MERRY MONDAY- Parris Bailey
“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead” 2 Cor. 5:15
It’s tough when something happens to your children. As a parent, you would face anything but don’t touch my kids! Our middle son, Nathan was 4 years old when I spent the weekend watching him throw up. By Monday, I took him into the doctor and he gave him fluids but by the days end, we found ourselves in the hospital seeing Nathan wheeled away to do exploratory surgery! The next morning while laying by his side the Lord gave me this scripture in my heart and peace flooded the room guiding me through that storm. (Nathan had a ruptured appendix) His love carried us through, covered me and pushed me forward. Wuest Translations says, “For the love which Christ has (for me) presses on me from all sides, holding me to one end and prohibiting me from considering any other, wrapping itself around me in tenderness, giving me an impelling motive.” I so vividly remember how God did just that! Wrapping me with his presence and He has done it time and time again. Where would we all be without the love of God helping us?
MacClaren says: “For it is not my love to Jesus, but His love to me, that brings the real moulding power into my life, and my love to Him is only the condition on which the true power acts upon me. To get the fulcrum and the lever which will heave a life up to the heights you have to get out of yourselves. That love is independent of time and of space; it includes humanity, and is co-extensive with it. Unturned away by unworthiness, unrepelled by non-responsiveness, undisgusted by any sin, unwearied by any, however numerous, foiling of its attempts, the love of Christ, like the great heavens that bend above us, wraps us all in its sweetness, and showers upon us all its light and its dew.”
Most of the time, we just have to “get out of our own skin”. Looking at things in the natural will cause us to lose our footing. I was only 26 then and little did I realize back then how vital reading the word and learning to listen to His voice would be such a life changer for me.
He goes on to to say, “If you want ice to melt, put it out into the sunshine, If you want the mirror to gleam, do not spend all your time in polishing it. Carry it where it can catch the ray, and it will flash it back in glory. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ Our love is an echo; be sure that you listen for the parent note, and link yourselves by faith with that great love which has come down from Heaven for us all.” WOWZA!