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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ben Stuart
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November 18 - November 28, 2023
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. —1 John 4:7
Where there is scarcity, there’s desperation. And where there is desperation, there is exploitation.
When you have a source of life, you are a source of life. But where there is scarcity, desperation will set in. And desperation can easily become exploitation of others.
When we bring God-sized needs to human beings, they cannot possibly succeed.
Nor can we offer them unconditional love on the days they are struggling, because they are our source!
We must get a relationship with God right before we will ever get a relationship with a guy or a girl right.
The vast majority of the Scriptures cover the importance of a relationship with God.
Your relationship with a guy or a girl, though important, is not the most critical relationship in your life, and it is not the relationship that God is the most concerned with.
He also said to her, “If you knew who it was speaking to you, you would have asked me, and I would give you living water.” What Jesus was saying to this woman was, “You have been looking for satisfaction for a deep soul thirst in the arms of men and you cannot find it there. You have misdiagnosed your need.”
We have to be connected to a source of life if we are going to be a source of life.
He said, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7–8).
He pointed upstream. Love! Why, John? Because love flows down to you from God.
Let me declare a simple principle: our affection burns off the fuel of truth. If we want to feel loved, then we must begin with knowing that we truly are loved.
First, love sends. It cannot sit still. Love moves. Love expresses itself in action.
Second, love sacrifices. Love gives all for the sake of the beloved.
Third, love stays. Love delights in the presence of the beloved. And love will stay, even when the staying is hard.
True love stays even when it is hard. True love stays when everyone else walks out.
Love sends. Love sacrifices. Love stays.
God did not wait until we were worthy before he sought us out. He didn’t wait until we were organized, sanitized, religious, moral, or good. He came while we were “far off,” “enemies,” “not seeking,” “not interested,” and “hostile.” How do you know you are loved by God? Because “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
I watched my roommate count the cost:
And if I have to pay a steep cost—I will gladly pay it.
Gladly paying the cost to be with his beloved. Because that is what love does. Love sacrifices.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
You do not need to spend a single moment of your life trying to earn the love or esteem of others. You have his. You do not need to look for anyone to fill up your tank of love. You can find an abundance in him.
My friend, it is the same with love. When we know we are connected to the inexhaustible acceptance, forgiveness, grace, and care of the God of the universe, then we are free to extend that same love to all who are in need.
First John 4:19 declares that “We love because he first loved us.”
God has ordained a season of singleness for every human being on the planet. Singleness does not exist simply as an extended adolescence, a pursuit of career ambition, or a preparatory phase for marriage. Rather, God has ordained the unique freedoms of single life not for distractions or ambitions, but for devotion to him.
I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. —1 Corinthians 7:7
To illustrate how oftentimes what we want in the moment is not always what is best for us in the long run. And what is best for us, we do not always value and appreciate. Some gifts are more welcomed than others.
Sometimes the most loving gift God can give us is singleness.
Paul just called singleness a gift.1
Now he was explaining that this wish was not cruel, but rather for their good. It is a condition that can provide benefit to them. He continued, “Not to lay any restraint upon you.” This literally means “not to put a rope around your neck.”
God’s decision to make you single for a season is not to choke you. It is not to hold you back or hurt you. It certainly does not arise from a sick sense of humor in God.
Sometimes the most loving gift God can give us is singleness.
So then what is singleness for? Paul declared that it exists “to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord” (NASB).
Rather, he was asserting that singleness, dating, and marriage, while important, are not the main story line of your life.
It is imperative we understand that the amount of time on the clock should affect how we play the game.
Life is short. Not just for us as individuals, but in all of history. Therefore, when we look at men and women in the world, we should be far more concerned about the state of their soul than their relationship status. The amount of time is short, thus God has ordained a period of time where you’re not married or dating to help you focus in on what matters most. As Paul told us, “To promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:35 NASB).
Our relationship with God matters far more than anything else in this life. So God ordains singleness so that we might be able to focus entirely on the One we were made by and for.
Paul was advocating singleness because it gives you a liberty from the anxieties and stresses of marriage.
“The unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband” (v. 34).
I don’t want you to miss the benefits of now, because you’re fixated on the benefits of then.
It is freedom with a purpose. Not to fill it with distractions, but to pursue an undistracted devotion to the Lord. That’s what it’s for.
But if you let that desire steal all the joy of your present single stage, you are missing out on the benefits available to you in this season of life right now.
“Let not our longing slay our appetite for living.”
God has ordained the single season for a purpose, and I want you to live it to the hilt. Paul stated in verse 32 of 1 Corinthians 7, “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.” He continued in verse 34, “the unmarried . . . woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit.”
But whether your season of singleness is long or short, you can know that God has granted you this season as a gift, and it is a gift with a purpose: to pursue an undistracted devotion to him. All that is left is for you to ponder the question: What will that look like for me?
Make the decision now that nothing in life will keep you from fulfilling the purposes of your great King. Never quit. Paul wanted death to be his finish line. You should too.
He commanded women to train up younger women (Titus 2:3–4).
In 3 John 4, the apostle declared, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” You want joy like that? Invest in the next generation.
