Compelled by Love
Pastor Pete gives a positive report from Suzan’s appointments with her doctors this week. Her oncologist says that her CAT scans were all negative: there are no new cancers in her body. The clot she had in her lung has now disappeared and she no longer needs blood thinners. The nodules in her lungs are being analyzed to see if she is a candidate for clinical trials to treat these nodules. Pete and Suzan request prayers for the results of her ophthalmologists tests to determine if glasses will be able to correct her double vision. They also request prayer for improvement to her episodes of memory loss and confusion. Life is a marathon and not a sprint.
God has given us a vision for Influencers. We’re making disciples and calling men for intimacy with Christ. We want to stay on target to walk in fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ. The word of God is the focus for our vision because Jesus Christ himself is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Without a vision according to the Word of God, the people go unrestrained.
We see thousands of men:
Men not as they are but as they will be in Christ.
Men of God Making decisions with Jesus in full view.
Men who are hungry for the Word.
Men Secure in their identity in Christ.
Men who are Free in Jesus Christ committed to free other men.
Men who stand firm in their faith, alert and on their guard to be about their father’s business, on point for their Lord.
Men serving in the church exercising their God given passions and enablements in Christ.
Men who stand firm faithfully in Christ.
2 Corinthians 5 says that the love of Christ constrains us. The Love of Christ compels and stimulates us to action. We see men not as they are but as God intended them to be. In this verse, Paul is talking about growing in the spirit of God in Christ. David Roper wrote a book about Psalm 23. He said, “I find in myself an instinct toward a higher spiritual life. Also in myself a baser instinct.” This summarizes Romans 7 about the old nature of the flesh that wrestles against the new nature of the spirit of life in Christ. According to Romans 8, the new life of the spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the old nature and the “law of sin and death.”
Michelangelo sculpted his celebrated marble statue of King David. The real magnitude of King David’s life was that he was a “man after God’s own heart.” However, he also was a man of many earthly passions and he often gave in to these lusts of the flesh. Ah, the fools that God chooses! Michelangelo took four years to sculpt his masterpiece of King David. He worked from a flawed block of marble. Like the marble that was deeply flawed, The man David himself was also deeply deeply flawed in the hand of his sculptor, His Lord God Jehovah. Like David, we are in the process of being sculpted by the Master’s hand. We are all works in process. Thou art the Potter…. I am the clay.
We men are most like those with whom we associate. Jesus set the example living life with his apostles. The question is, “who are your three and who are your twelve.” As we run the marathon of life, distractions will cause us to run off course if we’re not focused on running together toward the prize of the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We need to surround ourselves with other men whose desire is to “choke in the dust” of those in “hot pursuit” of their Lord Jesus Christ. God set men within the body of Christ to “fan each other’s flame.” We associate with like minded men to share our purpose in life. We see each other not as we are but as we will be. We give men of God time to grow into the “God’s helmet of salvation.” He who has begun a good work in us will complete it. The good work is that we will be conformed not to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds. God gives us the grace to grow in his will through the trial of the marathon of life.
In Matthew 6, Jesus said, “Take no thought for the affairs of this world.” Our Lord says, “I’ve got this.” Our desire is to follow his will and not my own. The conclusion is the same as the apostle Paul’s, “thy strength is made perfect in my weakness, thy grace is sufficient for me.”
When Jesus confronted the Pharisees and religious leaders of his time, he called their bluff. The light came into the world and the darkness comprehended it not. They did not understand him but they could not stand up against the truth of the Word of God… Jesus Christ himself is Truth and Light. No one can deny the Truth of the Word of God. The same spirit of Christ is in us, for we have been made the righteousness of God in him. We need not fear the fiery darts of the wicked one. Cancer, disease, death and destruction are fiery darts. We must put on the full armor of God. The shield of faith quenches the fiery darts of the wicked one.
Like the flawed block of marble from which Michelangelo carved his masterpiece the statue of King David, God is working in and within us to will and to do of his good pleasure. Our responsibility is to make his good pleasure our good pleasure. Delight thyself also in the Lord and he will give thee the desires of thine heart. When his delight is our delight and our will is his will, then he will will work within to will and to do of his good pleasure.
The love of God compels us to die to the old nature so that we can live according to the new nature of spirit of life in Christ. God will take our sin and iniquity, and when we confess with a broken and a contrite heart, he will use us to fulfill his promise in Romans 12: be not overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael