. The runner goes out of bounds six inches short.

Sometimes somebody has to take a stand. Sometimes you’re surrounded by like-minded folks taking a stand with you. Sometimes, you’re on your own. Just you and the adversary.

So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one. (Ezekiel 22.30, NKJV, emphasis mine)

And next to him was Shammah… The Philistines gathered together at Lehi, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils, and the men fled from the Philistines. But he took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it and struck down the Philistines, and the LORD worked a great victory. (2 Samuel 23.11, 12, ESV, emphasis mine)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,… (Ephesians 6.10 – 14, ESV, emphasis mine)

To him who conquers… (Said in each letter to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3)

We’ve been thinking about Love, during this second week of Advent, including important concepts like loving by serving, love empowering obedience, and loving even our enemies.

Today, let’s just go back to basics: “Love your neighbor as yourself” – here are some suggestions, courtesy of The Navigators for how to do that. (Click the chart to see a larger version you can download for yourself.)

Seven simple things:

• Greet people
• Go out front (instead of hiding in your backyard)
• Go first
• Gather contact information
• Give and receive
• Get creative
• Go before God in prayer for your neighbors

I’d add one more that’s helped us: Get a dog! I meet more neighbors and have more conversations with neighbors while walking our dog than at any other time. These simple steps remind me of the Sugar Cubes illustration I wrote about a couple of years ago: simple actions add up.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5.13 – 16, ESV)

We’re into the second week of Advent: Love. Monday we observed Jesus’ example of washing the disciples’ feet and Tuesday we noticed Jesus’ explicit command that we go and do likewise. Yesterday we saw where the power to do that comes from: right back to love.

Love God, love people – nothing to it, right? Not so fast. Jesus came into a world dominated by Romans who wanted nothing more than to stamp out all allegiance to anyone or anything other than the Roman emperors. His prescription?

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? (Matthew 5.43 – 47, ESV)

I was motivated to write this blog by an article in the Sunday Colorado Springs Gazette. Mikey Weinstein, enemy of all things Christian, is at it again. Here’s the start:

A nationwide tradition viewed by some Americans as a patriotic display recognizing service and sacrifice represents for others a sectarian religious symbol amounting to desecration.

Complaints about the popular Wreaths Across America Day, when fresh evergreen wreaths are placed at gravesites of military veterans at national and local cemeteries, are climbing in the weeks leading up to this year’s event, says the founder of a civil rights advocacy organization that’s protesting the practice.

“We have no problem if people reach out and want a wreath on their deceased veterans’ graves, but to put them everywhere, to blanket them without permission of the surviving families is unconstitutional, an atrocity and a disgrace,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Debbie Kelley, The Gazette, December 5, 2021

According to Jesus, our response is clear: we need to love Mikey Weinstein and pray for him. It might help to remember that Mikey is no worse than Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle Paul:

I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities. – Paul, speaking to Agrippa, Acts 26.9 – 11, ESV

We’re into the second week of Advent: Love. Monday we observed Jesus’ example of washing the disciples’ feet and Tuesday we noticed Jesus’ explicit command that we go and do likewise. Today we see where the power to do that comes from. You guessed it: right back to love.

Loving me empowers you to obey my commands. (John 14.15, TPT)

Love God, love people, and obeying the “first and greatest” commandment empowers the second.

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12.28 – 31, ESV)

We’re into the second week of Advent: Love, and yesterday we observed Jesus’ example of washing the disciples’ feet. And Jesus was careful to make the connection to us clear:

After washing their feet, he put his robe on and returned to his place at the table. “Do you understand what I just did?” Jesus said. “You’ve called me your teacher and lord, and you’re right, for that’s who I am. So if I’m your teacher and lord and have just washed your dirty feet, then you should follow the example that I’ve set for you and wash one another’s dirty feet. Now do for each other what I have just done for you. (John 13.12 – 15, TPT)

John 13 opens with love and closes with love so we can’t miss the connection between loving and serving. Here’s the familiar love command:

So I give you now a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re my true followers (John 13.34, 35, TPT), emphasis mine

We don’t feel love, we demonstrate love…by serving as Jesus did. This Advent emphasis on love reminds us that we are to not only experience God’s love (“For God’s so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” (John 3.16)), we are to obey Jesus and pass it on. More on that idea tomorrow.

I can’t miss it: the idea of loving and serving is in my Revelation reading too!

Now to the one who constantly loves us and has loosed us from our sins by his own blood, and to the one who has appointed us as a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father… (Revelation 1.5, 6, TPT, emphases mine)

We’re into the second week of Advent: Love.

I thought I might have a problem doing Advent blogs from my daily Bible readings since I’m following a plan that has me finishing out the year in Job, the Minor Prophets, the last part of John, and Revelation. But Love jumped out at me in John 13:

Jesus knew that the night before Passover would be his last night on earth before leaving this world to return to the Father’s side. All throughout his time with his disciples, Jesus had demonstrated a deep and tender love for them. And now he longed to show them the full measure of his love. (John 13.1, TPT, emphasis mine)

And how did he show that love?

Now Jesus was fully aware that the Father had placed all things under his control, for he had come from God and was about to go back to be with him. ⁴ So he got up from the meal and took off his outer robe, and took a towel and wrapped it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ dirty feet and dry them with his towel. (John 13.3 – 5, TPT)

To Jesus, “Love” = “Serve.” It’s sometimes a foreign concept, but “servanthood” was a highly valued attribute taught by the early Navigators. I remember coming out of a neighborhood Bible study once and coming upon a dog deposit on the sidewalk. While I’m thinking, “Wow, who would let their dog do that and not clean up,” one of the other guys in the Bible study, a Naval officer and graduate of Harvard Law School, reached into his pocket for an envelope and used it to push the poop off the sidewalk. It’s an example of serving I’ve never forgotten from over 50 years ago.

I’ll write more on love and serving tomorrow.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant… (Philippians 2.3 – 7, ESV)

Last year, I did “Second Sunday in Advent: Faith.” There doesn’t seem to be consensus on what the Advent candles mean, so this year we’ll do Love:

As the 1965 popular song said, “What the world needs now is love…“

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3.16, NKJV)

I promised that “all or nearly all” blogs this month would be Advent-related. Today, on the eve of the Second Sunday in Advent, I want to write something about Sundays: that is, I hope that Sunday is NOT your only day to connect with God.

I just heard a pastor say something like this:

One of the things religion gets right is repetition. We learn by repetition. That’s why we gather weekly to connect with and worship God. It’s important to do this weekly.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think weekly is enough. In fact, I subscribe to the old adage:

If you practice your Christianity WEEKLY, you’ll practice your Christianity WEAKLY.

By contrast, I just received this email from Biblica, an organization that provides Bibles to people in their own language around the world. The message shared something written by a woman named Saira, who lives in Lebanon:

For me the Bible is a spiritual nutrition. If I forget to read the Bible one day, I feel something is missing. When I read the Bible I have a deeper relationship with God. The Word of God empowers, comforts, and strengthens me. – Saira, a Lebanese believer

This Lebanese lady understands that she needs to read the Bible and connect with God, not weekly, but DAILY.

Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 8.33 – 35, ESV, emphasis mine)

But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4.4 – I eat every day, don’t you?)

Daily? How about continually?

Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. (Psalm 119.97, ESV)

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5.16 – 18, ESV)

Yesterday we looked at Daniel telling Nebuchadnezzar about the real Kingdom. The one that will put an end to all the other kingdoms. The message resounds through the first six chapters of Daniel:

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. (Daniel 2.44, ESV)

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation. (Daniel 4.3 and 34, ESV)

Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end. (Daniel 6.25, 26, ESV)

Daniel and his friends didn’t know Jesus, but they knew there was a Kingdom and kingdoms have a king. And they wanted to be on that king’s side – not the side of the apparent king. And that’s the Hope that empowered them to stand firm.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were commanded to bow down to the statue, their response was unequivocal:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3.16 – 18, ESV)

I remember, it was more than 45 years ago, when we used to read Arch books to our firstborn, Mark. They are still available! Anyway, the one on the fiery furnace translates Daniel 3.16 – 18 this way:

O king, your silly gold is not a god at all. It’s just a hunk of ugly junk outside the city wall.

Mark could quote that before he was two years old!

And the same Hope empowered Daniel when Darius told everyone they couldn’t pray to anyone except him. Daniel’s response?

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. (Daniel 6.10, ESV)

Surely Hope empowers:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5.1 – 15, ESV, emphasis mine)

I suggested Monday that for Hope to be meaningful, it must be based on something substantial. Reading in Daniel, I’m reminded that there’s nothing more substantial than the Kingdom Jesus came to set up. Daniel explains this Kingdom clearly to Nebuchadnezzar:

This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory…—you are the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay…And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever...The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure. (Daniel 2.36 – 45,  ESV)

The kingdom strong as iron was Rome, and it was in the days of Rome that Jesus came to set up a “kingdom that shall never be destroyed.”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18.36, 37, ESV)

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 11.15, ESV)