Hosanna
Active Member
LOVE—THE MENDER OF SOULS…
I will show you the most excellent way.1 Corinthians 12:31
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”John 13:35
Love is the only spiritual power that can overcome the self-centeredness that is inherent in being alive. Love is the thing that makes life possible or, indeed, tolerable. Arnold ToynbeeI can recall a time when the subject of God’s love had little appeal to me. For various reasons, I thought of God’s love as soft and sentimental—maybe impractical.
I imagined that God’s love was a convenient excuse for spineless Christians.“We must accept him in love,” some people would say, to avoid confronting a brother when he violated God’s Word.My Scottish-immigrant background also influenced my feelings. Mom and Dad were deeply caring people, whom I loved and greatly respected. However, neither of them were given to undue emotion. I cannot remember ever seeing my father cry. For the most part, he hid his feelings except for an occasional outbreak of impatience.
My father claimed he had lost the ability to cry.My mother, too, buried her feelings. She had experienced deep wounds, which began with her mother’s death when Mom was only three. Her sorrow didn’t ebb as she grew older. Instead, a stepmother who was less than fair increased her sadness and isolation. The home situation was so traumatic that her only sister, Annie, ran away at age twelve, never to be heard from again. I remember my mother’s saying to us, during life’s wrenching experiences, “We Scots don’t wear our feelings on our sleeves.” She was really saying, “We don’t cry; we hide our tears.”As a child I was also crowned with a full head of curls, which only made it more difficult for me to defend myself against my peers.
At times, when I needed an infusion of courage to face my tormentors, Mother would say, “Laddie, the blood of the Covenanters is in your veins.” After those words, I was ready to take on the whole neighborhood. Yes, I must confess, to my shame, I was a scrapper. I somehow thought I had to be strong, so I saw little future in anything as submissive and gentle as love.But serious sickness helps you focus on what really matters. The days in the hospital after my cancer surgery in 1944 were life-changing for me.
I reread the biography of D. L. Moody and was moved by his commitment to God’s love. “I got full of it,” Moody said. “It ran out my fingers. You take up the subject of love in the Bible! You will get so full of it that all you have got to do is to open your lips, and a flood of the Love of God flows out.”Slowly, I, too, experienced the transforming power of God’s love. I remember the warm sense of worth and assurance as I prayed, “Lord, this hospital bed is my altar. I want to adjust my life to Your sovereign will. And Lord, if You don’t mind … I’d like to be a living sacrifice. Amen.”Then I reached for a pad and wrote out another lifetime goal: I commit my life, from this moment forward, to be a channel of Your divine love. By the grace of God, I had come to realize my mistake and the pressing need to pursue God’s love as an all-important mark of excellence.
However, many people today use the word love carelessly and incorrectly. Sometimes the word is used romantically. Other times it is used to describe lust. One television network advertises its afternoon of soap operas as “love in the afternoon.” The word love is also employed to state a preference: “I just love butter pecan ice cream.”The so-called new morality has increased the confusion by stating that there are no absolutes in our world except love and that whatever is done in love must be right. Of course, I cannot accept that view. The only love that leads to excellence is God’s love, which is holy, humble, honest, and faithful. True love is much tougher than I ever imagined.
The apostle Paul made this clear. “Love suffers long,” he said. Love bears. Love endures. Love hangs in there.The love Paul described is not easy. It means staying with a husband or wife when things go wrong and that person doesn’t seem to be the perfect spouse you thought you married. It means loving your enemies, not just those who are nice to you. Love is a day-by-day battle to put aside your desire to serve yourself, so you can serve God and your fellow human beings.Some Christians fail to show such love. They have accepted Christ as their Savior, but they do not commit themselves to following the life He requires.
This behavior is nothing new. Certainly the Pharisees did not show God’s love even though this truth was taught in Old Testament times by Moses (see Deut. 6:5) and reaffirmed by Jesus when a lawyer asked Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”Jesus answered, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment” (Matt. 22:36–38).
George Sweeting, The Pursuit of Excellence
I will show you the most excellent way.1 Corinthians 12:31
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”John 13:35
Love is the only spiritual power that can overcome the self-centeredness that is inherent in being alive. Love is the thing that makes life possible or, indeed, tolerable. Arnold ToynbeeI can recall a time when the subject of God’s love had little appeal to me. For various reasons, I thought of God’s love as soft and sentimental—maybe impractical.
I imagined that God’s love was a convenient excuse for spineless Christians.“We must accept him in love,” some people would say, to avoid confronting a brother when he violated God’s Word.My Scottish-immigrant background also influenced my feelings. Mom and Dad were deeply caring people, whom I loved and greatly respected. However, neither of them were given to undue emotion. I cannot remember ever seeing my father cry. For the most part, he hid his feelings except for an occasional outbreak of impatience.
My father claimed he had lost the ability to cry.My mother, too, buried her feelings. She had experienced deep wounds, which began with her mother’s death when Mom was only three. Her sorrow didn’t ebb as she grew older. Instead, a stepmother who was less than fair increased her sadness and isolation. The home situation was so traumatic that her only sister, Annie, ran away at age twelve, never to be heard from again. I remember my mother’s saying to us, during life’s wrenching experiences, “We Scots don’t wear our feelings on our sleeves.” She was really saying, “We don’t cry; we hide our tears.”As a child I was also crowned with a full head of curls, which only made it more difficult for me to defend myself against my peers.
At times, when I needed an infusion of courage to face my tormentors, Mother would say, “Laddie, the blood of the Covenanters is in your veins.” After those words, I was ready to take on the whole neighborhood. Yes, I must confess, to my shame, I was a scrapper. I somehow thought I had to be strong, so I saw little future in anything as submissive and gentle as love.But serious sickness helps you focus on what really matters. The days in the hospital after my cancer surgery in 1944 were life-changing for me.
I reread the biography of D. L. Moody and was moved by his commitment to God’s love. “I got full of it,” Moody said. “It ran out my fingers. You take up the subject of love in the Bible! You will get so full of it that all you have got to do is to open your lips, and a flood of the Love of God flows out.”Slowly, I, too, experienced the transforming power of God’s love. I remember the warm sense of worth and assurance as I prayed, “Lord, this hospital bed is my altar. I want to adjust my life to Your sovereign will. And Lord, if You don’t mind … I’d like to be a living sacrifice. Amen.”Then I reached for a pad and wrote out another lifetime goal: I commit my life, from this moment forward, to be a channel of Your divine love. By the grace of God, I had come to realize my mistake and the pressing need to pursue God’s love as an all-important mark of excellence.
However, many people today use the word love carelessly and incorrectly. Sometimes the word is used romantically. Other times it is used to describe lust. One television network advertises its afternoon of soap operas as “love in the afternoon.” The word love is also employed to state a preference: “I just love butter pecan ice cream.”The so-called new morality has increased the confusion by stating that there are no absolutes in our world except love and that whatever is done in love must be right. Of course, I cannot accept that view. The only love that leads to excellence is God’s love, which is holy, humble, honest, and faithful. True love is much tougher than I ever imagined.
The apostle Paul made this clear. “Love suffers long,” he said. Love bears. Love endures. Love hangs in there.The love Paul described is not easy. It means staying with a husband or wife when things go wrong and that person doesn’t seem to be the perfect spouse you thought you married. It means loving your enemies, not just those who are nice to you. Love is a day-by-day battle to put aside your desire to serve yourself, so you can serve God and your fellow human beings.Some Christians fail to show such love. They have accepted Christ as their Savior, but they do not commit themselves to following the life He requires.
This behavior is nothing new. Certainly the Pharisees did not show God’s love even though this truth was taught in Old Testament times by Moses (see Deut. 6:5) and reaffirmed by Jesus when a lawyer asked Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”Jesus answered, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment” (Matt. 22:36–38).
George Sweeting, The Pursuit of Excellence
