SUCH LOVE! (C) 2008
By Ronnie Johnson
Behold, what manner of love…
1 John 1:3a (KJV).
How do you explain God’s love? He has given us everything in Christ, his only Son. And yet with all of our learning, intellect, wisdom and understanding none us really can fathom such love he has given to each of us.
When I stand before the ocean, the Atlantic or Pacific I feel so very inadequate. I feel as though I am such a minute spot in this universe of so much vastness, space and enormity of size. I look across those waters and see water upon water and an endless horizon of white caps coming at me. And it is then I think about God and his love for you and me.
Just how much love did he love us with? I have an only son. I can’t even begin to imagine giving up Jason for anyone; much less those violent, mean, ugly people in the world who have no thought whatsoever for others, and for life itself. But that’s what our Father did for us. Such love!
I am overwhelmed by just the thought that the very God who made me loves me. I have written two books on the idea and theme that, You Are Loved and You are Loved, Too. But my words fall so short. They are so small compared to a God with such a big heart of love for this world.
His love is inestimable. How do sum up Calvary? How do measure that Man’s passion and compassion walking down the Via Dolorosa bearing a cross upon his back for you and me? How do account for such love? Such empathy? Such mind-boggling grace?
Somehow in the mind and heart of Almighty he chose to give his only son in death, in a horrible, tortuous death that you and I might know his inexhaustible love and grace. Such love!
After all these years God’s lavish, extravagant gift to you and me is still not even close to being comprehended. We accept his love by faith. But how do you explain an innocent Man, the Son of the Living God and Maker of all creation dying for you and me upon a Roman Cross? Illogical! Crazy! Such love! Such magnificent, incomparable, divine love!
When I see a baby come into this world; its innocent eyes and tender face I can’t even begin to imagine that baby destined for such a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And yet that child in the manger long ago was lying there awaiting a cross, a death for your sins and mine. He came, He died, He arose and He’s coming again. Such love!
Such love! Such wonderful, magnificent love!
A king has died for you and me.
He gave his very all;
Such love! That the whole world could see.
No wonder John wrote in his letter:
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not.
1 John 3:1 (RKJV).Our words simply fall short. God’s love is beyond human understanding. He loves us indiscriminately. He loves us perfectly. He loves us totally. He loves us in spite of all of our failures, sins and foolish blunders. He loves us forever, eternally. His loves goes beyond human love. He loves us unconditionally. He loves us even when we do not love ourselves. His compassions fail not. He is longsuffering in his tender mercies and love to you and me. He is lenient toward us, not willing that any of us should perish or fail, but that we would all come to him in repentance and faith. Such love!
His love rescues us. Even now since Christ returned to his Father, God has given us even more love through his Holy Spirit who lives within us and for us. God’s love covers the entire basis. He made us, He can save us, and now He comforts us. Such love!
It is in His awesome love that you and I are liberated. We come to realize in faith that God really does care about us individually, intimately and eternally. Through His unthinkable love we come to know God personally and see the side of God that He wants us to see—such love! His love engenders a freedom and openness that only heaven can afford a human heart. There is just no way to explain how free you feel when Christ invades your life, your world. Such love!
Through a simple prayer we come to know God. Just by talking to God in faith we experience His masterful, holy, unbelievable love. His compassions and mercies are endless toward us—they are truly like the sand upon the sea shore. Countless. Inexplicable! Such love! Such incredible, indescribable, transforming love!
Thank you Father for such love. Thank you that even while we were yet sinners Christ died for us in His sacrificial love for all mankind to see.
SUCH LOVE!M-m-m-m-m-m-!
Down the road ...
Ronnie Johnson
MAY I HELP YOU? (C) 2008
By Ronnie Johnson
The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that waters shall be watered also himself.
Proverbs 11:25 (RKJV).
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
—Samuel Johnson
“How are you sir? May I help you find anything, please?”
I had just stooped down and found a shining nickel on the floor at a Wal-Mart store we had stopped at on our trip.
You know how you turn your head sometime to one side when you stoop down just checking who is watching you? That’s what I did. And that’s when I noticed where this kind voice came from.
He had to be just less than thirty years of age. He was shriveled up, with a gnarled and pitiful looking body resting himself in his wheel-chair. He had dark hair and his legs were so small and depleted that one would wonder from a distance if he even had any legs.
But on his Wal-Mart vest was that special Wal-Mart tag with his name, revealing that he was indeed, an employee for the largest retail chain in the world.
For a split second I wondered how any employer would ever hire a kid like this—in such a handicap condition. Sad to say, but we often institutionalize people like this. But then that personal expression this young man had, and his “get-up-and-go” mentality said it all.
I also thought about how many people who have a similar condition and sit around the house soaking up sympathy who would never even think about such a position at a Wal-Mart store. But here is this kid watering others every day.
I had just made several laps around this Wal-Mart on a long trip we were taking to Texas. My legs were “stove up” as we say, and aching to say the least. We had just traveled about 300 miles. As I had made my way around this store I was now waiting for Jean to wind up her brief shopping tour.
I find the nickel, but then I find a lot more, too. I discover that life is not made up of what we often see. It is far deeper than this. How can this young cripple man help me or anybody? M-m-m-m-m-m-m-!
What an inspirational moment to experience this side of heaven! Here is a young man resigned to a wheel-chair the rest of his entire life; but he asked me what I would call these incredible words, and with such a gracious spirit, “May I help you find anything, please?”
I wanted so bad to turn to this young man and say with a loud, thankful voice, “You just helped me. You helped me realize how thankful I should be for two healthy legs, for a body I can walk with, for the countless blessings I take for granted every day; for good health, for opportunities to drive to work and see people and travel across the country to see my grandchildren.”
You can’t help but wonder how many lives this young man touches in any given day by simply asking Wal-Mart customers, “May I help you find anything, please?”
And he did.
Down the road ...
Ronnie Johnson
HOME© 2008
I will arise and go to my father.
St. Luke 15:18a (KJV).
Home is not only where the heart is, but most importantly it is where ‘the Father’ is.
—Jason Lloyd
Safe, secure and in the right place at the right time is where the prodigal son wants to be now. He has seen the world. He has spent is fortune. He knows bankruptcy. He has left home and all of its comforts and amenities. Now he is famished, faint and fatigued. He knows where he can find a “hot supper” waiting for him.
At this point he doesn’t care if he is a servant, a slave, or a nobody—he just wants to go home to see his Dad.
He does have that right attitude now. “I will arise and go to my father.” It is his father who he can count on. It is his father who he can trust. He has been taken advantage of, rejected, used and abused. He knows his father. He knows his father will not “do him in!” It was his father who gave him his early inheritance; he knows the source of his ‘bread.’
There is that zenith in all of our lives, that special person and place where we just feel at home. There is no other place like this on earth to all of us. It is where we can get comfortable, take off our shoes and rest our bodies. The prodigal had lost this, and now missed this—home.
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
—John Howard Payne
I can not speak for everyone else, but home is also that familiar place where the sound of the front door opening says it all. It has that unique noise; that special squeaking sound on the hinges that opens to the place we all know is home. There are those familiar voices, too. These are the voices of the people we know best, the people who are the very fabric of our being.
Home is the place of treasured memories for those of us who have had loving and caring parents. When I travel to the Houston area and visit my dad, I am now awakened in my spirit by the reality of just how much my mother cared about me and my siblings—she was one who ‘waited on us hand-and-foot.’ I sense her presence as I walk through our home and think about the countless steps she took, traipsing through the rooms bringing us coffee and snacks.
I want to go home. Ever heard that before? Nothing wrong with that either. That’s what was in the prodigal’s heart-HOME!“I will arise and go to my father.” The prodigal knew he would be waiting for him. He wanted more than any other thing on this planet to go back home. Guess what?
You and I still can….too.
Down the road ...
Ronnie Johnson
That Holy Gust of Wind© 2008
By Ronnie Johnson
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind…
Acts 2:2a (KJV).
If you try to dam up the Holy spirit in you to produce subjective experiences, you will find that He will burst all bounds and take you back again to the historic Christ.
Oswald Chambers
First and foremost it was time. It was time for the Holy Spirit to come. The Messiah had promised his coming. The Messiah had declared that he would not leave us comfortless and alone; that he would send Another—and that Another had arrived.
What could we possibly expect from God anyway? What could we possibly think would occur any different—especially coming from heaven?
This Holy Gust of Wind was just who the Christ promised would descend—and He did.
But who was he? Who is he? Most people do not like ghosts or spirits. This is the invisible world. This is, in fact, the world of Another. This is the Spirit world. Then where did the sound come from? Where was the rushing mighty wind effect coming from?
Was this Christ’s Spirit lighting upon the same people who had come to know Jesus, and had walked with him in his earthly life and ministry?
Back to the sound, though….why? And why Another? Why did Jesus send us his Spirit? Why this plan?
You can not see him. You can not feel him. You can not touch him. As controversial as Jesus Christ was, then why would he send us a Spirit to confuse us more? Why Another?
Another God or part of the God-head is now with us. The Father and the Christ are one: Creator and Savior. But Another has come to comfort us, counsel us, lead us, guide us, empower us and teach us in all truth.
Why did he come? Why did this rushing mighty wind fall upon humanity?
It is all about faith. You can’t see him or touch him, but he came. He is here. He is alive. He is a person in every way just like Jesus was. He lives, he moves and haves his being within those of us who are willing to receive him.
He is as I often pray the Breath of God, Wind of winds, the Comforter of all comforters, the Dove of heaven and God of all gods—He is the rushing mighty wind that came just as promised.
He is, indeed, Someone you and I cannot dam up for our own initiatives and priorities. He is the Another the Christ said would enter this world, and he has come upon the stage of our existence.
He indwells us. He lives within every human heart of those who know Christ the Lord. He is the Another who has come to commence this new era of Christendom—and he is…... here right now…...forever!
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.
John 14:16 (KJV).
Down the road ...
Ronnie Johnson
WHAT WE THINK WE SEE MAY NOT BE© 2008
By Ronnie Johnson
Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.
—-Jesus Christ
(Matthew 7:20 RKJV).
We never really know the other person or just exactly what is going through that person’s mind and heart.
Usually we can tell people by their fruits, by those actions they show us. But not always! Be careful when judging the fruit of others. What we think we see may not be.
Just recently a little bird sat near me. I had not noticed the small creature for a while. Then I turned in my chair on our patio and saw him. He was very young and only three or four feet from me perched upon a can. He appeared either sick or deformed (he could not fly). He definitely looked like a lonely little orphan. He looked sick and sad, and yet there was a distinct beauty and wonder about this small little creature beside me.
Birds, wild birds, are supposed to fly away when you go near them, but this one did not.
The more I looked at the little bird and the more he ‘took me in’ with a staring eye the more it dawned upon me that I was helpless to aid him in any way whatsoever.
I sensed an inadequacy come over me. I knew he was not acting normal. And there he sat. And there I sat sipping my coffee. Each of us looking at each other.
On the outside we just think we know people and God’s other creatures on this planet, but we don’t. We never know what is truly in the heart of our neighbor. We may think we do, but we don’t. God forgive us of our wrong biasness…our poorly thought-up discriminations and ‘fruit’ inspections. How can anyone be at ease judging others?
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
—Mark Twain
Our judgment of others is always risky business. The very person we think we have summed up, we haven’t. People have their own choices in life to make. Our perception of them is all too often guided by our common observations and evaluations of others. When in truth we just think we have a ‘bead on that person’—but we don’t.
Those internal decisions made by those we think we know are their decisions, not ours. No matter how hard we make try to categorize people, we cannot. People are just people. People make their own ‘moves’ in life. People live with those ‘moves’ they make, too. But when we attempt to sum them up by their uncanny moves, this is when we get our quick assessments totally out of kilter.
Judging others is like me judging this little bird. I thought he was an orphan, sick, or impaired by some deformity. But was he? Or, was he a he, or was he a she? Why did God allow that little bird to visit me on my patio? So I could remind myself and you—what we think we see may not be.
Down the road ...
Ronnie Johnson
