Those who live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

— I John 2:1-17

I received a piece of counsel many years ago that has served me well when I have heeded it.

Basically, it was, “Find someone who is where you want to be and find out how they got there.”

If you see a marriage that you would like to have, get close to that couple. Ask questions. Observe. Follow in their footsteps.

Ditto with career progress, financial management, friendships, parenting, spiritual maturity, etc.

Wisdom must be mined.

We can’t know what we don’t know, but we can choose to actively learn.

John was Jesus’ best friend. He knew him up close and personal and wanted nothing more than to honor him with his life.

He was the disciple who lived into old age. The others were all killed.

He wrote this letter decades after Jesus ascended to heaven, but his heart and mind were filled with the memories and the character of his friend.

To know God is to love God is to obey God — just like Jesus did.

Jesus lived out love … so should we.

Our love for others in word and deed is the true light that this world desperately needs.

Yikes! There are quite a few people in this old world who do not give us the warm fuzzies. They’re prickly. Many of whom may be Jesus followers as well. Ugh.

“I’ll just avoid them,” we say. “I’ll fake it till I make it,” we say.

Truly love them? Hmm … not so much.

And then here comes Jesus, “Do unto others as you would have done to you.”

Jesus lived the truth of that commandment.

Amazingly, we are the prickly ones he chose to love, the ones he died for anyway.

We love each other because he first loved us. No other reason is necessary.

Dew in the sunlight

“O Israel and Judah, what should I do with you?” asks the Lord. For your love vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight.

— Hosea 6 & 7

On one of my visits to an elderly church family member, I greeted her with the familiar, “How are you doing?”

Her response was priceless.

“I’m finer than frog’s hair!” she said.

I had never heard that expression before.

At first, I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but her big grin gave it away.

Basically, it means one is doing tremendously well.

The turn of phrase is meant to draw special attention to the intensity of how good one is feeling. Words can paint both beautiful and disturbing scenes in our minds.

As God was giving his message to Hosea the prophet for his people, he used powerful expressions that hit us as hard as they hit them thousands of years ago.

God was describing their love for him using everyday realities as a point of constant reminder: vanishing mist, dew in the sunlight — here one minute, gone the next.

Later on, he adds they are “as useless as a crooked bow.”

Whoa, that’s not good.

These descriptions are intentionally harsh. as was his promise to use a net to “bring them down like a bird from the sky.”

If only they would have listened.

Reading this I began to wonder what turn of phrase God would use to describe my love for him these days.

What about you?

What would he say about our readiness for kingdom use and his response to our lives?

Try these on for size to see if they fit:

-My love for God is as deep as the ocean and as sure as the tides.

-I’m as ready for use as a newly fire-forged sword in the hands of a great warrior.

God said, “I will raise you up like a sharp mountain peak piercing the sky.”

Wiles is senior minister of Fall Creek Christian Church in Pendleton. He can be reached at 765-778-3166.