When Love is Love. (Or not)

George Rolph

As I travel the narrow road to life in Christ, I constantly hear from others around me that God is Love and we should love all men and, to a point, they are right to shout this shout. However, God is not only Love. Pulling a verse out of John's letters that says, God is Love and assuming that is all that God is, is a big mistake. Worse, it often shows in those that shout this shout that they do not know God as well as they think. For the God I worship is much more than just Love.

God is also vengeful and angry. God is also merciful and wise. God is also perfect justice and perfect peace. God is also jealous and God is holy and these attributes come from who He is as God. If we are to know God as God then we must study what God has revealed about Himself throughout the bible and not just in one or two verses.

The bible tells us that God has shed abroad His Love in our hearts. So, what form does that love take in our day to day life? Assuming that is, that we are truly walking with God, because many who call themselves Christians are not Christians at all.

Does receiving this Love mean we walk about all day with a grin on our faces offering platitudes to passers by and patting poor people on the head on our way to Church? Does it mean that we tell Jesus fifty times a day how much we love Him while we strive in the world to make as much money as possible to pay off the debt that He says we should not have, on our home and car/s? Does it mean that we eat in fancy restaurants and close our eyes and ears to the poor man sleeping in the alley at the back of it and who has not had a square, hot meal, for so long he cannot remember the last time? While we eat this expensive meal, should we also praise God for His Love that enables us all to be selfish little pigs eating at the trough he called us out of? Or, are we perverting the Love of God to mean something it does not?

Even more serious, does the watching world see our hypocrisy and hate us (and therefore, Jesus) for it?

If you sold your car/s how many poor people could you feed? Just for an example. Or, do you think that God must have blessed you because you own a top of the range Bang & Olufsen stereo and it sits in your £200.000 house, on your £800 carpet and behind your £2500 double glazed, security windows.

"Ah," I hear some cry. "He is just envious." Well, those that cry that cry have a cloak for their sin that God see's straight through.

"God is Love," does not mean God does not get angry. It means that He is patient and kind to the unthankful and the evil…., for a while. Then comes judgement.

Neither does God is Love mean that He wants us to be "tolerant" of others who have "different lifestyles" and "sexual biases" or "faiths." God is Love, does not mean that God -- who is also perfectly just and capable of great wrath -- does not hate sin and those who promote it. Even within the Church. Why is that? Well, those who promote and encourage sins in others, because they are fearful and will not speak the truth to them for fear of persecution, are despising the terrible and anguished sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross and, denying the one who bought them by His blood. Just as the devil does! "God is Love," will ring hollow one day to those who do these things.

The Jews thought that they could pervert the truth also. Our loving God cursed them and their temple and when it was destroyed in 70 AD roughly a million of them died. Does that ring any alarm bells dear reader? Does it say that Jesus is more than the Lamb of God, that He is also the Lion of Judah and that Love is only one of His attributes? It should ring loud bells because judgment begins at the house of the Lord, the bible says and it looks like that judgement has begun already.

False prophets, false teachers and pastors and apostles are swarming all over the Church like maggots on a dead body. The Church has once again become a market place, buying and selling the truth. Demons are unafraid to turn up on a Sunday morning to another over-controlled "worship" service, where the truth is buried under pleasant sounding, ear tickling sermons and where lies about tithing rob the people of their money to pay debts incurred by the "leaders". Where everyone stands up when they are told. Sits down when they are told. Sings when they are told. What they are told. Are rarely allowed to pray their own prayers and where the guy (or these days, feminist woman/man who may or may not be, as gay as a Christmas tree) stands at the front, lording it over them like a king (or queen), instead of serving them meekly, as a Christian. A place where the Holy Spirit is actively prevented from ministering. So, why would the demon be afraid? There is no power in a Church that looks like this! They have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. Instead of putting the flesh to death and walking in the Spirit and in obedience to the words of Jesus, they walk in the power of the flesh in obedience to their own lusts.

So, is this the Love that everyone shouts about? Are we supposed to love the sinners and their sins?

No! The true Love of God is reflected in those that care for the sick, feed the poor, give up all the things of this world for the kingdom of God. They speak the gospel wherever they go, without fear (and the gifted ones preach it). They visit those in prison and hospital. They turn the other cheek when they are struck. They bless those who curse them and pray for those who despitefully use them. When they lend they hope for nothing back. When they have their goods stolen they offer more to the thief. They have searched their own hearts everyday to remove, by prayer, the evil that is in them and to walk in holiness by the Spirit, to serve the Lord.

However, these meek souls can become lions when Satan or his demons come. They are then transformed into warriors of the Lord. Ready always, to fight the good fight and drive back the enemy of the Church and mankind. By doing this, they are a true reflection of Jesus; who does the same for mankind and appears in the Gospels as both Lion and Lamb. There is more to God than just His Love and when he roars the demons and the devil himself trembles. Sometimes He roars through the mouths, hearts and pens of the few willing to serve Him on the narrow road.

How then are we to minister this Love that God has given us to the lost and the sick and the prisoner? In faith, of course! Not faith in some arch bishop appointed by men. Not faith in the person at the front who went to bible college to learn more heresies than he/she knows what to do with. Not faith in denominations or systems. No! Our faith belongs to Jesus Christ and to Him alone. It is not the property of the denomination, or the pastor who thinks "pastor" and "teacher" are the same gifts and calling and who thinks God's gifts of the Spirit ARE given with repentance.

We have no need for men to teach us, we have an anointing from the Holy One, (1john2:27) which means; if we truly are Spirit filled and have not grieved Him by eating at the trough; HE will guide us into all truth and not the guy/woman in the black robes at the front.

If you have grieved Him then you had better repent fast because time is running out. Remember the ten virgins? They were all Virgins. Hello? Has that penny dropped yet?

As Don Francisco once sang. "Love is not a feeling it's an act of your will." Do it, don't act it. Both God and the world know the difference.