God Running is a place for anyone who wants to (or even anyone who wants to want to) love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.

In our last post I shared about the fragility and the brevity of life. If you’re interested you can read more here: An Unexpected Death in My Family. In today’s post we’ll pick up where we left off in the book of Acts, a place that happens to fit perfectly with the loss my family and I have experienced recently.

Acts 20:13-38

But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we went to Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

Now from Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them:

“You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all; they embraced Paul and kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again. And they accompanied him to the ship.

Paul’s Tearful and Sorrowful Goodbye

In today’s text we learn about Paul’s travel route, and along that route Paul stopped in Miletus where he sent word to Ephesus and called the elders of the church there to come to him.

Paul had recently spent more than two years with these elders of Ephesus. (Acts 19:1-10) And when he addresses them, he recounts how, during that time, Paul loved God well and loved the Jesus followers of Ephesus well. And Paul also shares that the Holy Spirit has shown him that they will never see him again.

And in the final paragraph of chapter 20 we see Paul kneeling down and praying with all the Ephesians. And knowing that this is the final goodbye, and knowing they’ll never see Paul again:

There was much weeping and they embraced Paul and kissed him, and they were filled with sorrow because they knew they would never see him again.

Love and Pain

And that’s the thing about this deep abiding khesed love of Jesus we keep talking about. Inevitably it results in pain. In our last post I wrote about the phone call I received from an Ashland, Oregon police officer informing me my mother was found dead in her apartment. It was terribly unexpected. We had no idea she would die last week. That’s her picture at the top of this post. But the thing is, the more I studied Jesus the more I realized I needed to love my mom well. So over the last ten years or so I invested more and more of myself in that relationship.

As a result, we grew very close.

We experienced that deep abiding khesed love.

And as a result of that love, the pain from losing her is all the more intense.

In our text for today we see the same dynamic. Paul and the Ephesians loved each other with the deep abiding khesed love of Jesus, and the result was intense pain, and weeping, and sorrow.

But do you know what?

It’s worth it.

I have some extraordinary pain as a result of loving my mother the way Jesus prescribes. But what I don’t have are regrets.

In fact, I would say, the only way to live a life without regret is to love the people God puts in your life with the deep abiding love of Jesus.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Available on Google Play Books and on Amazon!

Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus)

Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:

• Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
• How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
• The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
• How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
• How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
• How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
• How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
• How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
• How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.

With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.

A life of loving like Jesus. (Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon and the ebook is now available on Google Play Books.)