Compelled By Love

“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.” - Psalms 68:5-6

How can we ever forget that we were once distant from God?  That it was His love for us that allows us to be considered His children.  God did not have to send His Son, yet He did so because he was compelled with love.  Love is not an open word which can be described in different ways.  It is specific, with real action.

Even more, we can clearly see through Scripture that God is an advocate for those who are orphans.  And He has chosen us, His Body, to be His hands and His feet to care for those who have no one.  When we fail to reach out beyond ourselves, then we are failing to show the same love that Christ has shown us.  I am not saying that every family should adopt children (even though it would be pretty cool if there wasn’t a need because the Church was meeting every one).  What I am saying is that we should look outside of our environment and look to the world around us asking how we can show the love of Christ.

And perhaps, by meeting these physical and emotional needs, they will see that there is something different about us.  Something that is giving when there seems nothing left to give…Something that keeps going even when it hurts.  And then they will perhaps recognize that what separates, that which makes us peculiar from the rest of the world, is the love of our Savior within us.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Eph 3:14-21