Love, As an Emotion

Love, as an emotion, is kind of a weird thing to think about.

Love is something that is deep and abiding, like a current in the ocean as opposed to a whitecap that forms when the wind blows and then disappears just as quickly. Love is the little “me” inside that is overflowing with enthusiastic excitement, and is dying just to be let out of his cage just so he can hold your hand and walk with you in the park. Love is the flesh of the wound that is inflicted when I hurt someone. Love feels grief, pain, and loneliness intensely; love softens the wounds of hatred, malice, and sharp remarks.

But love is not an emotion. All those emotions follow love like a bumper sticker, but love is not feeling. Love is a choice. Love is action. Love is deliberate; love is habitual. Love is so closely tied up with trust, honesty, and truth, that sometimes it seems hard to tell the one from the other. Love is boring at times, sometimes even drudgery, because love is working towards the greatest good, and that work is not always sunshine and roses. Love is bold and courageous, because I really have nothing to lose but myself, and love is not selfish.

Walking in Love and Truth

If we live in the Spirit of the Lord
Then let’s walk according to His Word
You and I can walk in love and truth

Live so they see
Our words and deeds agree

If we live in the Spirit of the Lord
Then let’s walk according to His Word
You and I can walk in love and truth

Walk in the light
‘Cause He is in the light

If we live in the Spirit of the Lord
Then let’s walk according to His Word
You and I can walk in love and truth

You say you do
Does your life prove you’re true?

A Gospel Question...

I was asked how to approach a homosexual with the gospel…

The first thing that you must remember is why you are talking to them in the first place. Are you approaching them because “they especially need the gospel”? Or are you telling them because you genuinely love them and want them to live their lives so that God is pleased with them? You must share the gospel because the love of God has been poured out in your heart through the Holy Spirit, and also (though not less important) the simple fact that we are commanded to bear witness of the gospel in all the earth.

If your motive for sharing the gospel is not pure, then you have other problems that are far more pressing than sharing the gospel with someone else (Matt. 7:3-5).

In general, you should not approach them any differently than any other sinner. My advice is to remember two things: first, to “let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” (Col. 4:6) Second, “in meekness [instruct] those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” (II Tim. 2:25) Meekness and graciousness are paramount, you must not treat them as less than human, or as more sinful than anyone else (Jas. 2:10-11) – they are just as human as everyone else, and certainly have not broken God’s law any worse than anyone else has.

Having said that -- you just take the same kind of approach that you would for anyone else: telling them of their rebellion toward God, of God's requirements, of the punishment that they deserve (that we all deserve), and of the salvation from sin that Christ has provided. Tell him that it is open to him specifically, and that Christ does not save us merely from the punishment of sin, but also from the power of sin in our lives so we can live rightly before Him. Then tell him what God requires of us for salvation -- that it is by faith that we receive it -- we don't go change ourselves and then come....we first turn to God, and He changes us, "for he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," and “repent ye, and believe the gospel.”


(Thanks to Daniel for prompting me to think about the topic.)

Looking the Part

"I once saw a man at a golf course step out of his cart and approach the first tee. He looked immaculate -- expensive set of clubs, sharp looking clothes, confidence all over his face. He looked every inch the pro...until he tried to play golf. He was simply not very good. He might have looked the part, but he should have just hung around the clubhouse where he was a convincing golfer instead of demonstrating his true abilities by actually attempting to play."
--Benny Perez

"We are a generation of cheap Christians going to heaven as inexpensively as possible; religious hobos and spiritual deadbeats living on milk instead of meat, crusts of bread instead of manna, as though we were on a cut-rate excursion."
--Vance Havner
_______________________

Are we dressed for the part of living for Christ -- but unable to actually live it out, as the golfer was? Do we have the form of godliness without the power of God? Are we truly living victoriously, using and showing the power of Christ....or would it be better if we just hung around in our "clubhouse", where we can look convincingly spiritual? If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit -- for if we live after the flesh, we shall die: but if we through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live; for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

If He has given us strength that is according to His glory (which He has), and if Christ dwells in our hearts by faith (which He does)-- we must live our lives out according to His glory, and according to the love in which we are rooted and grounded. If we do not...we are in serious trouble!

Love

A couple songs keep running through my head...I think I ought to share them:

Love Hurts
Love hurts, love scars
Love wounds and mars
In any heart not tough
Nor strong enough
To take a lot of pain
To take a lot of pain
And love is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain
Love hurts

I'm young and I know
But even so, I know a thing or two
I have learned from you
I've really learned a lot
I've really learned a lot
And love is like a stove
Burns you when it's hot
Love hurts

Some fools rave of happiness
Of blissfulness, togetherness
Some fools fool themselves, I guess
But they're not fooling me
I know it isn't true
I know it isn't true
Love is just a lie
Made to make you blue
Love hurts

He Gave Me Love
When I was down, they wouldn't stay
When I was hurt, they turned away
But Jesus called me and I must obey
He gave me love

You see, His friends all let Him down
And when He healed everyone around
All He got was a thorny crown
Because of love

Because of love for you
Because of life and truth
Because of love for you
Come take his love

Sometimes they laugh and are unkind
And others smile and say I've lost my mind
But all I know is what I find
And I find He gave me love

He gives me love for you
He gives me life and truth


The first song is written from the perspective of someone who knows "love", but does not truly know Love Himself (nor understands that there is anything more than "love"). The second song is written by one who knows not just what love is like, but Jesus Christ, who IS love.

Oh, that we would not just know about Love, but that we would abide in Love -- dead to ourselves, and living in, through, and of HIM -- for love is the fulfillment of the law. Oh, I wanna show them You're so real...fill my heart with Your love. We're Your hands and your feet, Lord -- help me win them with Your love.

Conversation Pieces [Nutshell]

Conversation pieces patching smoky screens
Across the silent spaces hanging in between
Crossed lines on the telephone, you overheard
Pretending not to listen
But hearing every word
Lives laid on the tabletop for all to see
The superficial counterpane of make believe
Bottles standing empty now reflect the face
Of lives filled up with broken dreams
And empty space.

Moonshine on the water, as the ship comes in
The light upon our faces, revealing everything
Where has all the love gone Lord
Is it too late now to start
Or can your love reach tired spirits
And broken hearts.

Father you can see your children turn away
And leave you waiting open armed
Day after day
I wish that I knew better
How to show them where you are
To talk of love is easy
But to love is very hard
To sing of love is easy
But to love is very hard.


Moonshine on the water, as the ship comes in
The light upon our faces, revealing everything
We've forgotten how to love Lord
But it's not too late to start
For your love saves tired spirits
And broken hearts
Your love saves tired spirits
And broken hearts.
__________________

Love, truth, forthrightness...

How to Overcome Sin [Part 2 of 2]

[By Charles G. Finney, originally published in the Independent of New York in 1874]

All such efforts to overcome sin are utterly futile, and as unscriptural as they are futile. The Bible expressly teaches us that sin is overcome by faith in Christ. "He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." "He is the way, the truth, and the life." Christians are said to "purify their hearts by faith" --(Acts xv, 9). And in Acts xxvi, 18 it is affirmed that the saints are sanctified by faith in Christ. In Romans ix, 31,32 it is affirmed that the Jews attained not to righteousness "because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." The doctrine of the Bible is that Christ saves His people from sin through faith; that Christ's Spirit is received by faith to dwell in the heart. It is faith that works by love. Love is wrought and sustained by faith. By faith Christians "overcome the world, the flesh, and the Devil." It is by faith that they "quench the fiery darts of the wicked." It is by faith that they "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and put off the old man, with his deeds." It is by faith that we fight "the good fight," and not by resolution. It is by faith that we "stand," by resolution we fall. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. It is by faith that the flesh is kept under and carnal desires subdued. The fact is that it is simply by faith that we receive the Spirit of Christ to work in us, to will and to do, according to his good pleasure. He sheds abroad his own love in our hearts, and thereby enkindles ours. Every victory over sin is by faith in Christ; and whenever the mind is diverted from Christ, by resolving and fighting against sin, whether we are aware of it or not, we are acting in our own strength, rejecting the help of Christ, and are under a specious delusion. Nothing but the life and energy of the Spirit of Christ within us can save us from sin, and trust is the uniform and universal condition of the working of this saving energy within us. How long shall this fact be at least practically overlooked by the teachers of religion? How deeply rooted in the heart of man is self-righteousness and self-dependence? So deeply that one of the hardest lessons for the human heart to learn is to renounce self-dependence and trust wholly in Christ. When we open the door by implicit trust he enters in and takes up his abode with us and in us. By shedding abroad his love he quickens our whole souls into sympathy with himself, and in this way, and in this way alone, he purifies our hearts through faith. He sustains our will in the attitude of devotion. He quickens and regulates our affections, desires, appetites and passions, and becomes our sanctification. Very much of the teaching that we hear in prayer and conference meetings, from the pulpit and the press, is so misleading as to render the hearing or reading of such instruction almost too painful to be endured. Such instruction is calculated to beget delusion, discouragement, and a practical rejection of Christ as he is presented in the Gospel.

Alas! for the blindness that "leads to bewilder" the soul that is longing after deliverance from the power of sin. I have sometimes listened to legal teaching upon this subject until I felt as if I should scream. It is astonishing sometimes to hear Christian men object to the teaching which I have here inculcated that it leaves us in a passive state, to be saved without our own activity. What darkness is involved in this objection! The Bible teaches that by trusting in Christ we receive an inward influence that stimulates and directs our activity; that by faith we receive his purifying influence into the very center of our being; that through and by his truth revealed directly to the soul he quickens our whole inward being into the attitude of a loving obedience; and this is the way and the only practicable way to overcome sin. But someone may say: "Does not the Apostle exhort as follows: 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure[']"? "And is not this an exhortation to do what in this article you condemn?" By no means. In the 12th verse of the 2d chapter of Philippians Paul says: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." There is no exhortation to work by force of resolution, but through and by the inworking of God. Paul had taught them, while he was present with them; but now, in his absence, he exhorts them to work out their own salvation, not by resolution, but by the inward operation of God. This is precisely the doctrine of this article. Paul had too often taught the Church that Christ in the heart is our sanctification, and that this influence is to be received by faith, to be guilty, in this passage of teaching that our sanctification is to be wrought out by resolution and efforts to suppress sinful and form holy habits. This passage of Scripture happily recognizes both the Divine and human agency in the work of sanctification. God works in us, to will and to do; and we, accepting by faith his inworking, will and do according to his good pleasure. Faith itself is an active and not a passive state. A passive holiness is impossible and absurd. Let no one say that when we exhort people to trust wholly in Christ we teach that anyone should be or can be passive in receiving and co-operating with the Divine influence within. This influence is moral, and not physical. It is persuasion, and not force. It influences the free will, and consequently does this by truth, and not by force. Oh! that it could be understood that the whole of spiritual life that is in any man is received direct from the Spirit of Christ by faith, as the branch receives its life from the vine. Away with this religion of resolutions! It is a snare of death. Away with this effort to make the life holy while the heart has not in it the love of God. Oh! that men would learn to look directly at Christ through the Gospel, and so close in with him by an act of loving trust as to involve a universal sympathy with his state of mind. This and this alone is sanctification.

How to Overcome Sin [Part 1 of 2]

[By Charles G. Finney, originally published in the Independent of New York in 1874]

In every period of my ministerial life I have found many professed Christians in a miserable state of bondage either to the world, the flesh, or the Devil. But surely this is no Christian state, for the apostle has distinctly said: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace." In all my Christian life I have been pained to find so many Christians living in the legal bondage described in the 7th chapter of Romans--a life of sinning, and resolving to reform and falling again. And what is particularly saddening, and even agonizing, is that many ministers and leading Christians give perfectly false instruction upon the subject of how to overcome sin. The directions that are generally given on this subject, I am sorry to say, amount to about this: "Take your sins in detail, resolve to abstain from them, and fight against them, if need be, with prayer and fasting, until you have overcome them. Set your will firmly against a relapse into sin, pray and struggle, and resolve that you will not fall, and persist in this, until you form the habit of obedience and break up all your sinful habits." To be sure, it is generally added: "In this conflict you must not depend upon your own strength, but pray for the help of God." In a word, much of the teaching, both of the pulpit and the press, really amounts to this: Sanctification is by works, and not by faith. I notice that Dr. Chalmers, in his lectures on Romans, expressly maintains that justification is by faith, but sanctification is by works. Some twenty-five years ago, I think, a prominent professor of theology in New England maintained in substance the same doctrine. In my early Christian life I was very nearly misled by one of President Edwards's resolutions; which was, in substance, that when he had fallen into any sin he would trace it back to its source, and then fight and pray against it with all his might until he subdued it. This, it will be perceived, is directing the attention to the overt act of sin, its source or occasions. Resolving and fighting against it fastens the attention on the sin and its source, and diverts it entirely from Christ.

Now it is important to say right here that all such efforts are worse than useless, and not infrequently result in delusion. First, it is losing sight of what really constitutes sin, and, secondly, of the only practicable way to avoid it. In this way the outward act or habit may be overcome and avoided, while that which really constitutes the sin is left untouched. Sin is not external, but internal. It is not a muscular act, it is not the volition that causes muscular action, it is not an involuntary feeling or desire; it must be a voluntary act or state of mind. Sin is nothing else than that voluntary, ultimate preference or state of committal to self-pleasing out of which the volitions, the outward actions, purposes, intentions, and all the things that are commonly called sin proceed. Now, what is resolved against in this religion of resolutions and efforts to suppress sinful and form holy habits? "Love is the fulfilling of the law." But do we produce love by resolution? Do we eradicate selfishness by resolution? No, indeed. We may suppress this or that expression or manifestation of selfishness by resolving not to do this or that, and praying and struggling against it. We may resolve upon an outward obedience, and work ourselves up to the letter of an obedience to God's commandments. But to eradicate selfishness from the breast by resolution is an absurdity. So the effort to obey the commandments of God in spirit--in other words, to attempt to love as the law of God requires by force of resolution--is an absurdity. There are many who maintain that sin consists in the desires. Be it so. Do we control our desires by force of resolution? We may abstain from the gratification of a particular desire by the force of resolution. We may go further, and abstain from the gratification of desire generally in the outward life. But this is not to secure the love of God, which constitutes obedience. Should we become anchorites, immure ourselves in a cell, and crucify all our desires and appetites, so far as their indulgence is concerned; we have only avoided certain forms of sin; but the root that really constitutes sin is not touched. Our resolution has not secured love, which is the only real obedience to God. All our battling with sin in the outward life, by the force of resolution, only ends in making us whited sepulchers. All our battling with desire by the force of resolution is of no avail; for in all this, however successful the effort to suppress sin may be, in the outward life or in the inward desire it will only end in delusion, for by force of resolution we cannot love.