THE HEART
THE OLD HEART
We must destroy love. Love promotes vulnerability, dependence, possessiveness, susceptibility to pain, and prevents the full development of woman's human potential by directing all her energies outward in the interest of others.
-- Women's Liberation, Notes from the Second Year
HARD AND IMPENITENT
A few years ago a newspaper editorial commended most truck drivers for using their CB radios in a constructive way. However, it concluded with a warning to those who misuse this means of communication. The writer gave this unforgettable example: In Colorado, several people begged a trucker to free the channel so that they could put through an emergency call, but he refused to cooperate. They wanted to direct a doctor to the scene of a serious accident. An automobile had driven into the rear of a flatbed trailer carrying metal tubing. A piece of pipe had gone through the car's windshield, pinning a woman in the wreckage. The trucker continued to tie up the channel, frustrating all attempts to obtain help. Finally he came upon the scene of the accident himself. To his utter dismay, he discovered that the critically injured person was his own wife! When a doctor did arrive, he said that if he had been notified even 10 minutes earlier, the woman's chances for survival would have been much greater.
DARKENED
GOES ASTRAY
There is a fable which tells of three apprentice devils who were coming to this earth to finish their apprenticeship. They were talking to Satan, the chief of the devils, about their plans to tempt and ruin men. The first said, "I will tell them there is no God." Satan said, "That will not delude many, for they know that there is a God." The second said, "I will tell men there is no hell." Satan answered, "You will deceive no one that way; men know even now that there is a hell for sin." The third said, "I will tell men there is no hurry." "Go," said Satan, "and you will ruin them by the thousand." The most dangerous of all delusions is that there is plenty of time. The most dangerous day in a man's life is when he learns that there is such a word as tomorrow. There are things which must not be put off, for no man knows if for him tomorrow will ever come.
EVIL
DEVOID OF "NATURAL AFFECTION"
(NATURAL AFFECTION IS LOVE OF GOD)
Dear Ann Landers:
The reader signed "Georgia," who lived through the Depression and described how hard it was to be a teenager in the 1930's, said kids today have an easy time of it compared to teens in his day. You said you couldn't argue with him.
Well, I can.
Let me ask your generation a few questions:
Are your parents divorced? Almost every one of my friends comes from a broken home.
Were you thinking about suicide when you were 12?
Did you have an ulcer when you were 16?
Did your best friend lose her virginity to a guy she went out with twice?
You may have had to worry about VD, but did you have to worry about AIDS?
Did your classmates carry guns and knives?
How many kids in your class came to school regularly drunk, stoned, or high on drugs?
Did any of your friends have their brains fried from using PCP?
What percentage of your graduating class also graduated from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center?
Did you school have armed security guards in the halls?
Did you ever live in a neighborhood where the sound of gunfire at night was "normal"?
You talk a lot about being dirt poor and having no money. Since when does money mean happiness? The kids at school who have the expensive cars and designer clothes are the most miserable.
When I am your age, Georgia, I won't do much looking back, I'll just thank God that I survived.
-- Other Side of the Story in Indianapolis.
NEW HEART
Frightened by the clamor of thunder in the night, a little child cried out. Holding her securely in his arms, her father explained that she needn't fear. God would take care of her because He loved her greatly. "I know God will take care of me and love me," she replied. "But right now, Daddy, I want someone with skin on to love me."
We are to be God's love, with skin on!
A NEW CAPACITY TO LOVE
Corrie Ten Boom shares this true story in her book,
The Hiding Place:
It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there -- the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!" His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side. Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
TWO KINDS OF LOVE
fileo, phileo; to be a friend to (fond of [an individual or an object]), i.e. have affection for (denoting personal attachment, as a matter of sentiment or feeling. This love responds to the attractive. - emphasizes receiving.
agapao, agapao; from agan (much); to love (in a social or moral sense):--(be-) love (-ed). Love because the lover wills to love. - emphasizes giving.
CONFLICT
NEW AFFECTIONS
William Kelly was an outstanding student of the Bible whose scholarship and spirituality made him a real power for God in Great Britain at the close of the last century. A person asked him, "But Mr. Kelly, aren't you interested in making a name for yourself in the world?" To which Mr. Kelly replied, "Which world, gentlemen?"
A beautiful little girl wandered out one cold day into the countryside of Canada. The family finally realized she was lost and started a search. Then they called the people of the community together. Each went his own way. It became dark and the cold of the Canadian winter settled down. After some time someone suggested the searchers join hands and cover the grass fields. But it was too late. They found the girl curled up, frozen in the cold. Then the shout went up, "If only we had joined hands before!" The spiritual meaning of this story is clear.
Christ's love demands unity among His believers.
Page created and hosted by