New Love

I was sitting in service last weekend and I had this thought. We are still going through the series, Words I Wish Jesus Never Said, and this last week was Making Disciples.

We discussed the difference between the Roman way and the Celtic way of making disciples. As I was sitting there listening to Tim teach I came to this short realization.

For centuries the Christian church has preached the Gospel of Hell. They have preached a Gospel that is meant to prepare the soul in the last breaths of a life. This preaching has influenced the lifestyle of what a Christian has been for years. This reality is a mundane and immature stalk of Jesus. The one great thing that came out of this was an urgency to spread this kind of Gospel. The church became urgent because it so desperately wanted to save the souls of those whom she loved.

Then the church went through a tolerant stage. We started loving everyone. Now this is a great thing, but not at the expense of the Kingdom of God. Our love was not overflowing from God it was a worldly love. A love that has shattered the church in a million different ways. A destructive and selfish love. A love that is far to afraid to speak the name of Jesus. And the urgency of the Gospel slowed down. It was no longer needed to talk about Jesus as long as we were loving people. Don't dare speak the name of Jesus because, God forbid, we truly might offend someone. Jesus never did this while he was alive.

Now we are preaching the Kingdom of God. The church has slowly, and I mean slowly, realized that the Kingdom of God is something that Jesus was inherently all about. This Kingdom living, learning, and loving was something that he truly envisioned the church to be. This involved love that the church wanted to, so desperately give out, but it was a different kind of love. It was a love that met a person where they were at but loved them to much to let them stay there. This love is no longer afraid to speak the name of Jesus because that is where this love was born.

And their is a definite urgency to this love. The church has realized that this love is the only thing that is worth truly living for. This God is the only thing truly living for, and the ones who do not know and feel this are truly feeling and living in an earthly Hell. There is an urgency because the ones we care about are experiencing a pain greater than should ever be conceived. It's the pain of an unreleased life. A life still chained by sin.

A life that isn't truly free in this new love.