From the Heart by B.Demaere

Love one another with brotherly affection.  Outdo one another in showing honor.  (Romans 12:10) (ESV) WOW! That’s a new concept…Competing, outdoing one another in love.   We all like to compete, we see it in churches all the time.   We see it in children as well.   Competing for attention, but how about competing in loving our pastor more or anybody else for that matter. Here are verse 9,10 in the Message translation (A translation in English is the same verse said in a different way) Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it.   Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good.   Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. This says it differently…play second fiddle means put the other before you.   Play to accompany, to uplift. In other words, God expects us to excel in love and get better and better at it.   We got to outdo, outperform one another in love.   Not comparing to the other but constantly outdo for the sake of God’s reputati

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud. Or rude It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, And it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice. But rejoice whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith. Is always hopeful, And endures through every circumstance. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)   Here we have love in its purest form.   Love of God is part of the fruit of the Spirit, and it is a gift for us to share with people and with God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives : love , joy, peace… (Galatians 5:22) This kind of Love can only be produced by the Spirit of God in us, otherwise our hearts only produce vanity and pride and all kind of prejudices. The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.   Who really knows how bad it is? (Jeremiah 17:9) That is why love that is not too far out of reach is available to us throug

  Does Jesus Care even for you? That is a good question.   Does Jesus care even for you?   Let us face it, in a world with a population of over 8 Billion people where is his mind? It may not even be believable, but his mind is on you.   He cares for you.   In Matthew 9:36-38, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, Because they were harassed and helpless, like Sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out Workers into his harvest field.”   I wonder how many over the years have interpreted these verses as a plea for the Lord to send “missionaries” into the world rather than a look into the heart of Jesus for the needs of the world, your need for mental comfort.   He saw the crowds as a discouraged people in need of a Shepherd.   He told his disciples to pray for workers to meet the needs of the discouraged world and if you think the world is

Wherever you are in this world, I hope you have had a good start.   I challenged myself about this year being for me an “I can do it” year based on the Bible. I Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Simple is it not? This is my personal challenge.   Not to do all kind of things but do those things for which Christ gives me strength. To be able to trust him to give me these things without fretting about them and for his strength to enable me to do them without fear. My prayer is for me and you to be able to do those things with his love which will represent not just actions but actions with love as an impact.   Our motivations will be very important this year.   I realize more and more as I grow older that my motives behind my actions matter more than the actions themselves.   I am persuaded that when someone cooks a meal the very love they produced in making the meal, can be tasted for many years after the meal has been digested by the people

  Plug into Love At first, when I thought of plugging in John 15:4 that speaks about “abiding in Jesus”.   The Holy Spirit turned my thoughts to Love in 1 John 4:16-18. We have known and have believed the love God has for us.   God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remain in them.   This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on the Judgment Day, because we are exactly the same as God is in this world.   There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment.   The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love. Usually, unfortunately we interpret this verse on Love vs Fear as meaning to “not to be afraid of anything”, but as I thought more about these verses, I realized it might mean something entirely different such as our distancing from projects of services around the house or around our community or even church.   Is it not interesting that fear in the context of being hesitant

  Relationships As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17) Over the years in my relationships with people and more specifically in my marriage, I have learned that God’s design for relationships was to make us better people.  This does not have to be interpreted in a certain way or another.  It means simply means that at the start of any good relationship, individuals start as being dull in the matter of life and as time goes by, each are matured and sharpened in qualities that were weak to start with. The constant friction that should always encourage communication with time is enough to make us better tools for God’s service. Daily communication is meaningful. Sharpening of tools is necessary for growth.   Creativity is constantly needed in communication, and it takes two to grow from strength to strength. In the matter of marriage for example there should be a constant molecular movement of communication of feelings and words and especially w

  Not just nice words (John 15:22 – 16:1) Chapter 15:4 Abide in Jesus like a branch abide in the Vine.    He is the Vine Chapter 15:9 Abide in my Love, in my commandments. You are my friends. Abide and you will bear fruit. Chapter 15:18-21 As a result of the fruit in your life persecution will come. As it is for Jesus it will be for you.  The Love that perspires out of your life is too much for them to take. To make a long story shorter, I feel that our call is to abide in Christ who is the Vine and that out of this abiding Love will blossom in our lives and affect others.  When it Love comes to you don’t stop it and when it goes out of you, that Love don’t stop it.  This wind of love will affect in turn the world who will see Jesus and like they did to him, they will persecute you.  But here is the part I am excited about (Chapter 15:26). During these changes, the Holy Spirit who is a person not a thing will be with you and as you keep doing his commandments.  He, the Holy Spirit who

  The Power of Teamwork In any situation such as the home and work teamwork is very valuable. My wife and I have been together 35 years and a great deal of that has been because of our love for each other and team spirit in our relationship. You can incorporate the team idea to anything.   Encourage to home environment to be a team by involving the whole family to play games and engage in team activities or sports.   In doing shores together.   Even family devotion or just time well spend together other than TV watching. What destroys team spirit is the individual use of surfing on electronic devices such as phones and laptops.   The loneliness has increased since people have touch on social media.   What we thought would make us more socialized has isolated us instead. After COVID we need to team up and be a society again. For example, in the book of Nehemiah in the Bible, chapter 3.   We see that a whole community of Israelites had united and worked together to rebuild th

                             The Mirror This reflects who I am.  My past is my mirror and out of this mirror we can both learn from.  Whatever I share in these blogs I had to experience it myself. Here it is… I ran from God in my past but no matter how far I ran away from him .   I find that in the end I could not hide. I had to acknowledge my problems before him, even though he knows everything. For my own good I had to confess my faults to go forward.  Something similar is  taught everywhere in self-improvement books?   Well, it comes from the Bible. Whenever, someone runs and hide from God they run into problems, severe problems like all kinds of addictions and other sins.   The only answer is to run toward him and be loved by him. You, who have never been loved.    Like the Beatles’ song: “All you need is Love”.   It is true to a point, but sex is not love.   In a marriage setting, it is an expression of love.    Sex was created by God for marriage as a blessing.   It is not

  Love surpasses Religion (Luke 7:36-50) Simon, the Pharisees had welcomed Jesus in his house.  After all, it made him look great in the eyes of his peers and his disciples.  A woman of poor reputation, probably an adulteress or prostitute came in the house.  (God often uses ‘sinners’ to test religion’s authenticity and this situation is no exception).  This woman opened her heart to Jesus and poured all the love she had for him.  It was worship at its highest degree.  She knew who Jesus was and she didn’t care about her own reputation anymore.  She had none left.  She had probably spent all her love on men to no avail.  Now she fell empty of self at Jesus’s feet with the most expensive perfume she could find.  She had made lots of her money through prostitution and now she was not willing to use it on herself but on Jesus the only one who could save her soul.  What are you using your money on?  What was this Pharisee using his money for?  But she was using her money to exalt Jesus. 

  Family Affairs   Don’t miss it I know that we are busy in life or rather that we like to keep ourselves busy, while our infant girl or even teenager is crying silently for our attention.  They might even be desperately wanting your approval or guidance in their life.  But you will not give it to them simply because…you are lost in your business.  Love is yet an essential need of anyone of any age.  What you give to your children now is what they will give you in return when they grow up and more.  If they are miserable now chances are that you will be miserable with them when they grow up.  That is the fate we reap in our lives. Be all there My life with my children was good when I was ‘all there’ with them.  When I was not given to worry about our finances and rapped in myself with divers’ anxieties.  I enjoyed playtime with them, but not fully there.  It took us a while before I realized that I needed medications to live well.  Prior that time life was very chaotic; we mo

  We are born expecting We live for short term hope for the next best thing that we hope will soothe us like a pacifier. Throughout life, we are given false hope over and over like in our next paycheque. Then the proverbial carrot is moved every inch further and we hope some more. It would be so much nicer if we could be richer and we buy a lottery ticket for luck as if luck was on our side. We find ourselves in a long tunnel that is life always told by too many people how our lives should be. We end up expecting less and less toward the end when we retire in a space that is getting smaller and smaller waiting for that something to happen when we will be maybe richer. Thinking that maybe we will experience some happy moments with people. All that we have left now is people to love until the end when the space becomes a box and to dust we return as a promise given to us long time ago. To dust we have returned no longer after anything or anyone. Except yes, for the one we h

  65. You have done many good things for me, Lord, just as you promised.  66. I believe in your commands; now teach me good judgment and knowledge.  67. I used to wander off until you disciplined me; but now I closely follow your word.  68.You are good and do only good; teach me your principles.  69. Arrogant people have made up lies about me, but in truth I obey your commandments with all my heart.  70. Their hearts are dull and stupid, but I delight in your law.  71. The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles.  72. Your law is more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver!  (Psalm 119:65-72) 1) Introduction In this portion of this psalm, we, see the balance of discipline and goodness from God. 2) For what is to come (v.65-66) Provision from God of wisdom and knowledge.  Expecting his discipline and his display of goodness.  We need the wisdom to see it coming.  We need the knowledge to understand the difference. 3) Good all the

I want you to know how much I have agonized for you and for the church at Laodicea, and for many other friends who have never known me personally.  My goal is that  they will be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love.  I want them to have full confidence because they have complete understanding of God's secret plan, which is Christ himself.  In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I am telling you this so that no one will be able to deceive you with persuasive arguments.  For though I am away from you, my heart is with you. And I am very happy because you are living as you should and because of your strong faith in Christ. The historic background of Paul's life is that he was probably born in 5 AD and became a believer at the age of about  28-30 years.  Here in 60 AD when he writes this letter he is around 60 years old and agonizing in prayer for people he had known only while living in Ephesus. My question is then, how much more stronger must

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.  It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Well, I hope you had a great day yesterday and today. The foundation of the Word is faith.  Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2 NLT) "We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish" (the KJV says the Author).  Faith can be translated or interpreted to be Hope which in the Epistle to the Hebrews is described as an anchor.  An anchor is what keeps a boat in the place you want it to be, steady even in the storm.(Hebrews 6:19) On that foundation of faith we built. There is a thread running through the Bible, it is red and it represent, blood.  The blood of Jesus that was shed for us.  That thread appears in the book of Joshua as Rahab puts it by her window (Joshua 2:17-21).  It's there as a sign of salvation to her family.  The family of a prostitute, a Gentile and a descendant of Jesus.  The way to

Hearing this, a man sitting at the table with Jesus exclaimed, "What a privilege it would be to have a share in the Kingdom of God!" Jesus replied with this illustration: "A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitation.  When all was ready. he sent his servant around to notify the guests that it was time for them to come.  But they all began making excuses.  One said he had just bought a field and wanted to inspect it, so he asked to be excused.  Another said he just had bought five pair of oxen and wanted to try them out.  Another had just been married, so he said he couldn't come. The servant returned and told his master what they had said.  His master was angry and said: 'Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the city and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.'  After the servant had done this , he reported, 'There is still room for more.'  So his master said, 'Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges