To all my fans from Canadia and the UK (and the occasional Mr. Robinson), happy Boxing Day!
It’s good to see that Renaissance Bible Church is still rockin’ it, this time with their Christmas bail-out (it’s a tiny church in North Carolina). Another previous stunt awesomeness was when they bought gas for the community. (This is a state where they just ran out, plain and simple.)
We Got Gas from RenBible on Vimeo.
So, Boxing Day was initially set up as a holiday dedicated to loving others. Here are some thoughts on love…
From Jean-Paul Sartre, in his 1944 book, Closed Doors (ever the optimist):
Hell is other people.
(Ravi Zacharias contrasts that part of Heaven is your interactions with others)
Thomas Merton:
Man is not at peace with his fellow man because he is not at peace with himself. He is not at peace with himself because he is not at peace with God.
Donald Miller:
He was saying I would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself. It was as if God had put me in a plane and flown me over myself so I could see how I was connected, all the neighborhoods that were falling apart because I would not let myself receive love from myself, from others, or from God. And I wouldn’t receive love because it felt so wrong. It didn’t feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to be humble…If it is wrong for me to receive love, then it is also wrong for me to give it because by giving it I am causing somebody else to receive it, which I had pre-supposed was the wrong thing to do.
And the guy I will grab a cup of tea with past the Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis:
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.
But the most tangible example of love for me? You didn’t see the diaper I just changed (which also resulted in a bath for my youngest). I am very much reminded of my diaper/sin metaphor from when I first started this dad business.
I am very thankful that Jesus washes us up. Because I seriously don’t want to sit around in that.
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