Eternal Approach

I am sick of hearing about love.

Yep, pretty much fed up with it.

It’s not that I don’t love people; I just don’t always like them. Which are two different things.

But to really love someone is the Lord’s doing. Which is what His Spirit creates within us as He reaches out to those that we come in contact with. But that love is not about some gooey, mushy feeling of creamy mellowness toward other people.

It’s about caring for the eternal well-being of those around us.

Now, I know, as I get older and crankier, I have less patience with people. And sometimes I can be irritating to those around me. As my wife, my family, and my friends will confirm. As I gradually become the curmudgeon I never wanted to be.

However, the real problem is that “love” has become cheap.

Or, to put it another way, it has been cheapened by being so commonly used as the reason or the justification for every cause under the sun. Being used so often that it’s in danger of meaning nothing.

Love as Emotional Blackmail 

What really frosts me is how “love” (whatever that word really means) is being used as an excuse for every type of crap that is introduced within churches today.

For example, if someone wants to change the music in the church, we are told we must do it. Because that is how we will reach the younger people. Because we can only reach them if we use the pulsating rhythms, repetitive phrasing, melodically fractured, lyrically questionable, mediocre-quality of contemporary music. 

(See, I warned you that I’m becoming a curmudgeon.)

Because, if we really love them, we will do this. Because, if we don’t, “we will lose them”.

If someone wants to get rid of a cross in the church, it’s because of love for those that might be turned off by the symbol. Which also applies to the removal of all symbols and outward “trappings” of Christian religiosity we have in our churches.

If someone wants to introduce a new version of the Bible into the church, it’s about love for those brethren and seekers that cannot understand the King James Bible; it’s about how they don’t like how the verses sound in the old English. And how they need something that is contemporary which “speaks to them”.

While never questioning whether the word of God itself has been compromised or corrupted in the process. Never wondering, at this point, if we are even still handling the word of God!

But, nevertheless, we will still do this if we love them. And if we want to “reach them”.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. The list could go on and on. And the argument is always the same.

It is “what love demands”.

To do whatever is necessary to “bring people to Jesus”.

However, is this really what love is?

What Does Love Really Demand Anyway?

This phrase about “what love demands” has become very popular in recent years.

I have to go back and check just where this phrase really came from. I have my notions about the source; but I have to check into it. Then I’ll get back to you.

But, more to the point.

I am just sick and tired of being told “what love demands”.

The question should really be, what does “truth” demand? Or, even better, what does the Lord demand in His word?

What the World Demands

Most of what the church focuses on these days is based on a Humanistic view of Christianity. And I’m speaking across the board here. This is a common problem in virtually all Evangelical churches.

The focus is on how we can help our fellow men in some way.

Whether that help is emotional, psychological, medical, economical, moral, social, etc..

It’s all about meeting some need that people have in the real world. Something the church organization can provide. And something that individuals in the church can provide.

So, consequently, every day the world comes knocking at the church door with some new cause, a new need, a new concern, and a new problem we are told we must focus our attention on. Something we must now give our time, sweat and money to.

All because, if we do this, the world will then listen to our message.

The world will then, theoretically, take us seriously. And they will then focus on their spiritual needs once their other needs are met.

After we have taken care of whatever they have demanded of us. And have attended to whatever vital concern that must be attended to right now. And after we deal with what they want and how they feel.

And, of course, the modern Evangelical church hastens to do exactly that. Doing all kinds of stuff in order to earn the right to give out the gospel.

So, the plea from our churches is to then do whatever the world is demanding we do for them. So we can prove that we “truly love others”.

If we “do justice”.

If we do “what love demands”.

But, after all these years of hearing and seeing this taking place, I am sick of it.

I am sick of love.

To Be Continued . . .