Who is Coming to Dinner?

Who have you invited into your life?  I’m looking over some notes on Luke 15, preparing for “The Buried Life” message, and am being gut checked.  The chapter starts off with a motley crew of guests who were listening to Jesus speak, and the religious leaders are muttering, “This man (Jesus) welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

When it comes to being “good” we are taught keep our distance from the riff raft, however Jesus had called the “outcasts” to draw in close to converse with Him… and the religious leaders were disgusted at Jesus.

As I look back over the last several years of my life, I can’t say that I’ve had many meals with druggies, prostitutes, or any number of those our society identifies as… “lost causes”

Isn’t it interesting that it’s the lostness that gives cause for Jesus to draw in close…

Who are you inviting to dinner?

I Love You

Love defined according to Mirriam-Webster:

1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties <maternal love for a child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b : an assurance of love <give her my love>
2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>
3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration <baseball was his first love> b (1) : a beloved person : darling —often used as a term of endearment (2) British —used as an informal term of address
4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person’s adoration of God
5 : a god or personification of love
6 : an amorous episode :
7 : the sexual embrace :
8 : a score of zero (as in tennis)
9 capitalized Christian Science : god

— at love : holding one’s opponent scoreless in tennis

— in love : inspired by affection

According to Webster, the word love has much meaning, has different meaning, and is a term for zero in tennis.

Our culture obsesses over the idea of love, but is delusional about the true meaning of love.

I love my wife, hotdogs, chocolate, my dog, the new camero, my friends, my family, the snow, golf, money, my job, my 50″ flat screen, fishing, music, and honestly this list could go on for days.  What we say we love and how we love and what love means to us… well, love means so much and so little.

As a society we hope for it, hunger for it, throw money at it, try to manipulate and recreate it… but our efforts often fall so short.  divorce, lust, and loneliness and depression is what the majority of our society falls into in the seemingly hopeless journey for love.

Love is not… quick and easy, it is not something we can throw money at or talk someone into.

Love is…

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13

Love never fails.  If love never fails, why is that so much of our society fails at love?

I believe with all that I am that it’s because we seek love from the wrong source(s).

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

If God is love, than our love, real love and true love should be an overflowing of our relationship with God.  God is Love…  Love never fails.

Who do you love?

How do you love?

Where does your love come from?

Love is…

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)