Lent 2022

“Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” Matthew 26:13

We continue to see the power of love. We are invited to live into the truth of love. Jesus is always moving, always at rest in who He is, and always present to those who are present to him. In our text this week in Matthew 26, we have read of the woman’s sacrifice and her response to Jesus entering the house. She went to him. She kept company with Jesus.

We may also be familiar with Mary keeping company with Jesus while Martha was preparing a meal. As Martha voices her concern to Jesus, He responds “Martha, Martha you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10.41-42

Here again, we see someone simply keeping company with Jesus. There is no fear of perception and no hindrance that keeps Mary from Jesus’ feet.

Again, we know of a woman keeping company with Jesus at the well and the woman learns of the Messiah. She encounters love Himself. No shadow of shame can darken the light she has encountered. No guilt too heavy. A town comes to believe because of her testimony.

What or who do you keep company with? Are you tempted to keep company with perception, guilt, shame or fear?

Eugene Peterson offers words on the way to love in his translation of Ephesians 5.

“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.” Ephesians 5.1-2 MSG

God’s love for you is extravagant. God’s love was giving life for you. It’s paid, it’s finished and His love prevails over you. Keep company with Him. Rest in the truth that you are loved. As you believe in His love for you, He can’t not love through you. He has done it. He does it. He will continue to love you. There is nothing that can separate you from His love. We believe this truth. Let’s take a deeper step of faith to take hold of this truth today and live with this truth in mind.

Reflection:

1. What or whom do you keep company with most?
2. What would it look like for you to keep company with Jesus?
3. “Keep company with Him and learn a life of love.” How might you live more fully into this truth today?

Prayer:

Ephesians 3.14-21 (MSG)

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

^20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!”

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4.18

Our invitation is to live into the truth of the power of love. God is love. God initiated love. Love cannot be manufactured from human effort in hopes to perform our way into a relationship with God or anyone else for that matter. When we are afraid, we are looking towards punishment or expecting negative results instead of depending on the sovereign love of God. Our fear often is a result of how we view God, or how we are viewing our relationship with God. When we are tempted to fear, may we consider asking “What do I believe about God here?”

David Benner talks about this relationship with God in the context of what happens when we believe that God is full of disappointment and frustration with us. Benner says, “The motive for any obedience you might offer will be fear rather than love, and there will be little genuine surrender. Surrender involves relaxing, and you must feel safe before you can relax. How could anyone ever expect to feel safe enough to relax in the presence of a God who is preoccupied with their shortcomings and failures?”

Jesus’ entry on the earth, coming onto the scene for the sake of the redemption of souls, writes the story of love in action. God’s love in action is always seen in and through the life of Jesus.

Let’s read of a woman who was not motivated by fear, but overcome by love. There was a distinct knowing, her heart was safe, her mind relaxed as Messiah entered the scene. Perception doesn’t stop her, cost doesn’t stop her, no thing or person on earth stops her from responding in love to Messiah. May we allow her story to infuse our story with such confidence that we live the truth we believe, “no fear in love”.

“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, ⁷ a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.⁸ When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. ‘Why this waste?’ they asked. ⁹ ‘This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.’ ¹⁰ Aware of this, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.'” Matthew 26.13

Reflections:

1. How safe is God to you?
2. What does full surrender to His love look like in your life?
3. “Surrender involves relaxing.” How might you live more fully into this truth today?

Prayer:

We join Charles de Foucauld with a prayer of Abandonment today:

“Father, I abandon myself into your hands;

Do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,

And in all your creatures-

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

For I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,

To surrender myself into your hands

Without reserve,

And with boundless confidence,

For you are my Father.

Amen.”

Why do you fear?

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4.18

Just prior to verse 18 John states, “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us” (verses 15 and 16).

As followers of Christ, we have no need to fear for God lives in us and we in Him. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil for you are with me” (Psalm 23.4). Even in that darkest place, the unknown place, the worst place in our story, even there we can live without fear. We can do so because of Jesus. When we choose to fear in place of the loving grace of God that covers the multitude of our sins, we discount the power of the cross.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1.4-5

God has gone before us. Recall, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love came on our behalf. Jesus died so that we may have life and have it abundantly. In the frailty of our human responses, fear will rise. However, we can choose to make company with that fear or we choose to keep company with God. We choose in faith to believe the truth, to take hold of the truth and to live in the truth that has set us free. We do so by relying on the love God has for us, instead of relying on unknowns, perceptions, self-sufficiency and uncontrollable outcomes.

We rely on the love God has for us. There is no fear as we live here in this love.

Reflection:

1. What do you fear?
2. What does it look like for you to rely on the love God has for you?
3. “There is no fear in love.” How might you live more fully into this truth today?

Pray through Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase, “There is no fear in love”? Honestly, I think about how scary loving can be. To love is to be vulnerable and open to hurt and rejection. This statement comes directly from 1 John and it is an incredible truth that God invites us to embrace through His Word.

John was writing the letter we now know as 1 John to early believers who were fearful of God’s judgment and punishment. They understood what Jesus accomplished, but they could not help but allow fear to creep in that called into question if they would really be found faultless before God on the day of judgment. It is this fear of punishment that John is specifically addressing when he writes the truth we will be digging into this week. Check out the broader context here:

“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:15-19

John is not giving us a secret formula to eliminate all the fears in our life but points to the truth of what God’s love has made possible. 1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” The finished work of Jesus on the cross made it possible for all our sins past, present, and future to be forgiven. The love of God in action through Jesus removes the believer’s fear of punishment because we are made faultless before God.  This love is then “perfected” or “completed” when we love others with the love we have received from God. The goal of God’s love was not to end with us but to flow through us to those around us. There is no fear in love because perfect love gives us confidence that we have been made faultless.

Reflection:

1. What fear does perfect love cast out?
2. How does a right understanding of God’s love for you impact your fears today?
3. What does perfect (completed) love look like in our lives?

Pray through the truth of 1 John 5:20

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”