Centuries ago, early in his ministry, a certain monk by the name of Martin Luther was asked this simple question: “Brother Martin, Do you love God?” Luther replied, “Love God? You ask me if I love God? Love God? Sometimes I hate God! I sometimes see him as a vicious judge looking down upon me to evaluate me and visit affliction upon me!” With such a fear of God, Luther struggled with the Roman Catholic ideology of working to earn his salvation until the Holy Spirit revealed the truth found in Romans 1:17, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” This revelation sparked the Great Reformation, a revelation that inspired Luther and many more — moved by the Holy Spirit to uncover the foundation of our faith in the true message of the gospel: the love of Christ. So how exactly does the love of Christ affect our motives to love him and love each other? I often find this command to be both inspiring and, in some sense, suffocating.
You might be able to sympathize with me on this issue. On one hand, we are made to love and desire to love like Jesus first loved us. On the other hand, my own weaknesses come to mind, and the people God calls me to love on a day-to-day basis aren’t always the most lovable. However, as with all of God’s commands, we must not only see what God asks of us, but also realize that Christ has already obeyed these commands on his own, on our behalf. It was his love that secured our salvation, and it is his love that moves us to action. How often do we take for-granted this unconditional, unbridled, and unbelievable love? Those for whom Christ died are empowered to live for him instead of themselves. This truth is of extreme importance; even though our minds churn along as constant idol factories and we are all so prone to wander, we can still, by God’s grace, live for the glory of our Savior.
Do you find yourself spiritually lethargic? Bored in the faith or apathetic in communing with the body? Weak in doing what God calls you to do? Then return again to the work of Jesus, to the demonstration of his divine love, and every time you do so, you will find that you can’t help but to be moved. Moved by the love of Christ is not the arousal of sentimentality or superficial emotions. It doesn’t mean you simply feel something in your heart, but rather that your heart and will are bound together in joy and love, which produces true obedience (see Rom 1:5). Perhaps the simple reason behind your flickering faith, weak love, or sparse obedience is that you have lost sight of exactly how much love it took. If you haven’t guessed it yet, this love of Christ is yet another, no, the ultimate fleshing-out of God’s irresistible, radical, and amazing grace.
Getting back to what happened on this day, a few centuries ago, Robert Capon offers us a wonderful illustration of God’s grace as he explains what the heart of the Reformation was all about —
“The Reformation was fueled by Spirit-led reformers who went blind-staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medieval-ism, a whole cellar-full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, 200-proof grace; bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture that would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The Word of the Gospel, after all those centuries of believers trying to lift themselves into heaven by worrying about the perfection of their own bootstraps, suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home free even before they started…”
When the rubber hits the road… we never fade in our love for Christ without first forgetting his love for us (Rev 2:4). Let us not lose sight of such sacrificial affection for us, mere sinners saved by unbelievable grace. This is what has saved you and me, what will sustain us, and what will strengthen us to ultimately live for him — Let your spirit soak up the words of the late hymn writer Isaac Watts; “Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
GREATER DEPTHS 