THE FAMILY OF LOVE--SIN OR SALVATION?    GP 502R  June 1977

         1. From pretty young shop girls & waitresses & secretaries to elderly widows & rich old dowagers; from handsome young clerks, bookkeepers, technicians, white-collar workers & engineers to wealthy businessmen, retired widowers, single shopkeepers & even bachelor farmers, we found them all the SAME:
         2. HUNGRY, LONELY, EMPTY, UNHAPPY, DISSATISFIED & SPIRITUALLY DESTITUTE--ALL LONGING FOR LOVE of all kinds, but especially for a love they had never known before, true love, sincere love, genuine love, the truly great love of their life, the Love of all loves of the Lover of all lovers, Who alone can satisfy that deepest yearning of every human soul for total love & complete understanding.
         3. He is the POWER & LIFE of the universe that some people call God but that the Bible itself calls Love, for "GOD IS LOVE." (1Jn.4:8)
         4. HE'S PICTURED IN HIS SON CHRIST JESUS, a Man Who loved everybody, even the poorest & the worst of all. He is the Lover of all Lovers, Who came for love & lived in love & died for love that we might live & love forever!
         5. BUT HE HAS NO HANDS BUT YOUR HANDS & HE HAS NO LIPS BUT YOURS & He has no eyes but your eyes & no body but your own, for you ARE His Body, His Bride for whom He died that you might live & love others as He did with YOUR hands, YOUR lips, your mouth, YOUR tongue, YOUR eyes & YOUR body broken for them as He was for you, YOUR blood shed for them as His was for you, YOUR life given for them as His was for you, to even die for them as He did for you.
         6. SO WE SOON FOUND OUT WE COULD NOT ENTER THESE PLACES FOR PURELY PERSONAL SELFISH RECREATION, exercise & entertainment. We could not come face to face & body to body with those who clung so desperately to us with such a yearning for us to meet their needs. We could not withhold bread from the hungry--the Bread of Life, Christ Jesus, nor drink from the thirsty--the Water of His Word, which satisfy the most ultimate longings of the human soul.
         7. FLESH CAN SATISFY FLESH, BUT ONLY SPIRIT CAN SATISFY SPIRIT, & we soon found that we had to give of BOTH to "satisfy ALL their needs according to His riches in glory."--Phil.4:19. We could not withhold ANY need from the love-starved as long as we had it by us & within our power to meet it & to give our ALL for their healing & His glory.
         8. WE SOON FOUND THERE WAS NO STOPPING PLACE, NO LIMIT to which God would go to save a poor lost soul with His infinite love & unlimited mercy! We soon found OUR hearts irresistibly drawn into the vacuum of THEIR hearts to satisfy their SPIRITS, even as our BODIES were irresistibly drawn together & sucked into each other to satisfy their FLESH!
         9. THERE WAS NOWHERE TO DRAW THE LINE BETWEEN THE TWO, FLESH & SPIRIT. There was no halfway, there was no "almost". It had to be "all or nothing at all" or they could not believe it was real love. They could not understand how you could offer to fill their heart but not their body, to satisfy their soul but not their hungry flesh.
         10. The two were INSEPARABLE, the one could not go without the other & we had to feed them BOTH together. "If a brother or sister be naked & destitute of daily food (a necessary physical need like sex) & one of you say unto them, 'Depart in peace! Be ye warmed & filled!'--Notwithstanding ye give them NOT those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?
         11. "Even so FAITH, if it hath not works is DEAD!"--Jam.2:15-17. In other words, if in the faith of God you really love them, they cannot understand it or believe it unless you really show them by some visible tangible WORK or ACTION that puts your WORDS into WORKS & puts your faith into effect & makes it fact & not fiction, a sample, not just a sermon!


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family