Thoughts on Low Light

I have read and contemplated much about the reason for Lent: I think Donne's poem puts it most succinctly. There are periods where we must strip off the wallpaper which garnishes our lives and get down to some serious internal housecleaning. In this poem (which is only partial), Donne reflects on the loss of his land and the gain he anticipates from departing all that ties him--and on what he anticipates to gain by going out of sight.

A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany (partial)

I sacrifice this land unto thee,
And all whom I loved there, and who loved me;
When I have put our seas twixt them and me,
Put thou thy sea betwixt my sins and thee.
As the trees sap doth seek the root below
In winter, in my winter now I go,
Where none but thee, the Eternal root
Of true Love I may know.

Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All,
On whom those fainter beams of love did fall;
Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be
On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to Thee.

Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:
to see God only, I go out of sight:
And to escape stormy days,
I choose An Everlasting night.

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from A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany (partial) by John Donne

A Time For Love - Above and Below Me

"....when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine." - Ezekiel 16:8

"He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love." - Song of Solomon 2:4

After Communion

Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?

  Why should I call Thee Friend, Who are my Love?
  Or King, Who art my very Spouse above?
Or call Thy sceptre on my heart Thy rod?
  Lo now Thy banner over me is love,
All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod:
For Thou hast lit Thy flame in me a clod,
  Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.
  What wilt Thou call me in our home above,
Who now hast called me friend? how will it be
   When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?
Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,
  Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast:
How will it be with me in time of love?
- by Christina Rossetti

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.  When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”  His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.  Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.  And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it.  When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom  and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” John 2:1-10

Attitude Sickness

It’s been said that ideas have consequences—I would add that attitudes do, too. One of my great uncles was a Communist as a young man. I suppose, the theory sounded paper-good. Family lore has it that when he was sent overseas, he changed his mind about the Communism’s positive contribution–and changed his attitude towards it.
  Little is more unsettling than a disengaged, disinterested atheist: the ones with a “Whatever…” attitude. It’s unsettling because it’s a dead attitude: there’s no freshness, no curiosity, no vibrancy.  A few days ago, my husband was leaving the office and met someone for the first time.  This employee was departing at the same time to go on a jog. It turned out that he was the final person to talk to the employee alive– she was struck and killed in the evening traffic.  I do not know the spiritual state of the employee.  I only know the death was unexpected and sudden—but that is our continual status as humans.
   A person’s beliefs about the world is a conglomeration of who he is and who he has become-never an accurate reflection of the world. If his belief about God is that He is not there and does not care, I have to wonder who taught him this. God will never will trifle with your affections—that is, He takes your feelings seriously—probably more seriously than you do. And He, of all, is faithful to you.
   Some atheists have told me, “I can’t pray so I don’t.” and “I don’t know what to believe about God.” If you want love, then you must pray. All you need is to be willing to try—God coaches you through it all. And you can’t pray wrongly— not when you pray with your entire heart.
“That prayer has great power which a person makes with all his might…
It draws down the great God into the little heart;
it drives the hungry soul up into the fullness of God;
it brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place
where they speak much of love.” (Mechthild of Magheburg)
  As for “what to believe about God” problem, I suggest you ask yourself what Christ says about Him and what is important to Him—and look in the Bible for that information. God will provide the rest—but don’t expect a PhD in God-o-logy, for spiritual growth can (and should) go on your entire life—however long that is. The only hard question is: are you willing?

What To Do With Power in An Open Universe

"The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers." - GK Chesterton

Any number of beliefs on destiny, including materialism, are by nature centripetal in this respect: that they move towards a collapsing center. Buddhism, all will be extinguished; Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism, for all the gods, has a great destiny in the extinguishment of nirvana, a blowing out. Atheism and agnosticism is materialism dressed in fine words: the endpoint of these is the grave.
Christianity moves centrifugally; outwards, expanding and extending. It's not God's way to extinguish His good works: He will to bring them to blossom--eventually--in a great symphony of blooms.   At the center of Christianity is the Son of Man and the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is the Fixed Point for all. And though God is limitless, yet He became a Son, demonstrating that He can do two opposite things at once: He can give men power to love Him without forcing Him to love Him. This becomes our starting point (and the engine, if you will) of loving all good things He has created.
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." - John 1:12-13
It is only the strong who can give the power to the weaker. In this circumstance, that of being a Christian, God shifted the responsibility for power to us (He has that authority).   At this moment, this evening, night, this afternoon: though all-powerful and all-knowing, He stooped (figuratively) to give us the dignity of apparent causality in "real time." and He said, "No, it is your choice. If you wish to be my child, I want you to desire it." (Little do we realize that desire to love becomes our greatest human asset.)
I like to freely interpret the verse, "Those who received him, He rushed over and crushed them to Him in the embrace of a loving parent; not because of who they were, or what they had done for him, but because He had been longing for this moment."
And once you're His, the world, the universe starts to open up: you're imbued with a special sense for beauty, your sensitivities are heightened, your desire is finely tuned in to detect wonders, large and small. You begin to see the great plain of the world as waiting to be reworked--reworked to reflect His goodness, justice, mercy, and beauty.
"...whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God’s purpose it has been so limited—yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God! It is plain to anyone with eyes to see that at the present time all created life groans in a sort of universal travail. And it is plain, too, that we who have a foretaste of the Spirit are in a state of painful tension, while we wait for that redemption of our bodies which will mean that at last we have realised our full sonship in him." (JB Phillips New Testament of Romans 8:18-25)

Winter is the Childhood of the Year

The winter is the childhood of the year.
Into this childhood of the year came the child Jesus; and into this childhood of the year must we all descend.
It is as if God spoke to each of us according to our need.
My son, my daughter, you are growing old and cunning; you must grow a child again, with my son, this blessed birth-time.
You are growing old and careful; you must become a child.
You are growing old and distrustful; you must become a child.
You are growing old and petty, and weak and foolish; you must become a child --- my child, like the baby there, that strong sunrise of faith and hope and love, lying in his mother's arms in the stable.

Adela Cathcart - by George MacDonald

5 Quotes from C.S. Lewis for Summer

You don't really want a big post to read now that the summer's begun, so I'm providing a "sampler" -- a light summer dish as food for thought. All of these ruminations are from someplace in C.S. Lewis' writing. Happy snacking, happy chewing!
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1. "Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..."
2. "God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than He is of any other slacker."
3. "All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."
4. "There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him."
5. "Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal."

The Preposterous Christ?

Then comes the real shock. Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who
goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it.
But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. [Because] God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else.
And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was,
quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.
One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so
often that we no longer see what it amounts to:
... the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic.
Yet this is what Jesus did.
He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured.
He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences.
This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. 
God does care. He cares so much that he came among us in human flesh.

• C S Lewis

A Marvelous Risk

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable.

• CS Lewis  from Four Loves

Worth the Wait

To wait an hour is long
if love be just beyond—
To wait eternity is short
if love reward the end.

• Emily Dickinson (c. 1863)

Motivation Enough for Mercy

Pity the human who believes himself to be an island--dispensing little or no real kindness and mercy. Even in the here and now, that person is bound to shrink-the incredible shrinking of his soul happens without him perceiving it.
"The demand for mercy is far from being for the sake only of the man who needs his neighbour's mercy; it is greatly more for the sake of the man who must show the mercy. It is a small thing to a man whether or not his neighbour be merciful to him; it is life or death to him whether or not he be merciful to his neighbour. . .
The reward of the merciful is, that by their mercy they are rendered capable of receiving the mercy of God -- yea, God himself, who is Mercy."

• George MacDonald

What Makes Community?

God is love.
How often have you heard that?
Prior to time, God was--and God was always the same: love. God loved before angels or man was created for love the "essence of God." Love is a relational term-requires both a subject and an object.
Remember the old question: if you were stranded on a desert island, what one thing would you want there? I think I would want at least one other person there (which would disqualify me from "stranded"). In exploring cross-cultural circumstances, invariably the biggest difficulties come out of the loneliness of person without someone to love and understand them, then when that person has connected, the cultural problems fade away.
The Trinitarian nature of God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son, Jesus Christ, provides the answer to how it is that God could be the Creator, yet also the Lover.
The Father loves the Son; the Son reciprocates that love and this love between the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit. In short, through all eternity, God is the social Trinity, the community of love.

It Might Be True For You But It's Killing You

On Resentments and Grudges

  Unfortunately (for me), I am well-acquainted with this topic: partly because I am human, and partly because I have chosen paths as an adult which often alienate me from being part of the larger, more popular paths. I have chosen those paths carefully, after long examination and not on impulse, with knowledge that my choices would not make me popular nor always welcome in the best circles. I chose my paths with two things in view: sound-minded living and eternity.
  C. S. Lewis writes on resentment: “[resentment] is only pleasurable as a relief from humiliation [or, I would add, embarrassment]—or an alternative to humiliation [or embarrassment]. It is an itch “that requests to be scratched.” But it is a momentary and deceptive relief. “But it is only a pleasure-not by itself-but only by comparison to its context.” [That of impending humiliation/embarrassment.] And so, Lewis calls it a “horrible pleasure.”
  Resentments and grudges are of many forms, and they arise on many sides and from sources (some are surprising). Grudges are not typically based entirely on sense, or logic, for they stem from emotions, however, they utilize reason and factual information to create the “personal reality” called opinion. Typically that which was originally sourced in feelings of dislike, hate, jealousy or anger undergoes a hardening process. Attitudes such as dislike, hate, jealousy, bitterness or anger slowly or rapidly harden into a grudge.
  It's important to make the grudge respectable—in the right circles, exposing our grudges as such is unpalatable. We don't really think about it but it a reactive, unintentional pattern. By our thought-life we organize our resentments/ grudges so it takes on the shape of an opinion. The organizational process which produced it is one of sorting and selecting facts that will support such an opinion. Not only is an opinion respectable, but it is unchallengeable. Our carefully selected supporting facts which bolster our grudge/opinion, serve as a kind of cape, for they shroud the true nature of what lies beneath.
Indeed, we must be careful not to expose our carefully nursed grudges to the clear light of day. To do this we must be circumspect, cynical or both. We need to make our lives such that we can live blissfully, grudges intact, with people who share the same grudges. For to preserve resentments and grudges best, they are best left unexamined. As life goes, it is not normally possible to live this way, so we have a our offensive position: to be cynical with people who hold opposing opinions. Ridicule drowns out the strongest reason.
  Only the all-powerful, limitless, and loving Christ offers us freedom from resentment and grudges of all kinds, justified and unjustified. Of course, the problem lies with us, not with Christ. We prefer the coddling comfort of old grudges, which like old shoes, are most comfortable since they are perfectly molded to our cockeyed way of walking and stance. It is only when the dissonance gets too great between our desire to be loving and kind and the inner reality of our own thoughts/attitudes that pulls us up short. It is at the moment of recognition that we find ourselves simultaneously at a crossroads, or rather, where the roads split; we cannot travel both roads at the same time. We cannot be a Christ-follower and Christ-lover and simultaneously (and with full knowledge) harbor the weeds of grudges and resentments. The Spirit of Christ burns up chaff such as these. He does not force us down His road, but He beckons us and leads with sweet aroma following Him.
It's not emotionally deadening to hold incomplete knowledge, but it is killing you if your arrogances are strangling you. Examine your deepest resentments-you have much to gain, and nothing to lose but your bad attitude. And, ask Christ, “How shall I proceed now?” You may be surprised at the emotional Spring-cleaning.
“…I tell you,
ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives,
and the one who seeks finds,
and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent;
or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11: 9-13 ESV
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Rev 3:20 ESV

Love Bypasses Public Policy Once Again

Tolerance never comes to pass by will, mandate or legislation.

If, and only if, you are beloved can you love anyone.

And it is only through love can you be tolerant.

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But if it Traps, if it Encages, Then is it Love?

Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we'll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God's children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome. (I John 5:1-3 The Message)

Where-e'er my flattering Passions rove
I find a lurking snare;
'Tis dangerous to let loose our love
Beneath th' eternal fair.

Souls whom the tie of friendship binds,
And partners of our blood,
Seize a large portion of our minds,
And leave the less for God.

Nature has soft but powerful band,
And reason she controls;
While children with their little hands
Hang closest to our souls.

Thoughtless they act th'old serpent's part;
What tempting things they be!
Lord, how they twine about our heart,
And draw it off from thee!

Dear Sovereign, break these fetters off,
And set our spirits free;
God in himself is bliss enough,
For we have all in Thee.

• Issac Watts

Praise is Punch-Drunk Expressed

I continue with a section from Lewis from his chapter "A Word About Praising." In the previous post he spoke of the difficulty he had in understanding why we were told/commanded/exhorted to praise and how he came to understand there are good reasons to praise. Praise is simply a reflection of one's esteem for God. He continues illucidating us on praise here but states that our understanding of praise to God is too small. Lewis seems to believe that to praise God is the natural result of being punch-drunk in love with God.
I begin by re-posting the tail end of the previous post regarding the value of praising (anything). CS Lewis writes: "I think we delight to praise [in general] what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.   It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed."
--
"It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with... This is so even when our expressions are inadequate, as of course they usually are. But how if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection-[to] utterly get out in poetry or music or paint the upsurge of appreciation which almost bursts you? Then indeed the object would be fully appreciated and our delight would have attained perfect development. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be.  If it were possible for a created soul fully (to the full measure conceivable in a finite being) to "appreciate," that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beautitude.
It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand the Christian doctrine that Heaven is a state in which angels are now, and men hereafter, are perpetually employed in praising God.  This does not mean, as it can so dismally suggest, that it is like "being in Church." For our "services" both in their conduct and in our power to participate, are merely attempts at worship; never fully successful, often 99.9 per cent failures, sometimes total failures.
We are not [yet] riders but pupils in the riding school; for most of us the falls and bruises, the aching muscles and the severity of the exercise, far outweigh those few moments in which we were, to our own astonishment, actually galloping without terror and without disaster.
To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God-drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds.
The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify.
In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him."

• C.S. Lewis from Refections On the Psalms

The Many Facets of the Eternal Now

Many people misinterpret excitement for love. There is a parallel to be made, I think, between the first blush of romantic love and the deepening of love that comes over  time and the enthusiasm and adrenalin-like rush that comes over a true convert and the deep assurance of God's
holy and mighty love for the mature Christian.
CS Lewis addresses the fervour" and the attempt to reconstitute that fervour of early
conversion:
"Many [Christians] lament that the first fervour of their conversion have died away. They think—sometimes rightly, but not, I believe, always—that their sins account for this. They may even try by pitiful efforts of will to revive what now seem to have been the golden days. But were those fervours—the operative word is those—even intended to last?

It would be rash to say that there is any prayer which God never grants. But the strongest candidate is the prayer we might express in the…word encore. [But] how should the Infinite repeat Himself? All space and time are too little for Him to utter Himself in them once.

And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories.

Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, hey will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and new flowers will come up. [But] grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year’s blooms, and you will get nothing. ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.’ John 12:24.' "

• CS Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

Living Out His Love

I'd Rather See a Sermon

I'd rather see a sermon than to hear one any day;
I'd rather one would walk with me than merely tell the way.
The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear;
And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds,
For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.
I soon can learn to do it if you'll let me see it done;
I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.

The lectures you deliver may be very wise and true,
But I'd rather get my lessons by observing what you do;
I may misunderstand the high advice you give,
But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.

When I see a deed of kindness, I am eager to be kind.
When a weaker brother stumbles and a strong man stays behind
Just to see if he can help him, then the wish grows strong in me
To become as big and thoughtful as I know that friend to be.
And all travelers can witness that the best of guides today
Is not the one who tells them, but the one who shows the way.

One good man teaches many, men believe what they behold;
One deed of kindness noticed is worth forty that are told.
Who stands with men of honor learns to hold his honor dear,
For right living speaks a language which to everyone is clear.

Though an able speaker charms me with his eloquence, I say,
I'd rather see a sermon than to hear one any day!

• Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959)

Caution: Handle with Care or You May Get Loved Up

Bravo for you, you’ve run from God all your life and now what do you find? Where are you? I can guess that if you’re conscious, then your suffering. Don’t get me wrong, not all suffering takes on the same outlook. Psychological, emotional suffering can be more excruciating than physical suffering. I think suffering comes in varieties. 

Here are at least two forms:

Variety 1 is "Cost and Loss" - a normal life suddenly is betrayed, a normal body fails, a business or nation falls apart, and family, friends, face, and finances are lost. In despair a person reaches for God and finds His comfort and solace, and he finds it. God never fails a sincerely seeking heart.

Variety 2 is "Gain and Lost" - a sense of pervasive lostness. This person is similar to a King Solomon, who suffered pain and weariness in the middle of all his greatness. This might be a person who has achieved or is given extraordinary advantages and gifts, and finds great financial or abundance, loads of friends, a good name, a "name in the field," a person of prominence and of influence. Simultaneously, the person finds he's lost all zest for life, his family and friends are boring, and nothing gives him the "zing" he craves. A person living Variety 2 suffering is on the razor's edge-in a great war between the despair of nothingness and the pull of "there-has-to-be-more" in his heart.

Where is God? God is there-was there-and is waiting, as aptly described in this poem:

The Pulley

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
"Let us" (said he)"pour on him all we can;
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span."

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honor, pleasure.
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.

"For if I should" (said he)
"Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;
So both should losers be

"Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast."

→ George Herbert

So, what if you dared to try the most radical, revolutionary idea-that God loves you and His love and faithfulness would never fail you? That He will satisfy the desires of your heart, those desires which you cannot even put a name to? You can dare believe it because it is the very thing Christ said? This is no psychological trick. No, here we are speaking directly to the Soul-Maker about Soul-sickness. Your Soul-sickness. Could be the Soul-Maker has the elixir for the Soul?

What if you believed it? What would be so terrible about that? How can you fail in your failure? After all, you know that, apart from the love of God, you will and are–right now-failing, in every area. We cannot remake the world-the best men in history have failed.

Only Christ succeeded-and that at the cost of giving away His love for you, specifically and individually. And, no, you didn’t deserve, it—but that’s because love cannot be earned.

Charity Johnson

Would you prefer the truth or love?

Jesus has the first and last word on love:


A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34, 35)


This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 15: 12, 13)


...when (the Holy Spirit) has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (John 16:8)


Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John 17:18, 20)


...for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. (John 17:19)


In God's Kingdom truth and love are one and the same.

The Thing Only You, and not God, Can Do

(On Love’s Surpassing Value )
“…(in I Corinthians 13) Paul says love is even greater than faith…(though) faith is even greater than understanding in this life. The whole Christian life begins in faith, progresses in faith, and culminates in faith. Only in heaven will knowledge replace faith when we no longer see “through a glass, darkly” but face to face…. Jesus was constantly exhorting people to faith and bemoaning their lack of faith. For faith is the golden key that unlocks the doors of our life to God’s presence and power. There was nothing that Jesus sought more than faith, except love. Faith is the necessary beginning of the Christian life, but love is its consummation. Faith exists for the sake of love, as the root exists for the sake of the fruit, as the beginning exists for the sake of the end. Even faith, without the works of love, is dead (James 2:26). But even the works of love are no substitute for love itself.

(Yet) Paul mentions that (all) is nothing without agape (love)... For instance, I can give away all that I have and even let my body be burned in suffering as a martyr, but it is all for naught without love. You can be a martyr without love: an angry, hateful martyr. A terrorist suicide bomber is not an apostle of love. Even good deeds without love are nothing, for God does not want deeds first of all but hearts.

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalms 50:10). He does not need anything from us. God could perform all the deeds He desires, but even He cannot give Himself one thing: our free love. That is the thing that is most precious of all to Him, and He has put it in our charge!”

Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You! (p. 76, 77)

God cannot make you love Him.