Love – the foundational word to the New Testament. The word is so simple, yet so profound.
Ask someone to define it and you’ll get a lot of different responses. Some say, “God is love …” That makes it more difficult to practice because only God can be God and love us perfectly. Some may say, “Love is a feeling”, or “Love is giving.”
The word, “love” is used often in the Bible as a noun. In my study I could locate only 9 instances (see verse references at top of page) where the word love is used as an action or verb directing us in how to behave toward one another.
You can see the dictionary meaning here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/love. However, this sterile definition cannot capture the depth and texture of such a word. Jesus brought it down to simple acts and metaphors like spitting and touching. Then He lifted it (almost beyond our comprehension) with imagery like the cross and grave.
Over these next several weeks perhaps you will find new expression in the combination of these words “one another”. You may discover that there are innumerable ways to be practical and intentional about loving. I just wanted you to know as a follower of Jesus that these 23 commands reveal what it looks like to love one another.
Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love.
Mother Teresa
Prayer:
Lord help me see the simple needs and give me courage for the more sacrificial opportunities. Bring people across my path so that I can practice loving them.
If you have a story of extraordinary love from or towards someone, share it in the comments area and let others be inspired.
Twenty years ago as I preached on a Sunday evening, I began a journey of biblical discovery that would profoundly impact my relationships with other believers.
I came to Christ at the age of fifteen and I was deeply influenced by church folks. It puzzled me that the Bible had very specific directives regarding our behavior towards each other as members of the “body of Christ.” The way I read the Bible, everything was done within community and because of community.
The Gospels were written to the Church (the community of God’s people), the Epistles were written to the Church. And both were written to provide instruction of how to do things together. No solos, no rugged individualism – together.
As a new believer, I was shocked when I discovered that church folks struggled to act out these Biblical behaviors.
First of all, one weekly morning together is not nearly enough time for believers to work out these behaviors – even with the second hour of Sunday School.
Second, I do not ever remember being taught how to treat each other. I thought we were just supposed to love and try not to gossip. Most of the teaching I heard was geared toward personal growth, holiness and finding your place to serve.
However, if the Biblical instructions were given in community and expected to be practiced in community then why weren’t we seeing more evidence or hearing more stories of these behaviors being successful in community?
So that Sunday night, twenty years ago, I spoke on the New Testament “One Another’s.” Originally I found twenty-one of them, but since then I found a couple more. My opening line that night was, “Tonight my message only has twenty-one points!” Though we flew through each point, I never forgot the impact of those words.
The apostle John mentions LOVE ONE ANOTHER more than any other author. Three times in two verses in the book of John and six times in six verses in his epistles.
Eight times he says “LOVE ONE ANOTHER.” You would think that John was trying to get a message across. Jesus said in John 13:35, people will be able to tell you are His disciples just because of your love for each another.
Of course, people never watch how you act. You live in a totally isolated world where no own notices you.
For sure they don’t watch how you treat your kids, your wife, your husband, your friends, your boss.
And people NEVER notice how you speak of other Christians.
[cough, cough]
I believe we all know better than that.
So, I have brought the “one another’s” back and written a little thought and a prayer with each one.
Now it’s a twenty-three week devotional. I would have made it twenty-three days, but a day is just not long enough to grasp the depth of each word and apply it in our lives.
So for the next twenty-three weeks, be open to hearing what God’s word has for you and for others around you! Even if the word of the week seems difficult, I encourage you to try it. God will give opportunities to practice. All you have to do is act on the opportunity and watch what happens.
I’m flying at 39,000 feet on the way to Italy! Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Adventures, vacations and opportunity – what do they have in common? RISK. And in my mind risk has a twin, it’s name is FEAR.
Yeah blame it on my past. I wasn’t raised in an environment where fun and spontaneity where valued. My world was chaotic and unpredictable. So what? It meant nothing until I met and married an adventurer. She is is full of ideas and dreams and possibilities. And, because she loves me, she throttled back to my speed of life – granny gear. “We can’t do that it cost too much money.” Or, “Other people do those things, we can’t.” It didn’t start all extravagant. I couldn’t even fathom a family vacation that featured camping out. Do you know how cheap a family camp out can be? Yeah, dirt cheap!
After we’d been married ten years… T E N Y E A R S, my patient sweetie convinced me to try vacation training wheels. That’s where you go with a wiser, more experienced family and learn how to do vacation. Operative word, Learn.
We borrowed a tent trailer from friends and off we went to one of most beautiful spots on the face of the planet – Richardson’s Grove Campgrounds. Home to the tallest redwoods, cleanest streams and bonus – the Bigfoot Tourist Trap. Our trainers, Bob & Sara Matulich, showed us the way to travel, pack, decompress, enjoy good food and have meaningful conversation. True vacation. It was magical.
It was at the Bigfoot Store that we first purchased a $1.99 key ring in faith that one day we’d own a tent trailer of our own.
We managed to buy a really old-school Coleman Tent Trailer. It was huge, old, musty and cheap. Perfect for our family. We could tow it around and not worry if it got all beat up and broke – which it did. AND, no one wanted to borrow it!
So back to Italy. I’m just telling you, we didn’t start with Italy, we started with simple and cheap and (I) had to work our way up to extravagant and reasonable. I would list all the places we’ve vacationed, but you might think I was bragging. We’ve been a lot of cool places!
Oh, Italy. So here’s how this one came about (my version).
Robin was asked to help out at Children’s Pastors Convention. She and a few friends took turns promoting our denominational Kid’s curriculum. While they were at the booth the national Kid’s Ministries Director mentioned an European Missions Conference coming up in the fall and suggested that Robin and some team members join him to minister to Missionary Kids whose family serves all over Europe. At first Robin didn’t know he was serious, but it turned out that a few weeks after they talked Robin was asked to lead the team of her choosing. People needed to be asked, money needed to be raised and plans had to be put in place. At first she had ten people on the team but it worked its way down to six. Robin wanted me to go along to help with technology and logistics. I told her I could use my frequent flyer points to get my own ticket so her and her puppet friend, Georgie, wouldn’t have to work so hard to raise the money.
We decided to add on a few days after the conference to spend in Venice, Florence and Rome. Early in our marriage Robin talked up Paris. But after a few friends of hers went, they talked her into switching romance from France to Italy.
It’s been an HUGE stretch for me to go from camping to touring Italy! It’s not all about the money either. Believe it or not the money (or amazing friends) isn’t all that it takes. It started with a dream and a discussion. Im learning to enjoy both.
So that’s how we got to Italy. Oh, by the way, since I started this blog in the air. We’re now sitting in a hotel room in Rome. We are taking the train to Bologna then Bellaria in the morning.
Dru, I woke up early last Thursday and my heart was just broken for you. I could not get you off my mind. So I wrote this poem in honor of your love for Beth.
Well, now that Politics Season is over and my state has decided it is good to give our broken education and political systems even more money, it’s also a good time to talk about the next two seasons ahead: Thanksgiving and Christmas. I am a part of an amazing grass-roots movement this season.
It’s called #GivingTuesday. You all know about Black Friday, some of you know about Cyber Monday, well now there’s Giving Tuesday. After two days of coupon consuming deal-or-die days of shopping – this should come as a cathartic celebration.
Just to let you know. In 2011, Americans spent 40 million dollars on pet costumes. PET COSTUMES. We balked at the 6 billion dollar price tag of politics, but in 2012 Americans spent 370 million dollars on pet costumes!
So how much will Giving Tuesday generate? We decide.
I didn’t grow up poor. Well, not in terms of a roof over my head or food on the table. I don’t have any walk-in-the-snow-uphill-to-school-and-back stories either. And I’m not rich in comparison to the paper worth of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. However, I am extremely wealthy compared to Erik (my son’s boda-boda driver and part time security guard in Gulu, Uganda).
I did not have any concept of money as a child. I was worried about surviving in other ways (emotionally and mentally). I either begged money from my family or stole it as a teenager (before Christ, of course). Eh hem, the point is… I did not know much about the concept of giving money until I got involved at the church.
I was a brand new Christian and didn’t have a job to be able to give. When I received my first paycheck I was excited to be obedient to my pastor’s/church’s request that I tithe. I felt like a real insider when I learned that the word “tithe” simply meant 10%. I would tell other Christian friends and they would give me a “duh, we knew that” look. Robin (my wife) was a tithing pro. She’d been raised in the church and informed me that she had been “tithing” since she could remember receiving money. She even tithed on birthday money she received from family! I thought that was a little crazy, but I admired her commitment. Tithing became an act of worship and service as our faith and family grew over the years. It was pretty mechanical for me. It’s not like I was ever giddy or thankful to have money to give. It was just a required action. When Robin and I began serving on staff at a church in Lakewood they had something really wild going on. They called it “Miracle Sunday.” One Sunday a year the Pastor would challenge the entire congregation to give 90% of one week’s pay and trust God to be able to live on the 10% left over. Well, our very first Sunday to start at the church landed on Miracle Sunday and we were nervous about participating in the church’s little “swap my tithe” campaign.
The history behind Miracle Sunday is this: Back in the day, our church wanted to build a brand new sanctuary and could not get a single bank to loan them money. So the Pastor had this wild idea. Challenge people in the church to sacrifice and raise the money themselves. The church only had a few hundred people, so it was a huge leap of faith. However, the very first Miracle Sunday was a success and the rest was history. Oh, if you’re wondering, Robin and I did not participate that first year – we had ZERO income from that week so it was a draw!
We continued to tithe, participate in Miracle Sunday almost every year, and also gave monthly as a part of our “Faith Promise” Mission’s giving. Our church, at the time, had close to 200 Missionaries on the “mission’s roster.” Each time I gave, or really “payroll deducted”, there was no joy or thankfulness involved. It was just a required action. Every year around Happy Uncle Sam Day (April 15) I would be pleasantly surprised that we had given far more than 10% of our combined income. We were closer to 15% most years. I just thought, “Hmmm, that’s good, right?”
As time went on, we realized our children had nothing to do with the family decision to give. Our kids knew some of the missionaries (especially the “MK’s” or Missionary Kids) and knew that I was involved in putting the Missionary Family Booklet together and promoting the Mission’s Convention. Our church hosted a “free” banquet where we would put the mission’s challenge out and publicly add up the totals for the convention and celebrate all the money raised to support our missionaries. Robin was in charge of the Kid’s Missions Convention. Personally, I think the kid event was way cooler and a lot more fun. One year she and the kid’s team converted the upper kid’s room into a gigantic airplane complete with Microsoft Flight Simulator in the cockpit monitors and cool sounds of wind and airplane noises. They would “fly” to a few destinations and hear about the country in which one of our missionary’s served. So our kids kind of understood tithing and kind of understood giving and kind of understood mission’s giving. Robin, being a “PK” (Pastor’s Kid), taught our children about tithing and challenged them to give 10% to God (the church). I’m not sure if we monitored it very well, but we did our best. I know as each one of the kids began to get jobs, Robin would have the “are you tithing” talk and they would do their best to give 10%. And I’m sure they each participated in our kids and youth emphasis of missions (BGMC and Speed the Light). But we really didn’t talk about the joy and thankfulness angle of giving. It was just a required action. A few times we would hear about someone struggling or a family in great financial need and we would get together and decide how we would help. Normally, it was a secret giving mission. They really like that part. Well, I really like that part.
It wasn’t until I started working at Royal Family KIDS, asking for mission’s/ministry money and some tough talks with Wayne Tesch to discover that I had not really learned how to be generous, how to give with joy and thankfulness. So would you think that a person that asks for money, especially mission’s money, should not be giving money away? The very first missionary we started giving to came as a result of a Fund Raising Training Seminar taught by my friend, Henri Moreau. He simply asked the class, “who are you supporting?” The class was silent. The group thought, “we came here to learn how to ask not give!” Henri followed by saying you CANNOT raise money without understanding generosity and giving – wow! So now, ten years later, let me tell you the Garvin Family Generosity Plan. You may have a better understanding of how we see money as a tool and how we are growing in our excitement and thankfulness to partner with ministries and give as much as we possibly can.
We give to our church – we give a monthly amount to the general fund as well as to the mission’s fund
We give to our Missionaries – it is a joy to get behind a dear friend who senses the call of God to step out and live by faith to accomplish great things for the Kingdom of God. We consider this an honor
We give to our STM (Short Term Missions) trips – these are students, friends who want to experience missions in other cultures or countries. We consider most of these trips to be “discovery” and “learning” trips rather than missions, but we still support folks who go.
We give to ministries that reflect our heart. We want money to follow our heart and passion. So we are committed to ministries and sometimes organizations that have children and families as their main focus.
We give to critical needy families. This is an awesome opportunity for the Christmas season
We are growing in these new areas: We are committing to one RFK camper. We really feel this is critical to send one camper a year to be a part of a camp, club and mentor experience. It is life changing for a child. Those who serve us - can I do 30% tip for folks who serve? When I travel I would like to tip hotel maids who work for miserable pay and serve?
Our giving path has been a journey that we have grown to enjoy. And hopefully our giving has become more personal and joyful. What’s your generosity plan?
I’ve been a guest on a few radio broadcasts but they’ve always been about Royal Family KIDS. I seems weird to even write the words – radio guest. How would a guy like me end up on a radio program? Believe me I am not spectacular or anything. It’s all about a grand God doing miraculous things in my life. Maybe it’s simply because I’m one of His kids. Reading through the Bible I find plenty of common folks catapulted into history because God likes showing up when the odds are not good.
So, you can listen to the broadcast on Rhonda’s website.
Let me tell you how I met this great lady.
I was poking around on LinkedIn and noticed that someone had checked out RFKC. When I looked up the person’s name it turned out to be Rhonda Sciortino and she was an author! Her first book
From Foster Care to Millionaire
caught my attention. I read it and knew we had to meet. So I zipped off an email and arranged for her to come by the Royal Family KIDS office.
The meeting was amazing and she has been a friend of RFK ever since. Rhonda has spoken at many of our camp fundraisers and church services and has been a keynote speaker for our annual leadership conference. Our people adore her! She carries herself with a humble confidence that points to the grace of God working through her life. Pick up a copy of her new book,
When I was seven years old, I received P.D. Eastman’s best-selling children’s book Are You My Mother? as a gift. It was my favorite book for a long time.
In the story, a mother bird’s egg is about to hatch. The egg begins to rustle around, and the mother bird goes off to find her soon-to-arrive baby something to eat. The baby bird hatches while its mother is away, and he wonders where his mother is. The baby bird goes off to look for his mother but, not knowing what she looks like, walks right past her.
It was at a Royal Family KIDS training and after forty years of pushing “mom thoughts” out of my mind – it happened.
It took me right back to the feelings I couldn’t put words to or explain as a child. I realized that I didn’t know some very important pieces of information about my birth mother. I didn’t know what she looked like. I didn’t know what her voice sounded like. I didn’t know what she smelled like. I began to heave sobs. Somehow that little guy’s voice and the yellow words in the darkness became a long-lost key to a door that had been locked for over 40 years.
THEN… Just before my book is released, my cousin calls and says, “are you ready for some news?”
Robin and I were sitting outside our daughter’s (Ally) work.
It turns out that my cousin found my birth mom. She’s 78 years old and has been living in Lakewood (where we lived for 25 years) for the past 9 years. What?!
You mean I actually could have passed her in the grocery store or at the mall? Yes. At present she doesn’t want much to do with me. Realize, this is a lot to spring on a senior after 50 years of trying to forget. I sent her a copy of my book and told her that she has three additional, beautiful, grown grandchildren and that I’m doing well. I hope somewhere inside this brings her comfort and a little bit of pride. Believe me, my life would have turned out very different if it hadn’t been for Jesus and my wife, Robin.
So today I’m reflecting on Mother’s Day very differently.
I miss my adopted mom very much. She died in 2009. I always dedicated my “mom thoughts” to her on this day.
But now my mind also shifts towards the woman who gave me life. She carried me through 9 months of vague, tumultuous relationship with my bio dad. She had 9 months of wondering what to do with the youngest of her 7 or 8 children (possibly from different fathers). After I was born she was instructed to leave and never have anything to do with me. That’s the way it’s been for 50 years.
The story continues. I’ll keep ya posted as I find out how things turn out.
I know it would seem that the coolest part of the evening would be the new book launch or the line of people wanting me to autograph their copy. But you know what – that is nothing compared to these people standing behind me to celebrate.
It’s their moment too.
Robin and I have made it a priority to push ourselves, work hard and do everything we possibly can do as long as we can do it – all for the Kingdom of God. We wanted to set a path and a pace for our children so they could see imperfect – yet passionate – parents following God with all our heart.
Last night’s book launch was a huge success. I am so thankful to Wayne and Royal Family KIDS for such an opportunity. The book is now for sale. Just click on the links to the right. We’ll ship it out from the RFK office. Please indicate on the PayPal form if you’d like it signed. I’m working on the audio CD and the mp3 version should be ready soon. Enjoy. Let me know what you think by leaving comments here on the blog.
