Author: Dave Dishman (Page 244 of 474)

I read my news feed or glance at social media and encouragements to love stare back. This usually involves loving a cause currently in vogue, or persons different from myself. As a part of this loving emphasis, people also humbly brag how they love better than others.

I find it easy to talk big about love, but much harder to practice. While folks spray paint love on walls and post signs on doors, I don’t notice an actual increase in loving acts of compassion around me.

John wrote this: Little children, let us not love in words or talk but in deed and and in truth.

Talk is cheap when it comes to actually loving others—spray paint as well. The thought does not count. Only the actual work, in particular toward those difficult for us to love, begins to fulfill that of which John writes.

Jesus taught to love your enemies. Incredibly counter-cultural to this day. I don’t see this phrase on many walls. How do we love such difficult people in our lives? Zechariah tells us, not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to move from feelings of love to actual practice in our gritty interactions with others. Just ask, and you’ll find help to move from words to deeds.

1 John 3 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Hannah Gibbs

If John lived today, he could not pen a more challenging statement during this season—do not love the world or the things in this world.

Advertisements bombard us year-round, but holiday to holiday brings increased fire. We’re told to love something of this world, anything really, and hopefully buy it. Even better, buy two or three! Just swipe your card and keep the wheels of commerce spinning.

Of course, we need to buy and sell, and it’s nice to give gifts others appreciate. But while fine things in life warrant our appreciation, nothing we possess deserves our love.

Rather, the Lord and those around us deserve love. Things are to be used, people are to be loved. Our pride and our bellies entice us to flip this idea.

Material goods wear out, even the coolest clothes and niftiest gadgets. But the Lord and his words and the souls of people remain forever.

This holiday season launched by a day dedicated to thankfulness and culminated by a day celebrating the Savior merits more than crass absorption into stuff. As we enjoy the giving of gifts, may we remember the placement of affections.

1 John 2 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Heidi Fin

We tend to remember seemingly trivial details from the most important moments of our lives. I remember laying off-white 12×12 floor tiles in our small kitchen the day before our daughter was born. She came early, and I didn’t finish the job until much later.

Some of the disciples, adrift after the crucifixion and resurrection, decided to spend an evening fishing. Skunked all night, at first light a distant man on shore hollered at them to throw their net on the other side of the boat. Why not? As they did so, the net swelled with fish and they realized Jesus stood with them once again.

They rowed in, then Simon Peter hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them.

This detail concerning fish stuck in John’s mind. Not just the amount of fish, but the size (Jesus ain’t sendin’ no minnows). A joyous reunion marked by a miraculous catch, one these particular followers of Jesus—fishermen all—never forgot.

Later, as they spread throughout the world preaching about Jesus, and they met their deaths one-by-one for doing so, they burned with conviction remembering the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, capped by a cookout on the beach featuring 153 fish.

John 21 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2021

Photo by Jakub Kapusnak

I saw a former co-worker the other day that I haven’t seen in years. It took me a minute to place him, and he totally failed to recognize me until I spoke up (I’m currently sporting a beard which I didn’t have back in the day). Odd how we fail to recognize those we once knew well.

Mary Magdalene failed to recognize Jesus when she turned away from the empty tomb. Shocked by this transcendent event in a catastrophic week (and by angels keeping watch), she didn’t realize Jesus stood before her.

Until he spoke her name.

Immediately she awoke and turned to Jesus. Next she ran to the disciples with the news—I have seen the Lord!

Mary walked with Jesus and knew him as a close friend. But in such distressing circumstances, she failed to recognize him. I don’t fault her at all. Rather, she pushes me to wonder how and when I fail to respond to Jesus?

Often in life’s challenges Jesus is near, but I stand oblivious. In fact, I fail to even look as the fog settles in. I need the Lord to to raise my eyes from lousy circumstances over and over again.

Even today, Jesus speaks my name and your name in the midst of our pain and hardships. May we have the wisdom of Mary to lift our eyes and see.

John 20 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Dominik Lalic