HIdden Love

For Friday, November 16, 2007
Proverbs 27:5

Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.

Open rebuke is painful and shameful. It is difficult enough to receive rebuke well, but to receive such in the presence of others naturally leads to shame. We then want to defend ourselves, and especially prove the rebuker wrong. Whether we are able to or not, we no longer trust him or regard him as a friend.

But as painful as such an incident may be, even worse is to withhold love, to keep it hidden. Hidden love does not shame or offend; it discourages. It does not shock; it quietly demoralizes. Open rebuke, as painful as it may be to receive, can awaken us to what has been lacking or offensive in us. It can spur us to change that is good. Hidden love reinforces our faults because it is love that motivates us to good.

Hidden love is offensive, for it is a lie. To love someone and keep that love hidden is deception. How then does one display love? God gives the model. He showed his love by sending his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for us. Christ showed his love to the Father by willingly obeying. Jesus has told us that we show love to him by obeying his commandments. We know that the Father delights in our worship. And so then, we learn to show our love to one another - when we gladly make sacrifices for one another; when we listen to one another and do what matters for the other; when we praise one another. And even when we rebuke (privately) each other, for the other's good. Love is to be displayed, as God displayes his love to and for us.

Jealousy

For Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Proverbs 27:4

Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming,
but who can stand before jealousy?

A person can be jealous about us. He is jealous of our good fortune - the money we earn, our popularity, whatever it is that he perceives we have and he wants. In that jealousy, he become our enemy, or, rather, makes us the enemy. We have what he does not, and he will act, not merely to attain what we have, but to take it from us. Indeed, more important than getting what we have is to see that we lose it. He wants us to feel the loss that he feels.

A person can also be jealous for us. He wants us, and he does not want to share. He is resentful of the attention others show us. Nor does he want us sharing. He cannot abide us being friendly towards others. He certainly cannot abide us loving others. He would rather us feel his pain than be happy with others.

How dangerous then is such a person. An angry man loses his anger when his attention is diverted to other things. Cruel wrath often is not personal. We experience harm while we are in its way, but it will pass. The jealous man, though, is obsessed with the person about whom or for whom it is jealous. His happiness is tied up in the fortune of the person with whom he is obsessed.

We are in danger of becoming that jealous person if our joy is not found in God alone. For as much as we love God, then as much we will rejoice in the fortunes of others, especially in their standing with our Lord. Because the love of God is so satisfying, we cannot be jealous of what others have. Jealousy, then, becomes a good measure of our satisfaction with God.