now sends us into a despairing world, a generation with all kinds of intellectual brilliance and mighty technological power, but with no ability to control his own inner life or to maintain his own sanity. This love includes real involvement and concern. It means giving myself away; it means losing myself for others. We must show not only con cern for their souls, but also for their bodies and general welfare, too. The Saviour is looking for people who will dare to love and who will be redeeming channels f o r His grace. If you do not know Christ today, may this be your day of honesty and encounter with God as you open up your life to the Saviour, inviting Him to cleanse you and to be your Lord. I f you do know Him, may you become a doer, a lover, a reconciling agent of God’s Gospel to mankind. The poet says: “Many crowd the Saviour’s kingdom But few receive His cross, Many seek His consolations Few will suffer loss For the dear sake of the Master Counting all but dross. “Many sit at Jesus’ table Few will fast with Him When the sorrow cup of anguish Tumbles to the brim, Few watch with Him in the garden Who have come to Him. “Many will confess His wisdom, Few embrace His shame. Many, while He smiles on them, Loud His praise proclaim. Then, if for a while He tries them, They desert His name, “But the souls who love supremely, Let woe come or bliss, These will count th e ir dearest blood, Not their own, but His. Saviour, Thou who dost love me, Give me love like this.” 10
Him, we have been promised a share (1:9-11, Phillips translation). Our Lord not only offers salvation to everyone who will believe, but He is the incarnation of love itself. If our world is sick for want of love demonstrated, it must look to Christ and to Christ’s people. It is at this point that the church has often failed. Too much of our church life is obsessed with actionism. We meet and eat. We talk to ourselves. We too often have reflected our culture with out raising our voices against its sins. Somehow the church must break out of its walls into a world for which Christ died, heralding the Gospel of encounter with God. We must not continue to stress merely the psychological aspects of the Gos pel; rather, we must stress an ac tual encounter with God. There is one pastor of whom a fel low preacher said, after he had has tily departed to another state in a blaze of evangelistic glory, “He loved souls, but he hated people.” Think of that! It is as we learn to love people, not just the ones we happen to like, but even those we may have despised previously, that then the Gospel can have its idling effect upon this materialistic society. God’s love which has been shed abroad in our hearts (Rom. 5:5) we must demonstrate to others. Chris tian love is redemptive action. God always chooses to work through people. He rarely works uni laterally, on His own, as it were. The success of the Gospel is predi cated on a people who will live it, who will love it, demonstrate it to the world, and not merely talk about it within the confines of the sanctu ary walls on Sunday morning. The Lord so loved and wanted us thait He could not remain passive about it. John 3:16 tells us that His love moved Him to redemptive ac tion. He became heartbroken in our heartbreak. He became actively in volved in your need and mine. He
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