And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11 ESV
Love.
This word has been twisted by the enemy to be used when talking about things that are so much less than love. Sometimes the world uses the word love when they really mean lust. Sometimes they use it when they mean tolerance. There are all kinds of misuses of the word love these days.
For example, is love a woman’s willingness to be manipulated and abused by her abuser over and over again, whether battered by words or fists – because she has this “feeling” for the man that she just can’t get rid of no matter how many times he betrays her or cheats on her or demean her? No. This is not love.
Is love seeing someone doing wrong or who is planning to do wrong and overlooking it and allowing it to continue without dating or doing anything to correct the person or stop them from breaking the law, hurting someone else, cheating someone in business, etc.? No. This is not love.
Love is not blind, it abounds with knowledge and discernment about what is right and what is wrong. Love does not passively seek the easiest option for ourselves, but love actively sacrifices self for what is right.
Jesus demonstrated love. He did not leave sinners in the traps of their sin, but delivered them and said, “Go and sin no more.” He did not leave the rich, powerful, and secure in their pride, but delivered them with a rebuke that either left them humbled or drive them to anger to the point that they wanted to kill Him. But it was love because it was the cure for the disease that ailed them.
Yes, Jesus came for sinners – and He did it to bring them to repentance, not to join in the debauchery and fornication. Some of the newer Bible translations may leave that out of Matthew 9:13, Mark 2:17, and Luke 5:32 but where is the love in leaving out His purpose, in leaving out the Truth? Many “emerging churches” (that are really synagogues of Satan) may feel most comfortable leaving out repentance and righteousness from their messages and focusing on a feel good message of positive thinking and treating God like a worldly genie who gives us stuff, but where is the love in a message so much more about self and things of the world, and empty, completely lacking, devoid of the basics of the gospel laid out in Acts 17:22-34 or Christ’s own preaching of repentance made clear in Matthew 4:17.
But today, instead of offering people the cure for what is killing them, it is said to be more loving to give more drink to the drunk, more drugs to the addict, more pornography to the lustful, more sex to the immoral, more weapons to the murderers, more money to the wealthy, more poverty to the needy, more power to the oppressors, more persecution to the persecuted, until the stench of a nation burning wildly out of control either finally awakens our nostrils to the warnings of destruction or we remain asleep and unspecified until the Lord steps in Himself.
No, love is not adding fuel to the fire. It is not putting on a Sunday mask of religion and continuing to add fuel to the fire. It is not finding a gathering that makes you feel more comfortable with your participation in sin, death, and destruction. Love is about loving God and His ways and in turn loving others enough to want to see them delivered. Love is about living the light and yes, hating the darkness. Because the darkness comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
Is God the love of your life that He should be today?
Is sin the enemy that it should be?
Do you know about the type of love that I’m talking about?
Will you live it today?
Will He demonstrate it through you today?
He can, and He will, if you surrender your life.
Do you just know about Him as Savior, and know how to cry out His name, but don’t yet know Him as Lord in your daily life?
Seek Him today. Lay down your old life and let Him walk with you today.
Today is the day of salvation. Today.
Harold J. Ballinger 