Agape.
Phileo.
Eros.
This weekend I learned in Greek there are three types of love. In Matthew 22:37-39, "And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
Jesus is talking about agape love. Agape means self-sacrificial, choice based love. Phileo is a friendship type of love and eros is passionate love. Agape love is what Jesus asks of us in Matthew 22:37-39; both in the sense of loving Him and loving our neighbors.
Jesus desires us to do things out of love, not feeling. A friend told me that motivation is like the icing on a cake. She said the best things done are things we don't feel like doing, but do anyway.
That strikes a cord in me. God wants us to do things we don't necessarily want to do. I don't believe He has us do things we hate, but things that if we had the choice, we'd probably choose not to do. That's agape love. Sacrificing comfort and choosing to do things we don't want to.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Motivation=heart change+perseverance+hope
What is motivation?
Where does motivation come from?
I believe it starts with a heart change; allowing God to do a work within us. We first must make the choice, allow God to move, take action, and have some type of hope within it all.
What keeps us going, when we have nothing left to give? When our muscles are utterly exhausted from running for hours on end, how do we find the strength to keep going? I’m not an experienced runner, but I do know, that when I set my mind to it; I can run farther than my body wants to go. I can push myself beyond the limit.
Motivation is the initial will of a person. Nothing can stop a person that is single-minded. When you listen to someone who is determined about something, anything, it’s like a dart determined to be loosened from the grip of a thrower.
Unfortunately motivation can have the wrong starting and finishing point. For example, Hitler was determined to extinguish the Jews. I wonder what his initial heart response was in the beginning towards Jews? Did he have a Jewish neighbor who beat him up every day or kill someone dear to him? Who knows. Within my heart I know what he did was wrong, unjust and inhumane. His motives were wrong from the start. He kept living and breathing from those motivations, with the wrong type of hope as well. The hope of exterminating a whole race.
If your hope is in God, your motivations will be fruitful. When I think of this, what automatically comes to mind is African people. They are some of the hardest workers I know. They know they don’t make much, but try everything they can and work as hard as they can to make a living. Or the people who hope someday to have a degree and a job. They are motivated! They work two 9-5 jobs, have 3 kids, and go to school 5 days a week 7-10pm Monday-Friday. No complaining when the baby cries, and studying their brains off til the wee hours of the morning so that their family can have a better life.
Motivation is a powerful thing. It can be used for good or for bad. How do we put the world back in a place to motivate others to motivate themselves? To be the change we want to see in the world? A change of heart, perseverance, and hope. Waking up at 4 in the morning to jog, not giving up on a project you started 10 years ago, continuing to pray even though you haven’t seen a change. Picking up the dart to throw it, pulling back your hand to throw, focusing your eye on the bulls eye and throwing the dart full speed ahead.
Where does motivation come from?
I believe it starts with a heart change; allowing God to do a work within us. We first must make the choice, allow God to move, take action, and have some type of hope within it all.
What keeps us going, when we have nothing left to give? When our muscles are utterly exhausted from running for hours on end, how do we find the strength to keep going? I’m not an experienced runner, but I do know, that when I set my mind to it; I can run farther than my body wants to go. I can push myself beyond the limit.
Motivation is the initial will of a person. Nothing can stop a person that is single-minded. When you listen to someone who is determined about something, anything, it’s like a dart determined to be loosened from the grip of a thrower.
Unfortunately motivation can have the wrong starting and finishing point. For example, Hitler was determined to extinguish the Jews. I wonder what his initial heart response was in the beginning towards Jews? Did he have a Jewish neighbor who beat him up every day or kill someone dear to him? Who knows. Within my heart I know what he did was wrong, unjust and inhumane. His motives were wrong from the start. He kept living and breathing from those motivations, with the wrong type of hope as well. The hope of exterminating a whole race.
If your hope is in God, your motivations will be fruitful. When I think of this, what automatically comes to mind is African people. They are some of the hardest workers I know. They know they don’t make much, but try everything they can and work as hard as they can to make a living. Or the people who hope someday to have a degree and a job. They are motivated! They work two 9-5 jobs, have 3 kids, and go to school 5 days a week 7-10pm Monday-Friday. No complaining when the baby cries, and studying their brains off til the wee hours of the morning so that their family can have a better life.
Motivation is a powerful thing. It can be used for good or for bad. How do we put the world back in a place to motivate others to motivate themselves? To be the change we want to see in the world? A change of heart, perseverance, and hope. Waking up at 4 in the morning to jog, not giving up on a project you started 10 years ago, continuing to pray even though you haven’t seen a change. Picking up the dart to throw it, pulling back your hand to throw, focusing your eye on the bulls eye and throwing the dart full speed ahead.
Monday, April 26, 2010
V is for Violence
I had an interesting conversation with a young Northern Irish girl this weekend in Berlin. The young lady wants to study Law. So I asked her, “What is justice?” her reply, “Deterrence. When you stick people in jail, we shouldn’t be giving them amazing meals, we should mentally torture them.” Her idea of mental torture was doing things to people they hate, with the idea that they will never want to come back.
This reminded me of the movie we watched Friday, “V for Vendetta.” The main character’s idea of justice was that people should get what they deserve; even if that involves violence. I agree that justice is getting the punishment you deserve, but I don’t believe that by any means violence is okay.
Jesus is mercy and justice. I wholeheartedly believe that justice should only be carried out by God. God knows all hearts, therefore He can rightly judge. To bring justice to injustices, we should be seeking God’s guidance.
I wonder if people actually carry this out? Are there people in the world who truly 100% seek God out before addressing justice issues? I would really like to meet them.
This reminded me of the movie we watched Friday, “V for Vendetta.” The main character’s idea of justice was that people should get what they deserve; even if that involves violence. I agree that justice is getting the punishment you deserve, but I don’t believe that by any means violence is okay.
Jesus is mercy and justice. I wholeheartedly believe that justice should only be carried out by God. God knows all hearts, therefore He can rightly judge. To bring justice to injustices, we should be seeking God’s guidance.
I wonder if people actually carry this out? Are there people in the world who truly 100% seek God out before addressing justice issues? I would really like to meet them.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
True Truth
Is truth enough? I’ve been thinking a lot more than usual the past 3 months and this topic came up again and again in my psyche.
Truth is enough. Since God is truth, truth is sufficient. If we’re made in the image of God and God has put in us things of Himself, truth is one of the many characteristics we contain. We were designed to reflect our creator, whether we are Christian or not. We are all human. Does God see us in categories of Christian and non-Christian? Yes I know that believing and having a relationship with Christ is the way to salvation, but on judgment day does God have a check box with the categories Christian and non-Christian? I don’t think so. If we are all made in the image of God, we are all therefore God’s children. I believe God wants us all to come back to this reality. Finding the truth in everything is the way to do this.
Truth is enough. Since God is truth, truth is sufficient. If we’re made in the image of God and God has put in us things of Himself, truth is one of the many characteristics we contain. We were designed to reflect our creator, whether we are Christian or not. We are all human. Does God see us in categories of Christian and non-Christian? Yes I know that believing and having a relationship with Christ is the way to salvation, but on judgment day does God have a check box with the categories Christian and non-Christian? I don’t think so. If we are all made in the image of God, we are all therefore God’s children. I believe God wants us all to come back to this reality. Finding the truth in everything is the way to do this.
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