A Different Kind of Lens

I had a fun activity planned for my 7th and 8th grade students last night.  We were talking about the 8th commandment, which says we aren't to "bear false witness against your neighbor."  Part of the definition of that commandment from our Small Catechism describes the keeping of this commandment as defending our neighbor, speaking well of him, and explaining everything in the kindest way.

So I had the kids list out a number of behaviors that annoyed them.  As you can imagine, from a group of 7th and 8th grade students, this wasn't very difficult to do.  Then, I had them act out some of these behaviors.  They would cut off others when others were speaking if the annoying behavior of interrupting others was the one we were focusing on.  They would do whatever they could to be annoying if we were talking about being annoying.

After each of these exercises, I then gave a new assignment.  They had to explain that kind of behavior in a way that would defend that person, that would paint that person in a good light, and would be explained in the kindest way possible.  Now, remember, 7th and 8th grade students can be extremely creative.  However, when it came to looking at behaviors such as these through a different kind of lens, it became much more difficult.

I would suggest that they aren't the only ones who have that difficulty.  Right now, think of some behaviors that have annoyed you already today.  Now, think about how you are going to defend that person, speak well of them, and explain what they were doing in the kindest way.  It's not easy, is it?  In fact, in a few instances, we might not even be able to think of a way to do this.

Two quick thoughts.  First, we can actually do this and still address sin issues at hand in the behavior.  Explaining in the kindest way is not intended to be the same as excusing sinful behavior.  In fact, the sinful behavior should be dealt with, but with kindness and gentleness, as well as firmness.  Doing that more often seems to be an art rather than a science.

Second, what this points out to us is that God would have us think graciously of others in all situations, at all times.  But that is absolutely foreign to our sinful nature.  We want to exalt ourselves over them, not be kind and gracious to them.  And yet, it's very rare that our self-exaltation will ever serve to love them as we love ourselves.  And just in case you forgot, Jesus connects that commandment very closely to the one where we are to love our God with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

As God brings your new life anew today through your baptism, how will that new life look and think graciously of others, even and especially if you find them annoying?

When it's manly to cry

It's the kind of news that no one ever wants to hear, but over the past 12 months, give or take a few, I've heard it now four times.  12 years ago, I graduated from Concordia Seminary with a class of about 75 men, who headed out to become pastors all over the country and world.  As with quite a few classes, there were a good number of young guys, as well as some who were heeding God's call as they began their second "career" as pastors.

With the communication of this world being what it is, you can learn about things pretty quickly.  As I entered my office and checked into the online world, I had an email from a classmate.  Yet another one of my classmates from the class of 2001 had gone forth to receive his eternal inheritance.  I had been keeping up with this friend on Facebook, and had known that he was having some heart issues.  Needless to say, I didn't expect to check my email early this afternoon and hear such news.

During the time of classroom work and learning, you truly do forge a bond with those who are your classmates.  You learn together, argue together, struggle with the classwork together, and have a beer or two together.  You get to know their families, and in the day and age we now live in, you can even keep up with their lives, to some small degree.  You stand with them, and you know of some of the common struggles that they face, as they face all of us.  And so, when one of your brothers falls along the way, it hits hard.

Even as I type these words, I cannot keep the tears from welling up in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks.  But you know what?  I would dare say, in cases such as this, it truly is manly to cry.  In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that it's practically inhuman NOT to cry.  And yes, over the years, I have truly become unashamed of those times when I am moved to tears.  If Jesus, the most manly of men ever to walk this earth, saw fit to shed tears when a dear friend had left this life, then there is no way that I will ever be ashamed to let my tears fall in similar circumstances.

Even as those tears fall, however, they are merely tears that miss the camaraderie that I enjoyed with my friend.  That's because I know that it's only a temporary situation.  Jesus has promised that He will re-appear, calling everyone from their graves, and bringing all who trust in Him to eternal life that never ends.  In that kingdom, death will never enter in, and no separation will ever come between God and His people.  That's why I have full and complete assurance that I will see these friends again, standing with them in a place where joy will be all in all, and where nothing will ever separate us again.  Praise be to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.  AMEN!

The Show

"Showtime!"  "You're on stage."  It's time to get the show going."  In various places of worship, I'm sure phrases like this are often spoken.  As the preacher or worship leader gets set to begin the time of worship, a few quips like this may be said.  It's almost as though the curtain is about to be drawn on some kind of production.  Lights, camera, action, and all that kind of stuff.

Think about that for a moment.  Is worship some kind of show that the pastor or preacher leads?  Is it some kind of performance in which the people who are gathered are supposed to be entertained?  I've read several books that have studied why people attend or fail to attend worship, and one of the reasons often cited is that it feels too much like a sham.  It's more about the production than about the sincerity.  And as I've heard phrases like this spoken even to me, I have to wonder if that thought has slipped into our mindset concerning worship.

Recent decades have seen a shift in worship in this direction.  And some of it is actually not a bad thing.  As you get more and more people gathering in a single place for worship, some accompaniment certainly is needed.  Microphones help enhance the voice of the preacher.  A few lights may help draw people's attention to the Word which is being proclaimed.  And I think it should be mentioned that worship should be done rightly and properly.  Care should be taken to see that it flows naturally, and that often requires practice.  It's easy to lose people's attention to worship when they don't know what's going on, or when things are done poorly.

However, worship is also not about being a show.  We gather for worship as an act of our devotion, where we come together in a need to be together with the Body of Christ, and where we recognize that God is actively at work in us and among us.  As His Word is proclaimed, God's Spirit plants, grows, and nurtures faith, and spurs us on in love for neighbor.  God pours His forgiveness over us through Jesus and the cross and resurrection.  God dwells among us for our good as we gather for worship.

So worship should be done well, and should reflect preparation for our time together.  However, if we devolve into making it seem more like a production, done for the entertainment of those who gather, we've taken the precious pearl of worship and sterilized it.  We make it a spectator sport rather than being part of a living, active body.  And that's never what worship was intended to be.  It's not a show to entertain, but a forum in which God's people receive and give.  It's a place where God's people gather to be active members of the Body of Christ, not idle spectators to how good the band is, or to marvel at the abilities of the preacher.  It's where God's people are actively involved together as God is actively at work within them.  And that's such a blessing when God is the one at center "stage".

It's hard to understand

Have you ever read something from the Bible and wondered what it was talking about?  Good news.  You're not alone!  In fact, I would dare say that every single person on the face of this earth would have to say the same thing (providing that they actually did read through the Bible).  We simply cannot understand some of the things that God communicates with us.

Personally, I think the book of the Bible that best personifies this is the last one.  The revelation of Jesus that was given to John has been one of the more confusing books of the Bible for a long time.  I would even dare to say that this is especially the case for those of us who were raised in the "Western" way of thinking.  I say that because the way we are taught to think greatly impacts how we understand what we read, and if our way of thinking is different from that of the writers, then we truly have a difficult time understanding.

In recent years, much has been made about the differences between "Eastern" and "Western" ways of thinking.  These are actually very helpful when it comes to our understanding of the Bible.  We "Western" people tend to like things that are presented in a logical fashion.  Such letters as Paul's to the Romans and the Galatians are popular because they are presented in such a fashion.  They move from point to point in a way that makes sense to us, and therefore, they appeal greatly to us.

But what happens if we try to enforce our way of thinking onto a section of the Bible that isn't fitting for it?  I would suggest that's what happens quite often with Revelation.  It's written in a style familiar to Eastern ways of thinking, but not Western.  So if we apply our "Western" way of thinking to it, we come out with something far different than what it was written to convey.

Take the idea that Revelation paints a timeline of world events.  That is taking a "Western" mindset and applying it improperly to the book.  In one sense, it's easy to point out why this is wrong.  If you take it as a timeline of world events, the problem you encounter is that the world ends three times in the book!  And yet, this approach continues to be prominent in the "Western" world, made popular by such books as the "Left Behind" series.

Next week, I'll present a bit of a different approach that will help us see a little bit better what is going on in such a book as this one.  But prepared to be challenged, because it will take thinking in a way that is unfamiliar with our way of thinking in which we were raised.  But who knows?  You might learn something as we do that!

What do you mean?

Okay, keep up with the following statements if you can.

--The other day I saw a bat flying through the air.

--I always love talking about the fall.

--I can't bear to see a bare bear.

What do all these statements have in common?  They have words that have multiple meanings.  In the first one, am I talking about a baseball bat flying through the air, or a rodent out hunting insects?  Talking about the fall, is it the kind of fall like when someone falls down (or the fall into sin), or a season of the year?  And in the last one, we get not only the same word with two different meanings, but another word that sounds the same!

Now, just imagine that you were reading a poem or a story about bats at a baseball game, and you didn't know if the writer was talking about the wooden bats or the living bats.  How would you be able to tell which one he was talking about?  What if he was intentionally trying to make it confusing by not making it clear either way?  Do you think that you might end up a bit frustrated as you tried to figure it out?

I bring this up because this kind of thing actually happens fairly often in the Bible.  Large sections of the Bible are poetic, and one of the things poetry often tries to do is play on words with different meanings, even if they happen to be the same word.  So sometimes, as we read sections of the Bible, we find that the meaning of the particular section isn't as clear as we would hope.

So what do we do when we find ourselves wondering what the author meant?  Well, sometimes, we admit that there may be a reason for it.  The author may have been doing a word play in the original language of the Bible, and we have a tough time 1) figuring out what he means and 2) deciding how to best convey the sense of that in another language (English). 

I mention this because it's worth us struggling with the text of the Bible to figure out what it's saying.  It just seems as though God knows that we're going to get more out of it if we have to struggle to figure it out than if He just simply said, "Here's what I have to say."  Sure, He does that at times, too, but since we've been talking about learning, it really does seem that we learn more when we have to work with the words and struggle with the words, and maybe that's part of what God is trying to communicate to us, as well.

Different Ways of Learning

Way back in my college days, I took a couple of organic chemistry classes.  Anyone who has taken organic chemistry probably recalls the nightmares that organic chemistry presents.  The first class wasn't too bad.  It was about nomenclature, which is to say, it's about naming the different molecules and processes.  Overall, not too bad, especially if one has a decent memory.

The second class, though, proved to be something else.  This class was when all those names started to interact together.  I remember looking at some of the models and processes and wondering if my mind would explode.  The thing that perhaps hurt most was the way that the class was conducted.  Now, I'll admit that I'm a very hands-on learner.  I learn by trying out stuff and seeing how it works.  But my second organic chemistry class was a pure lecture.  In an auditorium seating a few hundred, the professor stood in front with a microphone and slide show to teach.  Needless to say, I struggled with that class.  (To this day, it's the only class I have ever dropped, simply because I absolutely could not grasp the material, at least, in the way it was presented.)

Different people learn in different ways.  Some people learn by hearing.  Some people learn by seeing.  Some people learn by interacting.  Some people learn by some combination of these.  We've all run across that person who got a lot out of a lecture, whereas you fell asleep.  There's that person that wants to read the directions all the way through before beginning the assembly, and then there's the person who wants to start putting it together without ever opening the directions. 

We learn in different ways, and that same thought should carry over to the preaching task.  Simply standing in front of everyone and delivering a sermon that resembles a lecture fails to take into account how people learn.  Yes, God's Spirit can and does still work through such an approach, but that same Spirit also works when other approaches are brought out in the preaching task.  A story may reach the heart of someone that a lecture would have put to sleep.  An object serving as a sign might catch the interest of that person who is easily distracted.  A short, memorable phrase repeated over and over may catch in the mind like a song lyric.  A brief skit may cause the listeners/watchers to engage the teaching in a more effectual way.

We're all created unique, which means that we learn in different ways.  Thanks be to our God, who demonstrates His creativity, and may He guide our wisdom to recognize that and make use of it.

Powerful Learning

How many of you have a story about when you really learned that you have fingerprints?  Well, I do.  It happened because I was a curious little boy.  You know how you can tell a child over and over again that something is hot, but for some reason, they don't really seem to catch on until they touch something that's hot and learn what hot really means?  Well, that's part of my story.

I grew up on a farm.  One thing you often find on a farm is a welder.  I had always been told that the metal was hot when it had just been welded on.  But one day, I must have decided that I needed to discover that for myself.  So I leaned down and picked up a piece of metal that had very recently been welded upon.  Needless to say, it was pretty hot.  I remember my fingers hurting (Thanks be to God that I only picked it up with the tips of my fingers.).  And as I looked down at my fingers to see the damage and to figure out why they hurt so much, I noticed something.  I had patterns on my fingers.  At first, I thought that they came from the metal.  So I watched over the next few days, but they stayed there.  Thus, I learned that I had fingerprints.

In a way, this story emphasizes the point I want to make today.  It's great when we learn from what others tell us.  However, more often than not, we seem to learn through experience.  That is, we have to experience something before we really learn it.  I learned how hot metal gets when I touched it, even though I had been told many times that it was hot.  For some reason, that just seems to be how we humans are.

In that same vein, we also learn when we have to come to the conclusions for ourselves.  In one way, I believe that is why Jesus so often spoke in parables.  When you have to think about the story and figure out the point, that's when learning is most effective.  Simply being told "this is what you need to know" so often doesn't seem to get through.  Sure, it does for some, but for many of us, we learn as we think things through.

Too often, preachers seem to lose sight of this.  We get up there and tell you what the problem is, how God has solved it, and what that means for you.  While helpful, I also believe that it is appropriate at times for God's people to have to come to the conclusion on their own.  Leave things hanging a bit.  Let them wrestle with what exactly it means or says.  I'm convinced that God's people, through the leading of God's Spirit, will often be led to what God is saying, and that will make it stick even more than if the preacher had simply stated it outright.

Agree?  Disagree?  Comments and thoughts are welcome.

What do you know about yourself?

Today we're going to start off with a brief reflection.  What would you say you are best known for among your friends, family, and acquaintances?  Why are you known for those particular things?  And then, let's take it a step deeper.  Are those the things that you want to be known for?  Do you find that the things you want others to see in you are different from what they actually see in you?

Next, after you've done this introspection, let's expand it a bit.  Go and ask a few of your family, friends, or acquaintances what they see you as being known for.  Be ready to be surprised, perhaps, and maybe even a little bit humbled.  You might discover that they don't see you as the great person that you might think you are in your own mind.  You might even find that they pick up on things that you don't even realize about yourself.

A little exercise like this helps us to see those things about us that we have a tough time picking up on our own.  In some respects, others know us better than we know ourselves.  We may have habits or tendencies that we don't even notice about ourselves, but are readily apparent to others.  Those may even become part of our character in the eyes of others.  And sometimes, those are not things that we may necessarily want others to know us for.

I've had several times where I have asked others these same things, and it seems that every time, there is at least one new thing I learn about myself.  It could be some habit that I engage in that I'm not even aware of, or some aspect of how I carry myself around others.  The point here, though, is that I learn to know more about myself as I do this.  I grow in knowing who I am.

Now, you might ask, what's the importance of that?  I would suggest that knowing yourself is important because it helps you to better understand your place and role in God's kingdom.  The more you know who you are, the better you know the gifts, talents, and abilities that God has created within you.  As a person who has been made holy through the sacrifice of Jesus, you now have the opportunity to discover those places where you serve God well as one of His redeemed, loved, forgiven people.  And I would suggest that, the more you know yourself, the better equipped you are for that service.

Is that necessary?  Not really.  However, I suggest doing this, not for your own good, but as one who truly does seek to do as God says and "love your neighbor as yourself."  When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus actually presented two.  Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.  In that way, it sure seems that loving God also means loving your neighbor, a task which you are better able to do when you know who you are.

Who Am I?

Take a moment and read Exodus 3:13-17 (I believe this post should actually include a link that, if you scroll your mouse over the reference, the ESV version should pop up).  To put this into its context, the people of Israel had been in Egypt for over 400 years.  They were now slaves in Egypt.  Moses had fled to the wilderness after killing an Egyptian slavedriver.  Through a burning bush, God spoke to Moses, to let him know that he would be leading the people out of Egypt.  And Moses had started to give his list of excuses as to why he didn't want to do this job.

One of the things Moses brought up was asking God about His identity.  In particular, Moses wanted to know which God this was who was talking to him, and who would bring the people out.  And God told Moses who He was.  I AM who I AM.  The God of your fathers, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.    And then God told Moses what He would do, that He would bring them out of Egypt by His mighty, powerful hand.

An identity is a powerful thing.  Knowing who you are has tremendous repercussions throughout your life.  Maybe the best way to demonstrate this is to look more at someone who doesn't know their identity.  You've all known a person who didn't know who they were, and so they became a different person around others, depending on the group.  They worked hard to make others happy because they didn't find happiness or joy in who they were.  They strove to be accepted because they hadn't accepted who they were.

God knows who He is.  He identified Himself to Moses, not only saying what His name was, but also identifying Himself in His relation.  He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.  We even see this identity come out when God had brought the people out of Egypt and gave them the Ten Words, or Commandments.  "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."  And then, God proceeded to tell the people what it looked like to be identified with such a God.

Identity is crucial.  Knowing who you are becomes crucial to knowing what you do and why you do it.  This is no less important for groups of people as it is for individuals.  So this week, we'll take a bit of a closer look at the issue of identity, and what our Christian faith informs us about concerning our identity.

How would you respond?

One of our realities in this life is that we find ourselves involved in various levels of conflict pretty much on a daily basis.  Some of these aren't all that big.  The person delivering your newspaper threw the paper in the flower bed instead of the driveway or the porch.  You have a conflict, but for most of us, we tend to simply overlook that one (unless it happens on a regular basis).  The person cuts you off on the road, and once you've honked your horn and given them a rude look, you've moved past it.  These seem relatively minor. 

But we're also faced with larger ones.  You're sitting down to work on your budget with your spouse, and you disagree on how you should spend some portion of your income.  Neither of you is very willing to budge very much.  You've got a fairly major dispute on your hands.  You may be a little bit less likely to simply overlook this one.  After all, you've got some level of interest in what you think and believe.  So you may find that you're a little more willing to stand up and fight for your position.

Or, it comes to a matter of parenting, or of care for an aging parent.  You feel very strongly about one course of action, and the other person/people feel strongly about a different one.  Now you've got a big conflict, and you have to find a way to resolve it.  Once again, you probably can't simply overlook this one, and now you've got multiple people who will be affected not only by the outcome, but by how you handle the conflict.

So how would you respond?  I'm a pretty firm believer that we each have a "default" way of dealing with conflict.  If we look at our life, we'll see a pattern emerging in how we tend to want to deal with conflict.  To some degree, we fall into either the category of fight or flight.  Now, we can find ourselves in various degrees in each of these, but overall, we have a tendency toward one or the other.

However, that's a generalization.  Certain circumstances will often find us breaking out of our default for a variety of reasons.  If we firmly believe that one particular action is more "right" than others, we may be more likely to fight for our view even if our default is to avoid conflict.  Or, our default may typically be to engage in conflict somewhat aggressively, but we have certain things that just aren't as important to us, and so we overlook them. 

How do you respond?  In some ways, we have our default.  But in other ways, we recognize that every situation is a little different and calls for a different response.  As we face that, I truly do think that it's worthwhile for us to think about how we respond to a given situation as we do, and to examine the reasons that we respond the way that we do.

What??? Change my mind???

"When was the last time you ever had your mind changed by what you read in the Bible?"  That was a question that the main presenter made at my annual pastor's conference earlier this week.  For those who don't know what these things are, every year, the various districts of my church body hold conferences for pastors and church workers to go and be challenged and encouraged in their ministry and their ministerial formation.  So for the past few days, that's where I have been, having my mind and thinking sharpened while being challenged to continue to grow.

That's a great question.  When did you have your mind changed by something you read in the Bible?  I have to confess, there are times when I start to read a part of the Bible, and since it is so familiar, I already "know" what it's going to say.  I already have in mind the "applications" for those teachings.  Sadly, when I do that, there are times when I miss something simply because I'm so familiar with the section.  Maybe it's a nuance that I haven't picked up before.  Or maybe I simply haven't realized how it says something that applies to what I have been thinking all along, but is even greater or more in depth than I had thought before.

I do have to say, though, that over the past several years, there have been frequent times where I would read, and suddenly the Spirit would open something new up in my mind.  It hasn't often shown that I was thinking wrongly before (though that has happened once or twice), but rather, it has shown me a richness and deepness that I had not previously thought or seen.  Or, in a few occasions, it has shown me that there is much more going on than what I had previously thought.  At those times, it's been humbling to realize that something so familiar can contain so much more than what I can ever fully comprehend.

There are some things that I know the Scriptures reveal that will likely not change.  However, I also realize that God's Spirit, working through those words, will constantly be working to change me.  I'll never know fully while I live in this world and have all my human limitations and nature.  So I constantly look forward to the next time God reveals more going on than what I had previously thought or suspected, which leads to even more joy in the next time I engage God's Word.

A Day At Catalyst

For some time, I have known about this organization called Catalyst.  Essentially, it's a leadership organization with a Christian emphasis, and even though its primary audience consists of Christians, it also seeks to help Christian leaders in business think about ways to lead their organizations in both good business practices and in Christian emphases.  The organization is based not too far from where I now live, and this week they are holding their annual conference here.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a significant portion of the conference.  I heard several speakers talk about their studies, their organizations, and their faith.  One of the joys I get out of things like this is going around to the different booths, picking up a few free resources, and seeing the new literature that is being put out for Christian leaders. I always seem to find a few nuggets from their stories and from the materials that fit what is needed in my particular ministry and context.

That brings me to the point of this blog post.  Truthfully, I don't always agree with the point of view of the presenters, anymore than I necessarily agree with the point of view of the authors whose books I read.  However, even as I read, I recognize that there are things that they say that provide a nugget of wisdom for the work I am involved in.  It may not look exactly like what it does in their context, but often, there are ways that it can be adapted to fit or further what I seek to do as I lead God's people in ministry.

Now, that isn't as easy as it may sound.  In fact, the challenge is to make sure that it isn't just something you cram in, regardless of how unnatural it may seem.  It has to somehow provide a natural flow in the ministry life of the organization.  What that means is that, every once in a while, I'll come across something that seems really good, but there is just no possible way to make it work in the context of our ministry.  Sometimes good ideas have to be scrapped just because they don't work in the context of the ministry.  And sometimes, ideas that don't seem all that great suddenly find that they fit really well, and make a great deal of impact.

It takes a great deal of discernment to figure out things like this.  I won't pretend to get it right all the time.  In fact, I'm a firm believer that you often learn more from failure than you do from success.  I don't mind trying something, realizing that it doesn't work out, and then adjusting, adapting, or moving on.  It's scary sometimes, but overall, our lives as Christians will often encounter failure, and it's how we handle those obstacles that often says a lot about the depth of our faith.

How do you let go?

There's one thing that I dislike about traveling.  It's lugging the big suitcase around.  You have to make room for it in the car, you have to carry it around, you have to pick it up and put in on the scale.  Sometimes you even have to pick it up and try to squeeze it into one of those seriously undersized overhead bins.  Luggage is heavy.  It's awkward, it falls over a lot, and really is an inconvenience.

Sadly, a lot of us carry around a great deal of luggage.  Not the traveling kind, but the kind that comes when we fail to forgive another for what they have done to us.  Now, right here at the outset, I should explain what this word forgive really means.  We have this sense that, if we just say the word, it goes away.  But it probably shouldn't surprise you, especially if you've been following my thoughts for a while, that forgiveness sure isn't that easy.

To forgive someone is to make a conscious choice to never let that particular thing or issue affect your relationship again.  You truly let it go.  You don't hold it against them.  You don't open up your luggage and store it in there for some future appropriate time, because if you have forgiven, there will never be an appropriate time.  Forgiving someone means you let go, and you work to make sure that it never comes up again.

You might have noticed.  That's not easy to do.  Forgiveness takes work.  It means that, when that particular thing pops into your mind, you make a conscious effort to remove it again.  When you are interacting with that person, you don't let any memory of that thing get in the way of what you're doing or saying.  You put it out of sight.  Just think of that one Psalm verse that God uses to describe forgiveness.  Psalm 103:12 says "As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgression from us."  You can't measure how far the east is from the west.  It's out of sight.  You can't see it, and so you can't continue to dwell on it.

Now, just in case you're wondering or feeling really guilty at this point, the only one who can truly do this properly is God Himself.  You and I will always fail and falter in this.  We'll let the grudge come back to haunt us.  We'll slip and let our thoughts be influenced by what happened before.  However, we can make the effort to grow in our forgiveness.  We don't do it to be more forgiven by God, since Jesus has taken care of that completely.  Instead, we do it to better reflect the forgiving God who has made us into a new creation.

Appreciation

Someone gives you a gift.  It's a gift that you really enjoy.  It's something you wanted, and you've been thinking about it for a while.  Then, out of the blue, someone just gives it to you.  You are full of appreciation.  They have proven to be a thoughtful friend.  They gave you this gift simply because they knew that it would bring you joy.  There are no strings attached, no thought of you needing to do something to "pay them back" or anything like that.

The nature of a gift is that it is given with no thought or expectation of anything in return.  I would even go so far as to suggest that, if you give a gift, you do so even without expecting a "Thank You" in reply.  However, one thing that really speaks to us as humans is when others demonstrate their appreciation for kindness shown to us.  When we do something kind for another, or when we give a gift, we may not expect anything in return, but a demonstration of appreciation is always welcome.

Appreciation for a gift is an "extra", if you think about it.  The nature of a gift should be that it is given without any thought of return.  Appreciation, in and of itself, is also a gift of grace.  It isn't shown in order to make the other person more likely to give a gift again in return, nor is it given in anticipation of further favor.  Appreciation is a gift that shows the meaningfulness of what was given.  It is a reflection of your joy at receiving the gift in the first place, and demonstrates some degree of value that you place on the gift.

Is appreciation necessary?  Well, no, in terms that a gift is supposed to be given with no thought to return.  But yes, appreciation is necessary because it demonstrates the value that you place on the gift.  Appreciation builds up the person who receives it.  Appreciation demonstrates the connectedness that we have in Christ Jesus.  Appreciation encourages further expressions of grace to flow among God's people, and even out from us to the rest of the world.

It is good and right to show appreciation.  We don't show it because it merits something for us, or because we "have" to do it, but because it truly demonstrates care and love for one another.  It took me a long time to realize this, and I'm very thankful to my wife for her repeated demonstration of the importance of it.  So I encourage you today, show your appreciation whenever you receive from another, not because you expect something, but to show the meaning it has for you, and to build up one another in Christ Jesus.