For quite some time I have been thinking much about love, more specificly the love of Christ in the heart of a Christian.
Here are just a few thoughts of mine on the subject. I would like to hear some other thoughts as well.
[b]Compelled by Love[i]By Jesse Morrell
Reality, with all of its forces and all the powers which exists within it, none are so unshakable or so unmovable or so eternity impacting as the never failing love of God. This force brought The Divine down to the finite, The Eternal to the time-stricken, made the indestructible destructible, and the destructed eternally risen. God, from His essence to His actions is saturated and overflowing with divine, sacred love, as a fountain never ceasing or an eruption ever bursting.
Of all that ought to be sought after to understand, to comprehend, to put into action, the love of God has no competitors. Yet it would seem, and with great grief and sadness I must proclaim, that true love and its meaning are a stranger and foreigner to many today who travel the grounds of Christendom, especially to many that profess to have obtained it.
The very word love has been prostituted, abused, and passed around by many. Sinful hands have twisted and molded the meaning of sacred love. We are then left with a mutilated and deformed definition which is entirely opposite of the true. The wounds of compromise within the body of Christ has been covered over and excused all under the name of love. And the result is that what many believers call love is nothing more then what Heaven would call compromise.
Love is not passive but is powerful. Love is not emotion but is effort. Love is not tolerant but is tenacious. When there is love there is action, when there’s no love there is lacking.
And since love is the substance of God, then love must be the very essence of Christians. Love must be the very blood which runs through our veins, ever pumping steadily, keeping us going, giving us life.
And this love that gives life, paradoxically, leads us to death. The life giving love of the cross was founded upon the life giving sacrifice of the Savior. The love that compelled the All Loving must also compel the beloved, to their own crosses, for the sake of the unlovely.
Muted mouths and silent witnesses are the rotten fruit of a tree void of this love. And so the unloving are the non-witnessing, they are the non-caring, the passive, the idle, the pew dwellers. But voices booming and witness un-ignorable are the blossomed fruit of the branch connected to the Divine flow of Love.
“For the love of Christ compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14)
When the devil reigns unchallenged and iniquity flourishes un-confronted, may the love of Christ compel us!
When the blood of the innocent is shed through abortion because of the sins of the wicked, may the love of Christ compel us!
When the perversions of homosexuals and sodomites are corrupting and twisting the children that survive the on slaughter of abortion, may the love of Christ compel us!
When the streets are flooded with sin and ungodliness, with drunkenness and reveling, may our hearts flood with the love of God that we may all boldly march together as the united body of Christ, into the public arena, under the banner of the gospel of Jesus, to declare God’s command to a wicked world, “Repent! And believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
A church without a voice, a Christian without a tongue, makes for a puppet of the devil! The devil is at rest when God’s people have hearts as cold as ice, as the hearts of the wicked are as filthy as a sewer. But when the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5), it would compel the saints of God to recapture a fallen generation, taken captive by the enemy.
Love is never stopping, never surrendering, and never tolerating the moral destruction of God’s universe. It ever marches forcefully forward, conquering and claiming for the soon coming Christ. It does not sleep, it does not slumber, but it startles and stirs up! It corrects and confronts.
Love is not only for the soft, but also for the strong! “Those who spare the rod hate their children” (Proverb 13:24). And those who spare confrontation hate the wicked. Those who spare the light hate those in darkness.
The same love the burned in the heart of Christ as He hung bleeding on the roman cross at Calvary, was the same love that consumed His heart as He made a whip and turned over the money changers tables in the temple. The same love that He had which comforted the sick, healed the blind, cured the lame, raised the dead, was the same love that caused Him to confronted the internally abominable, declaring the righteous judgments of God, and warning of an eternal hell. “For I the Lord love judgment” (Isaiah 61:8).
God’s great men have always publicly reproved and rebuked sin. A Christian full of Christ’s love will have a life full of Christ’s actions and a mouth full of Christ’s words. “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Revelations 3:19). The rebuking man must love, and the loving man must rebuke! Whether we exhort or rebuke, teach or preach, love must be our motivation, our essence, and our core! Anything else is sin and ungodly.
Holy love is not void or absent of holy hatred. While sacred love has been misused and misunderstood, holy hatred has been degraded and stigmatized. Love and hatred are not arch enemies, but are colleagues, striving and laboring together for the same cause.
To love all righteousness one must hate all unrighteousness. To love the truth one must hate falsehood. “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil”. (Ps 97:10) “Hate the evil, and love the good” (Amos 5:15). It’s impossible to love without hating or to hate without loving. A heart that loves sin has no love for a Holy God. And a heart that loves a Holy God has no love for wicked sin.
To be compelled by the love of Christ, one must also be compelled by His hatred for sin! To see a Holy God glorified, and sin entirely defeated, and the lost completely saved, is the inescapable mission, and undeniable purpose, of all those who have the love of Christ in their hearts!
As the works of Christ’s charity are in our hands, and the words of Christ’s’ gospel are in our mouths, may the heart of Christ’s love beat within our breasts, that God be glorified, and sinners saved.
In essence, the stench of the dead corpse of religion, and the rotting carcass of the world, reeks greatly today throughout all of our land. But when the life and love of God comes rushing and bursting through, as a breeze of fresh air, the dead and decaying corpse and carcass will be resurrected unto newness of life, to forever praise and honor and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ!! Amen and amen!