This month, a large part of our ministry is preaching. Last week we preached every night of the week, and then preached again at four churches on Sunday. It’s a challenge and an honor to get to stand up before God’s children in Zimbabwe and share His Word with them. I don’t always (or ever) feel qualified, but I know God led me here, so I’m following.
I began the month by asking God what messages He wanted me to share with His people. The answer, quite simply, was love. His great, great love for His children. The complete satisfaction and wholeness to be found there. What it looks like to truly fall in love with Jesus. The charge and the challenge to love others in response to the love God has for us.
I’m still a student in this–and every–arena. But that’s what God’s asked me to do, so I’m doing it.
This past Sunday, I preached at a service in Harare. I was supposed to preach at two churches, but a miscommunication about transportation to which I contributed caused us to miss the first service. I felt really bad about that and struggled for much of the morning against the dark cloud of my error hanging over me.
Then I shared about how loving the Lord is our life, as established in Deuteronomy 30, for without love for God we are dead. John 14:23 states clearly that our love for God is displayed in our obedience to God, for as Jesus says, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” It’s not a duty that earns our salvation, but an outpouring from our joyful response to the salvation Jesus has already attained for us. Obedience without love is worthless, as the Pharisees proved; yet love compels obedience. The foundation of it all must be love; the love comes first.
As I spoke, I reflected on how my own love for God and desire to obey have grown over the past several years. And then I reached the application points: if our love for God compels us to obey, what does such love-led obedience look like?
John 6:29 states that “the work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So the most critical aspect of obedience is to believe the gospel: to believe that Jesus is God and that He has paid in full for all our sins, opening the door to a relationship with the Lord once again.
Check, I’m set. Gospel believed; relationship established.
The next step, I said, is to live in a way that reflects the gospel, a life of repentance and grace. When you screw up, don’t try to absolve yourself; rather, take it to Jesus in contrite, genuine repentance. And once that’s done, don’t continue to punish yourself for it, but receive and accept the grace God freely offers. Moreover, give grace to yourself. Once God has cleaned you, don’t continue to claim you’re dirty.
“That’s often the hardest part,” I said. “Giving grace to yourself rather than holding onto guilt.” Drat. I’m not set here, not at all. For a person who struggles hard to be perfect day by day, the concept of admitting error leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and receiving grace–or offering it to myself–feels impossible. With the dark cloud from the morning’s mishap still refusing to dissipate, I realized that I often don’t live like this, but have a long way to go.
Which brought us to step number three: loving others with the same love that God offers us. God forgives us completely, keeping no record of our wrongs, and loves us with an unchanging, unconditional love no matter what we do. And then He asks us to respond by loving others in the same way.
A lot of people at Christian talks end with the question, so whom do you need to forgive? I’m often at a loss. I don’t have any major hurts: daddy issues, ex-boyfriend issues, betraying friend issues, etc. So whom do I need to forgive? I often like to think I’m pretty much in the clear.
But as I spoke, I thought of my friends and my teammates, and the little hurts and injuries that crop up day by day when you’re living with people for months at a time. I thought of our ministry hosts and contacts, and the bruises I’d received in my heart from petty differences and harsh or unclear words. I thought of how challenging I’m finding it, in month seven of the Race, to truly love the people around me well. I thought of how tempting it is simply to retract my love, to hold myself at a distance, because I don’t feel like getting those scrapes and scratches anymore.
And I realized that I do have people to forgive–and that I’m not set in this third step, loving others as Christ loves me. Because God’s asking me to constantly offer forgiveness, bathing the people around me in unending grace day after day, holding nothing against them, even something as seemingly small as a snippy comment in a moment of tiredness. And the truth is, that’s hard to do, and I often don’t want to try.
Once again, drat.
I wrapped it all up with a final reminder that obedience must flow out of a heart of love for God, for obedience without love gets us nowhere. Obedience is not life; loving the Lord is life. And then I prayed, over myself as much as over anyone else, that God would increase our love and in doing so increase our obedience as well. Help, Lord.
After the service ended, we hung out with the pastor for much of the afternoon. We had a long, healthy conversation about our past couple weeks of ministry together, discussing what it looks like for Zimbabweans and Americans to come together to do God’s work and the ways we’ve unknowingly offended and hurt our hosts in the process. It was a much-needed conversation, and it was good for us to recognize and understand ways we can better adapt to Zimbabwean culture and more effectively serve this ministry.
But still, it was hard for me to swallow. I’ve tried so hard for seven months, only to find that my efforts don’t seem to be working and despite all my best intentions, I’m causing offense I don’t even realize. Little Miss Perfect reared her ugly head once again as I slipped into discouragement about my inadequacies and mistakes. The cloud of guilt that had gathered that morning grew, swirling around my tired heart. Its dark pressure, combined with my deep, deep weariness from a long time on the Race, made me lose my will to even try. Why make an effort to invest well if even the best efforts only cause hurt?
And as I felt that cloud press down on my spirit, I realized that in clinging to it, I was once again refusing to accept God’s grace, give grace to myself, or receive the grace our pastor had offered me.
What a simple message to preach, yet what a hard lesson to live.
And then I remembered how my sermon began and ended: loving the Lord is life. I love God, and God’s asking me to do these things. I don’t want to, but I love God. Preaching a sermon at His reqest is child’s play compared to accepting and offering grace. But since I love Him and He’s asking me to, I’ll choose to try.
I scrolled back through my sermon notes, amazed at the conviction I felt growing with every line that in the words I myself had written, God was speaking directly to me. Did that sermon touch anyone else that Sunday? I have no idea. Perhaps I stood in front of an entire church congregation and preached straight to myself alone. But that’s okay. I felt in my heart how powerful God’s Word is, and how even in raising me up to be a teacher for a day, He was showing me how much more I am His student every day.
And I know for certain that God spoke to at least one person through my words that Sunday morning: me.
