Those Who Love Well, Grow

Throughout our lives, we meet people who have such an impact on our hearts and minds that they literally change us. Perhaps as you think about your own life, you recall a high school teacher who inspired you to learn. A coach who challenged you to work hard and instilled in you the idea that practice does indeed make perfect. A parent who spoke God’s Word into your heart, who modeled the things of God in front of you. A friend who stood by you through the darkest of days. These people come into our lives and lay the foundation stones of who we are. We build on their foundations, like the brick and mortar of a grand building. God uses them as the base on which to fashion His temple. A beautiful and wonderfully made masterpiece, which is exactly what every person is.

Ever wondered where that kind of change begins? What could possibly motivate a person to instill into us an idea or quality on which we can use to build our lives? What motivates a person to something they have, some quality they possess and plant it into the heart and life of another human being? give it away so that someone else might grow and Well, lots of times, the change others have fostered in us, started with a change in themselves. A change that occurred with an encounter with Jesus.

Every time, I read the scriptures, I am struck by the change that people had when they met Jesus. It just seems as if every person who came and encountered Jesus truly left that encounter different. Peter, for example, was an ordinary fisherman and then one day Jesus shows up at his boat, challenges him to a new way of living, and Peter follows. Turn a few pages and Peter is the leading the disciples, declaring that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. Turn a few more pages, and Peter is delivering a sermon that saves over 3.000 souls and forms the beginning of the church in Jerusalem. That is certainly change.

What about the Apostle Paul? A persecutor of the saints, holding the jackets of the very men who were throwing stones and killing early believers. Then, he meets God and becomes a changed man. By faith, he walks thousands of miles, teaching the truths of God, forming churches. He writes letter after letter that form the New Testament that we know today. He was a changed man because he encounters Christ.

This morning, we could talk about Lazarus, who died and then heard the call of Jesus from the tomb and rose a new man. The woman with a hemorrhage who had suffered for years with the same ailment, and just touching the hem of Jesus robe, was healed, changed completely. The blind who encountered Jesus and suddenly began to see. The lame unable to walk for decades, these poor souls meet Jesus and suddenly they are dancing in the streets. The demon-possessed, chained to stones in the graveyard, see Jesus and are cured, and restored to their families. This is the Christ that I know. This is the Jesus who I have placed my faith and trust in. This is the Jesus who loves me and loves you. Believe me, as an old Gaither song used to say, once you “turn your eyes on Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.”

In other words, put your faith in God, by trusting in Jesus Christ, and the old things were fade away, behold all things become new.

What bothers me about so much of modern Christianity is that we forget the role of change in an encounter with Christ. Too many people today seem to think that faith in Christ is little more than an intellectual assent, the mental acknowledgement of a belief. We treat faith in God like a math equation on a test, where we can write down the right answer and then forget about it as we move on to the next problem. I fear that when the judgement comes, and believe me, it will. Many people who thought they were believers will be surprised to learn that they are not. And the reason is because their lives did not change at all. They may have clucked their tongues with the words, “Jesus is Lord” and got dunked in a few gallons of water but they left the church that day unchanged at their core. Unwilling to give up their past vices. Unable to embrace the truth that a person cannot truly encounter Jesus and remain the same as they always were.

The Bible addresses this in several different passages. Jesus tells his followers that “not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matt 7:21).

Did you notice that? Entrance into the kingdom of heaven is determined by “doing” the will of the Father, not by going back into an old life of sin and deceit. Not about acting the way we always have, but by being new, redeemed, living in the fresh newness of life.

Consider this passage - “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (Jonn14:21).

Again, the Bible is clear. If you love God and want God to show himself to you, the secret is to be a changed person. The secret to the Christian life is to be a keeper of God’s commandments and to pass that change in yourself onto others. You see, when we are truly changed, redeemed by the blood of Christ and his sacrifice for our sins, when others see us living a spiritual life, they can’t help but wonder where it came from. They remark, “You know, that guy was like this, but then he met Jesus and now he is like this. He’s better. He’s nicer, more loving, more thoughtful. He is a better person because Jesus is in his heart.”

Now I am not suggesting that we become Pharisees, so intent on keeping the law of God, that we become religious hypocrites. I know just as many people who let their commitment to Christ change them into fanatics with all kinds of rules and regulations. Suddenly, their lives become filled with laws about doing this or not doing that. And they begin to think they are the only ones who know God’s will or are capable of following God’s purpose. When my faith in Christ and the change He brings to my heart, makes me hate or despise my fellow man, I am in trouble.

Someone once told me that people who are loved well, grow. They change because someone loved them. They reach their potential because someone loved them enough to instill a dream in their heart. When I stop and think about the love that God has for me, I know that this love, a love that motivated God to give his one and only son, has made me different. God has literally taken my heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh. He has helped me learn how to live in His Spirit, rather than trust my own understanding. He has given me a divine purpose and a plan, where before I had only longings and urges. He has changed me to my core so that I can love others and help them grow.

Let me leave you with one of my favorite verses – John 3:16. Chances are you know it or learned it in Sunday School.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

God loves us well, and so we grow. He loved us enough to act, to send Jesus to die in our place, so that we who believe are no longer perishing, but now we are enjoying everlasting life.

Now, if that isn’t a change, I don’t know what is.

But He doesn’t stop there. He keeps on loving us, so that He can use us to help others become all that He has destined them to be. So, today, if you are a Christian, ask yourself how God’s grace and love have changed you. Made you different. It might be that your life is no different now than it was before you met Jesus. If that’s the case, ask God to forgive you or your sins and instill in you are hunger for change. If you are a Christian and you know that God has radically made you different, than be an instrument of His love in the lives of others.

If by some chance, you have never put your faith and trust in Christ Jesus, I encourage you to do it now. Ask God to forgive you of your sins and redeem your life. Because you can never be a person of change is someone else, until you have had a change in yourself. You can’t change others, until Christ has changed you.

Simple at that. Those who are loved. Grow. And those who love well, grow that love in others. Just as God did in us.