Moments in the life of a Pastor

Walking with God

Monthly Archives: November 2024


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40 Living a life of Love – Part 4

1 Peter 3:8-12

8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 9 Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. 10 For the Scriptures say,

“If you want to enjoy life
    and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil
    and your lips from telling lies.
11 Turn away from evil and do good.
    Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right,
    and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the Lord turns his face
    against those who do evil.

3.         Submit to seeking and speaking peace – Vs 9-12

God’s plan for prosperity involves pursuing peace with people both in our walk as well as our talk. Which requires us to:

1.         Submit our Sensibilities

But most of us are more ruled by our feelings than we are the Father. We make the focus how we feel instead of what the Father wants. We are called to not only pursue peace but to work at maintain it. Maintaining peace is not easy, it doesn’t just happen it requires that we expend energy, it’s like a fish maintaining its place in a fast flowing steam, without expending energy and swimming it will be swept away. Following the father requires that we go against the flow if we don’t we will be carried away by the current of conflict and into the chaos.  We have to work at His Will and be careful not to make it about our wounds.  So how do you handle it when people are rude and hurtful, first we need to learn to rein in our response and evaluate our emotions. We need to ask ourselves whether we are going to respond like our heavenly Father or out of our hurtful flesh. God is not calling you to sit idle when people insult you he is calling you to action just not to anger. Instead of doing battle we are called to bless. When we are hurt we don’t have to hit back, instead of being a bruiser be a blessing. But instead of doing good many of us make the goal getting even. Instead of choosing peace we pursue a payback. Let me ask you this when it comes to the hurts of your life have you surrender your scars or are you still pick at the scabs? Many of us are more controlled by our wounds than we are the Word.  What about you are you going to be a brat or a blessing? Let me ask you this: Are you going to bless your children or break them? How you deal with the heart hurts and the disappointments of life will determine whether you pursue peace or pain. How you respond to the disagreements will either disarm or drive a wedge. Are you going to emotionally explode and exasperate the situation or surrender your feelings and free yourself to follow the Father? Are you going to line people up in the cross hairs of your gun or the cross of God’s grace? When you see people through the lens of self you often want to shoot them, but when you see them through the cross you will see them as special and significant. 


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39 Living a life of Love – Part 3

1 Peter 3:8-12

8 Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters.[a] Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. 9 Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and he will grant you his blessing. 10 For the Scriptures say,

“If you want to enjoy life
    and see many happy days,
keep your tongue from speaking evil
    and your lips from telling lies.
11 Turn away from evil and do good.
    Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
12 The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right,
    and his ears are open to their prayers.
But the Lord turns his face
    against those who do evil.

 Second we are called to:

2. Submit to serving others over self – Vs 8 “Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.”

Cultivating a heart of harmony will cause us to care and serve others over self. Peter tells us that serving others involves:

·       Sympathizing  with them

But in order to be sympathetic you have to see others which requires us to stop focusing so much on self. It forces us to face and struggle with our selfishness and also to face our feelings. Some of us are afraid of emotion, we are more comfortable containing our emotions. But Jesus calls us to have a sensitive spirit. Romans 12:15 says: “Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep” Don’t just be interested in peoples happiness but also their heartache. When it comes to sympathy would you say you are more caring or calloused? Second

·       Love lavishly

Christian love is not only seeing and sympathizing but showing and sharing love. This truth deals with how we treat each other. Whatever differences we may have the lack of love for one another should not be one. Are you lead a life of love?  When it comes to people many of us are playing the power ball, we are putting in a little and expecting a lot. But love takes work, it requires showing up and serving that’s why many of us are stingy with our serving.  But let me ask you why would you pursue a plan that offered you a slim chance of success when you could have a sure thing. Are you settling for society’s shady offer or pursuing God’s perfect plan? Along with loving lavishly we are called to:

·       Cultivate compassion

Compassion takes what sympathy sees and seeks to serve. Where sympathy recognizes the need compassion responds to it. It doesn’t just look it loves. You see we need both sympathy and serving, because you can’t respond to a need you don’t recognize. Now in order to live out this truth we have to keep our hearts tender. In the cruel Roman world in which Peter was writing tenderness was not seen as a virtue and neither is it in the day in which we live. Today we are constantly bombarded with bad news and its easy for us to become callous and uncaring. Our hearts need to be broken over that which break the heart of God. When we cultivate a tender and compassionate heart we conform to Christ and live out His character.

·       Humble heart

What holds it all together is a heart of humility. Humility helps us to see ourselves rightly. Humility is the pendulum between pride and putting ourselves down. Between being in love with self and loathing self. Pride puffs up and causes us to put others down but humble helps us to put others ahead of self. Humility starts in the heart and shows up in the hand. Humility is the virtue that Jesus taught while on his knees serving the stinky feet of His disciples. Jesus saw our condition of sin and didn’t just sympathize but humbled Himself, coming in compassion to lavishly love us on through the cross. The truth is caring costs and it doesn’t come naturally, Peter had to cultivate a heart of compassion. In His early days with Jesus he was loud, aggressive and strong-willed. But when he surrendered to the Spirit of God Christ changed him, channeling his powerful personality and causing him to pursue God’s plan. When we give God the reins we will go from running over people to restoring them.