How Will They Know We Are Christians?

by Mabel Ninan

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. John 15:12 NASB

My son’s forehead burned with fever. I dipped a small towel in a bowl of cold water, wrung it, and placed it on Ryan’s forehead. I dialed the pharmacy to check if the medicine prescribed by the doctor for my son’s flu was in stock. When they told me it was not available, I called another pharmacy and another one. In between phone calls, I continued the cold compress. I sighed as I hung up the phone.

“The medicine that the doctor prescribed is sold out,” I held Ryan’s hand in mine. “We’ll have to ride this fever out. All we need is prayer, rest, and fluids.” Ryan squeezed my hand and said gently, “It’s OK, mom. Thank you for making all those calls and taking care of me.”

Surprised at my eleven-year-old’s genuine expression of gratitude, I smiled. “You’re so sweet. But you don’t have to thank me. I’m your mom. This is what I do because I love you.”

The list of things I do for my young son is long – care for his day-to-day needs, play with him, discipline him, teach him the Bible, help him with his schoolwork, organize birthday parties and playdates, among others. Most times, I don’t complain or grumble about my duties. I take pleasure in loving my son because that’s who I am. I am a mother.

Ryan’s comment made me think about my identity not only as a mother but also a Christian. The distinct marker of a Christian, according to the Bible, is love. Jesus said loving God and loving others sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:37-40). The natural by-product and evidence of our love for God is in our love for people.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:7-10 (NIV)

While we were still sinners, God sent His Son to die on the cross so that we could have abundant and eternal life. This basic truth about our salvation reveals the essence and foundation of love. God’s love becomes the source and driving force of our love for others and is possible when this truth sinks deep into our hearts, affecting how we think and act.

I must admit that loving others is not always easy. I can grumble and complain about my friends’ attitudes or opinions. I avoid difficult relationships to protect my fragile ego. I also tend to give up on people, losing my patience with them. During those times, I can rehearse the truth about God’s sacrificial love and ask the Holy Spirit to increase the reserves of God’s love in my heart.

When people experience our radical love, they are drawn to God, which in turn fulfills the purpose of our lives to glorify God and make Him known. Love joins our Christian identity and purpose in such a beautiful and powerful way that it becomes our defining quality. Just like my son knew I loved him through my actions, the world must also know that we are Christians by our love.

This article is brought to you by the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA).

About the author: Mabel Ninan is an author, speaker, Bible teacher, and host of the YouTube podcast, Immigrant Faith Stories. Her first book, Far from Home: Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth, reveals her self-discovery as a sojourner on earth as well as a citizen of heaven. An award-winning writer, Mabel’s writings have appeared in Upper Room, CBN.com, LeadingHearts.com, (in)courage.me and the YouVersion app.

Join the conversation: Is there someone in your life who you’re unable to love? How can you ask God to pour out His love in your heart so you can show love to this person?

You Shall Not Covet

by Mabel Ninan

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Exodus 20:17 NIV

When I stepped into my backyard one morning, a huge, bright, yellow, all-smiles sunflower greeted me. The 8-foot-long plant that also brought a smile to my face belonged to my neighbor and stood right by the fence separating our backyards.

My admiration soon turned into something negative when I compared those blooming sunflowers with my withering and fading flowers. I wanted what my neighbor had. Within moments, an uneasy feeling confirmed that I had just sinned.

The last of the Ten Commandments deals with covetousness. After delivering the Israelites out of 400 years of bondage in Egypt, God gave those commandments to instruct them how to live in a way that would set them apart as His people. He wanted their lives to reflect Him—the one to whom they belonged, served, and worshipped.

The Ten Commandments not only reveal God’s character,  they directly address common struggles humans face because of their very nature.   

Many of us wrestle with covetousness. We may not quickly see it as sin, because it’s not an outward action. It’s a problem of the heart. Covetousness is unholy because it displeases God. It demonstrates our discontentment with His provision and grace. Instead of recognizing God as the source of all that we have and being grateful to Him, we choose to complain.

Coveting affects more than our relationship with God; it also can damage our relationship with others. The last six of the Ten Commandments relate to how God’s people should treat one another. Murder, adultery, and bearing false witness, for example, are sins that cause hurt and destruction. When we compare our lot with others, believing we deserve more, and yearn for what they possess, we are not treating them with humility, love, and fairness. Covetousness can grow into envy and greed, jeopardizing our relationships with other people.

How privileged we are that we can count on the Holy Spirit’s supernatural guidance to steer us toward contentment! The Holy Spirit was faithful to convict me of my sin and nudge me to root it out of my heart and mind. Satisfied with God’s provision and good gifts, my heart overflowed with thankfulness. I recognized and appreciated the greatness of His grace and mercy toward me. And I realized that He has given me more than I deserve.

Contentment and gratefulness are the antidote to comparison and covetousness. In choosing them, I can actually be happy for my neighbor! God has blessed her with a beautiful garden just as He has blessed me with mine.

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Philippians 4:11-12 NIV

This article is brought to you by the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA).

About the author: Mabel Ninan is an author, speaker, Bible teacher, and host of the YouTube podcast, Immigrant Faith Stories. Her first book, Far from Home: Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth, reveals her self-discovery as a sojourner on earth as well as a citizen of heaven. An award-winning writer, Mabel’s writings have appeared in Upper Room, CBN.com, LeadingHearts.com, (in)courage.me and the YouVersion app.

Join the conversation: Have you found a key to being content with your life? Please share!

You’re Never Fatherless

by Mabel Ninan

I tightened my grip on my cell phone as the elderly woman from my Bible study recounted the painful details of her estrangement from her children. While all three children lived in the same state, none of them visited her. Her Christian faith, she said, offended them. She and I were only acquaintances, but the anguish in her voice saddened me. I prayed with her before I hung up the phone. 

Too often, a parent-child relationship can crumble, leaving both sides heartbroken. But it might surprise us to know our Heavenly Father can also be hurt by us.

In Hosea, God describes Himself as a tender, loving Father to Israel:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more they were called, the more they went away from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.  Hosea 11:1-4 NIV.

God’s heart aches when His children walk away from Him. By using the imagery of a loving and involved human parent, Hosea emphasizes that our Father’s love is real and true.

If you have known the love of a human father who told you jokes and tickled you till you cried, taught you how to ride a bike, helped with homework, read bedtime stories, or wrote a check when you were broke in college, you have experienced an iota of God’s fatherly love. 

But even the best of human fathers are imperfect models of our heavenly Father. Because God is the Creator, sovereign over the universe, all-knowing, all-powerful, and omnipresent, His fatherhood is superior to that of humans in all aspects. 

Maybe you’ve never experienced the love of a good father. Maybe your father was unkind or even abusive. Maybe you’ve recently lost your father. I hope you know that even in the absence of a good human father, you are not fatherless.

God loves and takes great delight in His children. We don’t have to strive for His approval or praise. God wants us to be in an intimate relationship with Him. When we wander away from Him or reject His love, He relentlessly pursues us. When we return to Him, He forgives us with great rejoicing. His faithfulness is not conditional upon our faithfulness. 

God does more than fill the shoes of an earthly father. He redefines fatherhood itself, loving us unto eternity without conditions and boundaries. He promises to never abandon us or remove His favor from us. He comforts us when we’re heartbroken and counsels and guides us when we need direction. He also knows how and when to supply our needs. We can depend on Him to help and deliver us.

God proved His great love by sending His Son to die for us, making it t possible for us to become His children. By faith, we receive our adoption as God’s children and now claim God as our Father. We are called to walk in childlike faith, relying on Him for provision and protection, and making every effort to draw closer to Him.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will–to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1: 5-6 NIV

This article is brought to you by the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA).

About the author: Mabel Ninan is an author, speaker, Bible teacher, and host of the YouTube podcast, Immigrant Faith Stories. Her first book, Far from Home: Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth, reveals her self-discovery as a sojourner on earth as well as a citizen of heaven. An award-winning writer, Mabel’s writings have appeared in Upper Room, CBN.com, LeadingHearts.com, (in)courage.me and the YouVersion app.

Join the conversation: When you think of God as your Father, what specific traits come to mind?

Homesick for Heaven

by Mabel Ninan

Rain reminds me of home.

It’s been raining almost incessantly where I live in northern California. The gentle pitter patter of rain and the sweet smell of wet earth fires neurons in my brains. Rain floods my mind with memories of India, my old and first homeland where I was born and raised.

The monsoon season in India lasts four months in a year. Rain permeates every aspect of our lives during this season, determining what we eat and wear, how we travel, and where we gather with friends. As a young girl, I remember eating hot samosas (a savory Indian snack) and drinking steaming cups of chai after school. When power outages made it harder to sleep sometimes at night, Dad would tell us stories. Or, we would gather with neighbors to play games and sing songs. Rain triggers homesickness, even after fourteen years of leaving India.

We experience a longing for home when we are away from home. A particular food dish, an old tune, a familiar scent, or a chance meeting with someone from our hometown can bring back memories of home. The pining for home is referred to as home-sickness probably because our hearts ache when we miss the comfort and familiarity of home.

I’ve come to embrace homesickness as an important and even beneficial part of my immigrant experience. It keeps my former home alive in my mind and increases anticipation for my next visit to India.

The apostle Paul also longed for home but not an earthly one.

“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:1-4 NIV).

Our human bodies are weak and fragile. We struggle to keep our thoughts fixed on God and to love Him with our whole hearts. Sin, suffering, and worldliness can keep us from experiencing perfect fellowship with God. We crave release from our earthly tents and look forward to our new, resurrected bodies so we can love God freely and fully. Like Paul, we can feel homesick for our eternal house in heaven when our desire for intimacy with God grows with each passing day.

Rain can make me homesick for an earthly homeland. But I experience homesickness for my future home whenever I pray for and with others, discover new truths about God through the study of the Bible, enjoy the gifts God has given me, feel His love and comfort during times of grief, or see Him at work in the everyday details of my life.

Keeping eternity on our minds can fuel our love for God and encourage us to live intentionally on earth. To be homesick for heaven is a gift that we can enjoy on earth even as we await the gift of heaven itself.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5: 6-8 NIV

This article is brought to you by the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA).

About the author: Mabel Ninan is an author, speaker, Bible teacher, and host of the YouTube podcast, Immigrant Faith Stories. Her first book, Far from Home: Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth, reveals her self-discovery as a sojourner on earth as well as a citizen of heaven. An award-winning writer, Mabel’s writings have appeared in Upper Room, CBN.com, LeadingHearts.com, (in)courage.me and the YouVersion app.

Join the conversation: Do you experience homesickness? How do you deal with that?