WHERE IS LOVE FOUND?

“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”  (Ephesians 3:16-18 NIV)

We need to love and be loved, but we look for love in all the wrong places. We look for love from a parent, a child, a sibling, a spouse, a significant other, a friend -- even a pet! But our parents grow old, our children grow up and live their own lives, our siblings move on, our spouses are too busy, our significant other gets bored, our friends are selfish, and our pets can’t speak or counsel!

So where is love found? John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God gave heaven’s most precious treasure as the price for your redemption so that you might have eternal life.

Jesus is the ultimate Gift, sent to you from the heart of the Father. The gift tag reads, “I love you.” Love is found in Jesus. And Paul declared, “Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39b NLT) 

-- Adapted from “Fixing My Eyes on Jesus” by Anne Graham Lotz

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GOD’S EXTRAVAGANT GRACE

“And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 NLT)

God dispenses His goodness not with an eyedropper but a fire hydrant. Your heart is a Dixies cup, and His grace is the Mediterranean Sea. You simply can’t contain it all. So let it bubble over. Spill out. Pour forth. “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8 NIV)

When grace happens, generosity happens. Unsquashable, eye-popping, bigheartedness happens.  

The grace-given give grace.

-- Excerpted from Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”

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“MY HEART WAS STRANGELY WARMED”

Two weeks ago, while visiting London, my wife and I, along with our longtime friends and traveling companions, had the opportunity to visit John Wesley’s Chapel and House, along with The Museum of Methodism. For me it was a moving experience, to see the beginnings of the Methodist Movement. It is a part of my spiritual genealogy.

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley walked into a meeting on Aldersgate Street carrying a heart full of questions. He was a minister, a missionary, a man of discipline and devotion -- yet still unsure of the God who loved him. And then, as he listened to a simple reading from Luther’s preface to Romans, something unexpected happened. Wesley wrote in his journal, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” In that moment for Wesley grace moved from head to heart, from concept to encounter. Christ became not just the Savior of the world, but his Savior.

Wesley’s experience echoes the promise of Romans 5:5: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Not trickled. Not rationed. Poured. God’s love does not wait for our certainty; it meets us in our searching.

There are days when faith may feel like a flickering candle -- thin, trembling, almost swallowed by the draft of doubt. But the God who warmed Wesley’s heart is the same God who warms ours. He does not demand perfection. He invites trust. He whispers assurance. He pours love.

Today, pause and let this truth settle in: God is not far off. He is near, ready to kindle warmth where your heart feels cold, ready to assure you that Christ is enough -- fully, freely, forever. May your heart, like Wesley’s, be strangely warmed again. 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry™

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MY SPIRITUAL GENEALOGY

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.”  (2 Timothy 2:2 NLT)
 
Every family tree has branches, names, and stories that brought us to where we stand today. I have been working on my family tree, which now has over 2100 people in it, and in some cases goes back seven generations. And as I celebrate my 75^th birthday tomorrow, I am very appreciative of that lineage that has gotten me to this point.
 
But there is another lineage -- one not recorded in dusty archives or online databases. It is our spiritual genealogy, the sacred chain of grace that stretches from Christ Himself all the way to us.
 
It began with Jesus, who entrusted His gospel to a handful of ordinary men and women. They carried His message with trembling hands and burning hearts. They shared it with neighbors, strangers, and nations. One person told another. Parents told their children. A friend told a friend. A preacher proclaimed it to a crowd. A missionary whispered it on the other side of an ocean. A Sunday school teacher planted it in a young heart. A coworker shared it over lunch. A grandparent prayed it over a crib. A chaplain comforted a hospice patient.
 
Somewhere in that unbroken line of Christ’s faithful witnesses, someone told the person who told the person who eventually told me. There were actually many persons who showed me The Way.
 
I may never know all their names. I may never see their faces. But heaven knows every one of them and I hope to meet them there and thank them. God saw each conversation, each prayer, each act of courage that carried the gospel one link further down the chain until it reached my life.
 
And now, by grace, I am part of that lineage. The story didn’t end when the gospel reached me and I received it. It continues every time I share Christ’s love, speak His name, share a SOUND BITES quote, or live out His truth. I am both a recipient and a steward of a life-changing message that has traveled across centuries to find me.
 
My spiritual genealogy is a reminder that faith is never an accident. It is a gift, intentionally passed down through generations of faithful hearts, all rooted in the One who started it all -- Jesus Christ.
 
Lord, thank You for every person who carried Your gospel forward so it could reach me. Help me honor that legacy by sharing Your love with the next link in the sacred chain of grace. Let my life be part of someone else’s spiritual genealogy, pointing them back to You. 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry™

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THE CONVICTION OF THE SPIRIT

Jesus said, “But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send Him to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment… When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.”  (John 16:7,8,13 NLT)

Every year our entire church staff goes on a pilgrimage to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.  During one of the sessions this past year, our team was sitting in the balcony of the Gwinnett Center listening to my friend and pastor of LifeChurch, Craig Groeschel.  And he asked this question: “Does your heart break for the things that break the heart of God?”

I felt a tremendous sense of conviction when Craig asked that question.  As I sat in that balcony, surrounded by twelve thousand other leaders, I heard the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit said to my spirit in His kind yet convicting voice, Mark, what happened to the college kid who used to pace the chapel balcony seeking My face?

There are few things I hate more or appreciate more than the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  It is so painful.  But it is so necessary.  And I’m so grateful that God loves me enough to break me where I need to be broken.  Can I make an observation?  You cannot listen to just half of what the Holy Spirit has to say.  It’s a package deal.  If you aren’t willing to listen to everything He has to say, you won’t hear anything He has to say.  If you tune out His convicting voice, you won’t hear His comforting voice or guiding voice either.  As I was seated in the balcony, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the raw spiritual intensity I once had.  He revealed how calloused my heart had become.  And I realized that I had somehow lost my soul while serving God.  And it wrecked me.

Does your heart break for the things that break the heart of God?  

-- Mark Batterson in “PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity”

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