Christian Living

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I have a friend who is brilliant in so many levels. Theology, apologetics, you name it!
He’s a couple of years older than me in age but he’s a couple of hundred years ahead in his knowledge. If I had half his discipline & gift with studying scripture, I’d be a happily intelligent Christian. But I was recently saddened by what I read on his website. It was nothing morally wrong, nor was it a serious offense on anything Godly. It was the loss of love. Not that he left his wife or disowned his parents or anything like that. But it was a slow moving away from a passion that should drive us all. I believe that the greatest thing that God did was not necessarily the salvation of our souls – that was just a result of this great quality of God. The greatest thing that God did was He first loved us. And he demonstrated this over and over again. And in the process of receiving and absorbing the purest love from the purest source, we in turn should be overflowing with this same love that it spills over to our fellow man in their sin and thief ignorance of the truth.

Very few people are won over by brilliant arguments or intellectual convincing. I heard that if I convince someone to follow the Lord, then someone who is smarter than me can probably un-convince him. That’s not at all unlikely. As amazing and wonderful apologetics is, it is not what satisfies the soul. Most people did not come to the Lord because all their questions were answered, nor were their lives changed because they were argued to the ground by a brilliant defender of the faith. Most people find themselves on their knees and looking up to heaven because of the love that they felt which overflowed from someone else’s heart. The hardest hearts are not turned by something even harder, but rather they are broken open by the most gentle touch of the Father’s love.

We are very simple creatures, capable only of a few delicate balances. And I believe that pushing one way too strongly causes us to inevitably lose sight of other important things.
My friend is pursuing knowledge and lots of it. He is equipping himself to be and awesome theologian and apologist. And is so many ways I am happy for him- at some instances I am even envious of him. But in some crucial levels, I am sad for him- to a point that I pity him. I’ve mentioned in one of my previous articles that the tendency of an overwhelming accumulation of knowledge is to look down on someone else who is less knowledgeable. To assert yourself, even in your own mind, that you are now somehow superior to someone else is wrong. I don’t believe knowledge was ever meant to do that.

Love is the principle aspect of God’s creation. I believe it was the motivating factor behind everything beautiful that God has made. And I believe that a part of being made in “HIS image” is being able to experience the same love, though possibly not the whole entirety of perfect love. And the beauty of it is that because “He first loved us”, we can in turn love our fellow man in spite of his, weakness, ignorance, and imperfections. It was because of love that Christ died for our sins (John 3:16). And it was love that summarized the entirety of all the laws & prophets (Matthew 22:36-40). We are the only Jesus that some are ever going to see/meet. And the Love that we have from the Father, is the closest they will ever come to God’s perfect love. That, I think, is how we are able to lead others to the saving power of the Cross.

God bless

March M. Villareal
[email protected]
www.freewebs.com/manswicked

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