Holy Spirit woke me up very early this morning and I felt a sense of urgency to write this word… There has been something I have seen within our churches, within people and it’s even tried to morph its way into me and so I pose this question to you.
Are you loving the way God is calling you to love? Matthew 24:12 says:
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”
In the American Version translation, it says “wax cold.”
I did a little bit of research on this and the best quote I could find came from a Mechanical Engineer named Gaurav Raj Gupta when asked on the website “Quara” If a candle will burn in extremely cold temperatures. (See his response below):
“When the cotton wick of the candle is ignited, the heat produced melts the wax, the liquid wax travels up due to surface tension, vaporizes and propels the combustion forward.
As the temperature decreases, rate of melting of wax will also decrease. There will also be an increase in, surface tension of wax due to decrease of temperature. These two counter forces will try to dominate the other until one of them wins. Now suppose we decrease the temperature to a value where decrease in fuel availability (liquid wax) due to decrease in temperature is much more than increase in fuel transportation due to surface tension. In this case, lesser fuel will be fed to continue the combustion, the flame will become dimmer, which in turn will produce less heat, further reducing the flame until the flame dies out and the candle gets extinguished.”
And so I ask you, in the current state of this world, is your love waxing cold?
Having moved to a new area, I began to visit churches prayerfully seeking where God would plant me next. Some were going through “church motions” but the love I witnessed and experienced was “surface level” love. Not the deep penetrating love that goes Jesus deep. It felt as though there was a barrier keeping people a hands length away and I had to check my own spirit to make sure that it wasn’t me with the hand up. (Sometimes you have to examine your own heart too). God does not want our churches to love on a “stop right there” mentality but to totally embrace people as Jesus embraces. Head pastors who actually take the time to introduce themselves and get to know the members in their congregation, not silos where they are off to the side and out of touch with the people God has called them to head. Now I am all for small intimate koinonia groups, but the love has got to be spiritually intimately felt between the body of Christ and the pastor who leads them FIRST. Jesus was surrounded by the many, but He had a way to make each person He came in contact with feel individually special. The difference between a “polite little duty hug” and a “bear hug love you” hug. Showing the love of Christ should not be deemed “a duty” but a true passion. Pseudo-love out of Christian duty does not show the love of Christ. The love of Christ breaks through ALL barriers, it doesn’t set barriers up, it tears barriers down. And members should reach out and make an effort to know their pastors. If God has placed you within a body of believers it means you are there to prayerfully lift your pastor up in prayer. Pray for the ministerial team. See how you can make a difference in the lives of those who are serving you. You are there to use your gifts and talents, to serve in the capacity Holy Spirit directs you to use the gifts God has given you. One hand washes the other. We are MANY members, but we are to be ONE in the body of Christ. Romans 12:5 says:
“So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
God does not want us to just “go through the motions of loving” He wants us to REALLY love. The church IS the body of believers, this is the bride that Jesus is coming back for, we need to love in His fashion and if we don’t know how to love, we need to ask God to show us and to teach us and also, if necessary, ask Him to heal our hearts so that we can love in the capacity He desires us, in genuine love, not “duty” love. We cannot reach people with “duty love” because they can sense the “stop right there, keep your distance, go only this far” type of love. We need to love as Christ loves His church. Wholeheartedly. THIS is what God’s Called Remnant needs to do. LOVE as CHRIST has loved. Hands down. Really interested, really concerned, really wanting to reach out. Why? Because THAT is how Jesus loves. John 13:35 says:
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
It is clear that the love of many, as stated in the Bible is waxing cold and it’s time for us who profess to be Christians, to check our hearts, check our spiritual temperatures. We are to love without holding back. We are to show genuine concern. We are to love as Jesus loves. Jesus said in John 13:34:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Jesus said this following the action he had just taken in John 13:1-12:
“It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not everyone was clean.
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”
Are you pseudo-loving or are you loving as Jesus loves? Our God WASHED feet! Foot-washing, humbling kind of love. Not self-serving, selfish, worldly love. Showing the absolute love of Christ.
The world would have us re-define what love is according to its purpose. We live in a world that is only concerned with “the love of self.” Google defines love as:
“An intense feeling of affection.”
Jesus asked Peter in John 21:15 if he loved Him, (and I believe He is asking us), “_______________ (Put your name here) do you love Me?”
Holy Spirit woke me up this morning, it’s time for us all to do a “heart check” to see where our gauge is on how we are willing to love. It may be that we need to ask God for healing any heart wounds that we have. We may have to ask him to heal our hearts, or replace them with new ones, as in Ezekiel 36:26:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
Jesus loves in a way that should be an example for all of us. Maybe it’s time to go before Him and ask Him, “Jesus, please help us to love as you love. Please renew our minds, our hearts our souls and give us the mind of Christ. Show us how to love Lord, so that they will know WHO we are by the love that we bear. Your love. In your precious name I pray. AMEN.”
The book of Revelations is the only book in the Bible yet to occur and the main topic portrays the different types of churches. Listen, we ARE the church, we ARE the body of believers. Will Jesus come back to a church filled with faith and loving in the way He loved? The Bible is very clear on how we ARE to love. Maybe it is time for each of us to do a self-evaluation on how we are loving. Let’s prayerfully check our hearts to make sure that they are not “waxing” cold but line up with the way the Bible says we should love, for they REALLY will know who we are by the love that we bare. Let’s bare it in the manner we are called – authentic, Christ type love so that He will receive ALL the Glory, ALL the Honor and ALL the praise. Amen? Amen!
9
0
20