Hi Chris...
I just read both of those passages over.
He says in Matthew 24, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold."
I've been thinking a lot lately about the exhortation in Hebrews, "And let us consider one another, to provoke unto love and good works..."
That is, acts of love that provoke us to the same intensity of love. Love is a fire. If we walk in the obedience and love of Christ... it is a fire that catches in one another. And instead of our love growing cold, it gets hotter. How we need this.
Here's an act of love I heard about.
In the days of the early Anabaptists (1569) there was a man named Dirk Willems who was fleeing his persecutors. He ran across a frozen pond, and the man chasing him also ran out onto the ice. But the ice then gave way, and the man fell into deep water. He cried out. Dirk heard him, and stopped running.
What now would he do? His escape was sure now. But he turned and ran back... and reached out his arm to resucue his enemy, pulling him up to safety.
By then others who had been chasing him arrived at the edge of the pond. Seeing them, the man who had fallen through the ice, instead of returning mercy for mercy, seized Dirk and took him into custody.
Shortly thereafter, he was burned at the stake. And while dying he was crying out to Heaven, "Oh, forgive them, O forgive them, O forgive them..."
This is love, as someone has said, heated to the point of sacrifice. But is it always to be our portion only to read about these things, or hear about them in faraway lands?
"Let us consider one another to provoke unto love..."
"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ hath forgiven you."
AD
