"For love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all . . . But action love is labour and and fortitude . . . "
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers of Karamazov
When this action love, this pure love bore out in labour and carried on through fortitude; when this love wells up from our innermost man, when our innermost river flows love from on high then our running is a riding and our striving is a really a resting, a deep resting in the presence of God.
For certainly as we ride as broken bride we are called to put foot to pedal to carry more of the broken bride to meet their heavenly Guide.
It is a mystery I can not rightly fathom but I surely know it to be true that our resting and our waiting upon the Lord gives rise to a powerful striving and the swiftest of running as mighty rivers flow forth with life from His people who wait upon Him. (John 7:38)
And as we continual ride as His broken bride we also run in His mighty stride. We are called to ride and we are called to run and the reality of this truth can only be found in the deep abiding presence of Christ and only in that mysterious place, that awesome space, can you run and ride and rest and strive.
For an action love, love of labour and love of fortitude is not a love you and I naturally now for our hearts are deceitful and above all things desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) so in our resting and our striving this is what we pray ~ "And may the Lord make you (me) increase and abound in love to one another and to all . . . " (1 Thessalonians 3:12).
And in this house and in my heart I surely know and live and breath this truth ~ " . . . for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another." (1 Thessalonians 4:9) for I did not know this pure love, this labour love until I quit my selfish striving and entered into a heavenly resting in the arms of Love.
Please do not misunderstand ~ this action love is birthed out of the heavens and spills over the edge onto to those who are quietly waiting on Him. This is not a human striving or matter of self control. In a Christian culture bloated on self help thinking and "we can do it" attitude, we have completely forsaken our first Love (or maybe never knew Him to begin with). We have turned from a life lived in broken surrender before the Lord and instead are stuffed with all the best that 21st century has to offer. We take the perfect moment caught on state of the art filming equipment, set to an inspirational sound track, with the perfect lighting and astounding audio and visual effects, played in our stadium seating churches with the optimal temperature setting to please our every whim and the correct density of cushioning under our ever growing self cushioning and a slight tear slides down our cheek and we call it a "Move of the Spirit!" How about we call it the truth ~ HYPE. The Holy Spirit is not hype, never has been nor will He ever be, He is ALWAYS about the same purpose ~ to glorify Jesus Christ. And I have a funny feeling that He is none to concerned about the visual effects, temperature setting in the room or even our superficial concerns.
Listen ~ Facebook hype will not produce action love, love that will stand the test of eternal time. Nothing will produce this pure love except for a waiting and resting upon the Lord. The human heart can not produce this well spring of life ~ the Word rightly calls our hearts "a heart of stone" (Ezekiel 36:26) and He graciously takes this rocky heart and replaces it with a heart of flesh. I do not care how far we have progressed in the 21st century, no one but my heavenly Father above can create in me a clean heart, a real heart. So, I wait upon the Creator of heaven and earth. No hype, no feel good, hug-a-bear message. As we wait upon Him hype gives way to holiness and temporal love gives way to eternal love.
Isaiah 30:15,18
" . . . In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength . . . Blessed are all those who wait for Him."
Our resting is our salvation and our quietly waiting is our strength to ride and run in this call to action love.
For the believer who rests in the presence of God their labour in Love is their resting in Love.
And they ride and they run and they rest and they strive from the well spring of life that flows from their inner most being.
No hype, just waiting. No tricks, just Truth.
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