“Let Him Love You”
“The question of receiving the love of Christ is really very important. I personally feel more and more that sometimes it is harder for us to fully receive love than to give it. I am more and more convinced that we will find the peace and joy of Christ when we let him truly enter into the deepest places of our heart, especially those places where we are afraid, insecure, and self-rejecting.”
Henri Nowen
Former preacher, Virgil Anderson, said he was farming atop a little hill with his dad in the 1930’s. On one side of the hill he was singing, Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown? When he heard his dad singing on the other side, No, No, No Not One.
Lent doesn’t always feel positive. Why? Well, sin. Embracing regret, sacrifice, humility, discipline, and repentance are about transformation, not affirmation. Lent calls to mind the 40 days of fasting and temptations of the wilderness for Jesus. Or, Moses and Elijah fasting for 40 days, or maybe the 40 hours between Jesus’ sacrificial death and His resurrection. This is a season when Christians embrace their utter need to be attending to spiritual disciplines as a means to receiving grace and willingly being “in the potter’s hand.” But does love come to mind?
Love, in terms of sentiment or feelings of deep connection, is familiar to us. It is a wonderful thing but insufficient in itself. Lent love is based on sacrificial commitment; it fosters deep felt sentiment. In sacred Scriptures, love plunges the depth of committed relationships and is captured in ancient covenant ideas (see Sandra Richter, Epic of Eden). Think of blood packs in the movies. In our Lent case, a superior party, God, promises, in covenant fashion (Cross), His presence, provision, and protection to His rebellious former children through Jesus. The unthinkable, our Holy God condescending in covenant form to forgive sins and establish covenant relationships with us. One that reconciles us to our Father in one event, the cross and resurrection. Why? Love. My response is to accept or reject this covenant offering. In doing so my promise is to, by His power and leadership, willingly be conformed to His will and purposes. Astonishing! Even more than marrying my beautiful wife. A stronger party making all the sacrifices and concessions to the lesser. Love compels such things, and so love must be the response. So when you give up something this year, think of it as embracing the greater gift.
This year we will focus on celebrating spiritual disciplines during Lent via video lessons. I hope you join in and reciprocate love and sacrifice to foster your covenant love relationship.
Barry
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19
What a simple verse with powerful implications! Jesus calls us to love everyone, even our enemies! Now that's a hard pill to swallow! If we don't love, then every other aspect of our Christian lives is done in vain. Oh sure, sometimes people may get on our nerves, say hurtful things to us, gossip about us behind our back. Does that mean we should do the same back to them? The answer to that is, NO! That can be hard to do too, but as followers of Christ, we should love that person or those persons. We should pray for them, be kind to them. Look what Jesus did for us! He loved us so much, even though we don't deserve it, he gave the ultimate sacrifice, his very own life, taken on a cross! Isn't it the least we could do is to love others as he loved us! Thanks and God Bless.
Correll Pritchard
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