A changing love part I: righteousness

I'm talking about love. Crazy love. Not the fuzzy stuff; not the hormonally driven, oh what a babe, shallowed out by hollywood type of love. I'm talking about sweat, blood, and tears; all shed by the alpha and the omega. A drastic love given to the filth of the earth. Humbling.

This drastic love is not simply a source of salvation for an undeserving people, it is an agent of change in their lives. It turns the most drastically miserable people into the bride of Christ, pure and spotless. It makes the vile into blazing images of Jesus Christ; His very hands and feet.

This love tears us apart when we sin. When we are not conformed to the image of Christ, when we spit in his face it only increases our misery as we spit in the face of the very love that we really want. Even as sin is being committed, Jesus voice calls "I love you." It is not a condemning love, it is a genuine real love that longs for intimacy. Our spirit longs for this intimacy. Even as we roll in the filth our heart is torn. Love convicts us. It does not condemn, it convicts. It lets us know we are forsaking the love that has come to us.

All of our existance is fulfilled in this drastic love and when the love is in harmony with life, everything is as it should be. The world can be falling down around us and yet we have peace, because we have everything that we ever needed. The more we realize this love, the more we are satisfied and complete in it's presence, the more powerful the tearing is in our soul when we roll in the filth. That intensity of conviction of sin seems to come in proportion to our understanding of the immense fulfilling love. As we become satisfied, our desire to stay -as well as the desire to avoid what would tear us from that love- is magnified.

Then there is what C.S. Lewis called gift-love. That love that desires to reflect the love the Father gives to us. There is an understanding that the returned love is so insignificant in comparison to what we've been given; but even the chance at giving back something at all excites our heart. It is when we are carrying out gift love that we are walking in perfect harmony with our Jesus. We are giving to Him any scrap that we can find. We walk around the mud puddles with joy, offering it as a gift to him.

It is only when we realize the immense undeterring love of Jesus in our hearts that we move beyond making rules for righteousness and actually have any chance of living righteous lives. It is only once we actually start living righteous lives in love to Jesus (and I'm not saying perfect lives) that real compassion bursts out of us and into the world around us; but we'll save the compassion for next week.