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| John the Baptist |
Then
Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your
roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may
you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how
wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you
experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand
fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life
and power that comes from God. (Ephesians 3:17-19 NLT)
After
John’s disciples left, Jesus began talking about him to the crowds.
“What kind of man did you go into the wilderness to see? Was he a
weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind? (Luke 7:24 NLT).
When
it comes right down to it, whose opinion do you care about more—God’s
or people’s? How does that show? (Serendipity Bible 10th
Anniversary Edition, page 1372).
An
essential resource garnered though faith is power—the power to
stand firm in whirlwinds of opinions. Controversy is certainly not
unique to our time, but all sorts of communication now keep diverse
and conflicting opinion forever swirling about us. None of us can
afford to be “a weak reed, swayed by every breath of wind.” If
we were such a reed, we would continually be in turmoil regarding our
identity—in the last analysis we would have no personal identity,
no personal integrity.
So
then, we must decide what will be our firm foundation. It involves a
process through which we determine what is negotiable and what isn’t.
If everything is negotiable, then we are without conviction. If
nothing is negotiable, we become mendacious and cruel. So the
question is on what can we build conviction? Mankind has
occasionally sought salvation in some sort of ideology—some “ism”
–that which is the “in thing” and “cool” in one epoch quickly
dissipates in another. This is where the love of God comes in; for
it is truly foundational, not superstructural. When you consider
all other alternatives, what merits this essential strength? Though the love of God is basic and determinant, it is by
nature spirit. Thus it bestows great freedom. In a real sense
spirit is comparable to tone. That is, what you say is less
important than the tone (spirit) in which you express it. For
example, “Have a great day” can range in meaning bestowed by tone
(or spirit) from “I wish you well” to “Go to Hell.” Thus we
see in many ways meaning derives not from tangibles but from
intangibles.
Sooner
or later the world will come around to belief in the bedrock
fundamental of God’s love. The reason is that through trial and
error all else will end in failure and despair and a nagging
angst—for true human freedom is only possible through the spirit of
love. The major difference between believers and nonbelievers is the
gulf that divides ultimate belief in transient expendables from
ultimate belief in eternal nonexpendables.
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