Living Life for Christ Alone

Love- that which binds us to the burdens, joys and sorrows of God. (Psalm 25:14, John 15:15) Love -that which binds us to the hurts, griefs, suffering and triumphs of others. (1 Cor. 12:26) We are called to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. (Romans 12:15) But there is one thing that steps between us and the oneness I have just described.  There is one thing that holds us back with an icy grip from being the person who runs towards God and others in love. What is it? You ask.  It is fear. Are we afraid of relating to God wrong?  Are we afraid of hurting or being hurt by others?  You see, fear prevents us from the oneness of love.  Fear motivates us to put up the facade that everything is alright when in reality we are needy and helpless.  Fear prevents us from reaching out to a hurting one in comfort.  Fear prevents us from getting too close to others, because it could get messy. Fear holds us back in our relationship with God...

"'Has love no power to save apart from suffering? Why must love suffer at all, and why, above all else, must love suffer long?' "'It is because the very essence of love is oneness,' said the King.  "'That is why love must suffer. If the beloved creatures whom the Creator created for love's sake must suffer, then the oneness of love makes it impossible for Him to allow them to suffer anything which He is not willing to suffer with them.'"   (Mountains of Spices, Hannah Hurnard) //   "...The very essence of love is oneness..." This phrase has echoed in my mind many times this week.  It is impossible for our God to let us suffer without suffering with us. It is impossible for trials and pressures to squeeze us on every side without Him feeling those trials and pressures too.  And yet, how often do I try to handle them on my own?  Standing up under pressure without supernatural strength holding you can only last so long.  My own sou...

I hope that I have begun to convey to you just how incredible the love of God is, and just how staggering it can be for God to love other human beings through us.  The love of God alone is powerful enough to break down barriers that human logic, wisdom, money, or power can never penetrate.   But what if we are gazing at the world through a lens that is incompatible with this love?  What if we are trying to mix our own perspectives with God's? You see, my natural human nature coldly recoils when asked to suffer loss of any kind on the behalf of another human being.  From birth, selfishness reigns.  We love ourselves too much to care about others.  We fight for the best things. We cry when our needs aren't met, or our wants aren't given. We only think of ourselves -and others are barely on our radar unless we can gain something from them. When it comes right down to it, we will save our own skin before laying down our own lives for someone else. We ...