Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday April 30, 2009

Sunday past we used a visual coupled with poetry, song and certainly the scripture to vividly illustrate where life leaves you. The last line of the poem states, "Life had killed my dream." And so it is. The poem was recited with the pathos of deep disappointment, the dregs of disillusionment. Tears were flowing. Then, another girl gave her rendition of a gospel song that portrays the Lord picking us up, where life had drained all the vitality from our heart.

Often we use the deep feelings of romantic love in a vain attempt to convey the awesome power of divine love. While the effort falls short, it does often get folks to thinking about just where they are along the path of this life and the realization strikes home that something better, more enduring is needed.

I try to use the scripture to explain the vast difference between the human and divine and I readily admit my inability.

From the margin of my old Bible, a scribbled note caught my attention and it dealt with the difference between romantic love and the divine.

"Romantic love operates on Feeling. Divine love operates on Principle."

As a pastor who has attempted to referee, counsel and repair numerous arguments and questions of people falling in love and out of love, I immediately see the difference between the two opposing ideas about love. A man asked me, "Larry, where do I find a good example of love as a principle?" I suggested to him and now to you, take a long, thoughtful look at Calvary, the place where divine love is ultimately demonstrated by the death of Christ fully submitted to the Father’s will/plan.

When the principles of divine love are grasped, at least reasonably, and submitted to, this kind of love that God has and will share overrides the ebb and flow of human or romantic love that is feeling based and thus depends on the performance of the person who is loved in the felt sense. There was nothing in human performance that kept Christ on the cross. In His case it was the love of The Father's principle of reaching down to the unlovely and lifting them to a higher plane through redemption, when they had no personal merit. Romantic love feels good and acts as long as the feeling lasts. Divine love acts for the good of the person loved, even if it doesn't feel good. Calvary was not a warm and fuzzy event.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2009 Use with credit.

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