Love is a Choice

“Moses…refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer” Heb 11:24-25

Love involves choices. Hard choices. It involves forgiving when you know someone doesn’t deserve it. It involves giving, even when it hurts. It involves huge commitments of time, resources, and energy. It involves laying aside your security; at times, it requires us to lay down our reputations. Love speaks the hard and unpopular things: bringing correction, issuing warnings, even rebuking. Jesus said, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten” (Rev 3:19).

Moses’ choice to identify with and help his people cost him everything. All of history is deeply indebted to Moses not just because he performed great and miraculous deeds, but because he did them from a pure, unadulterated motivation of love.

In the last days, Jesus warned us that our ability to love would be severely tested. Matthew 24:12 says that this happens as a result of an increase of wickedness in the earth that, if we do not guard our hearts diligently, makes us numb to evil. The heart of man is being pushed to the edge. It will either become hard and cold, or it will, by grace, stay hot and soft.

An incident took place in China in 2011 which highlights the depths of apathy to which man has succumbed in our day. A two-year old girl named “Little Yue Yue” wandered out of a store where her mother was shopping and was subsequently run over by two vehicles. As she lay dying on the street, CCV cameras recorded no less that 18 people over the next 7-8 minutes who skirted around her body, ignoring her as she lay there bleeding to death. The rise of ISIS in recent times, with their public beheadings, even burning people alive in cages, has made the barbarous commonplace. We have become desensitized…or have we?

Many have, and more will. But it need not be our destiny. As the time of His appearing nears, we will all be tested in our love. Now, scriptures like “pray for those who persecute you” or “love your enemies”, sound more like catchy religious sayings than they do practical instructions. That is changing. Your love is being tested now in order that it might come forth as gold during the darker times which are coming.

And so it becomes absolutely necessary for Christians to guard our hearts, and make choices for and not against love. Our Sunday school definitions will not work for us when the floodgates of wickedness are opened wide. We need to grasp the height, depth, midst, and breadth of the love of God, and choose the way of love even though everything in us may press us away from such a difficult path.

Understand that Moses was brought up in Pharaoh’s palace, with every comfort, every privilege, and every type of pleasure available at the snap of his fingers. The fact that he ventured out among the Israel slaves was unexplainable, completely out of the ordinary. And yet when he saw how they were oppressed and afflicted (“Moses…looked at their burdens”, v.2:11), he chose to do something about it rather than to retreat back to the comfort of his palace. Ex 2:11 says “Moses…went out to his brethren.” Beloved, once Moses saw them as brethren, not Hebrews, not slaves, not oppressed people, he was positioning himself to take action. We will never do with our hands more than we see with our eyes. In order to love as we are called to love, we are going to need to ask God’s help to open up our eyes.

Once our eyes are open, we still have to made right choices. It is very, very risky, so we have to be prepared. When we see crowds, we see inconvenience. When Jesus saw them, he saw a people harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. When he saw the sick, or those oppressed by the Devil, something moved at the very core of his being to bring healing and deliverance. The Bible never used the word sympathy as a description of an emotion of our Lord. Compassion feels not only FOR someone, it feels WITH and AS another.

That is why Moses “went out the second day” (Ex 2:13). He was no longer controlled by “wisdom”. It no longer mattered what others might say or do. The thought was no longer “what about tomorrow?” If Jesus had chosen to go into town to get some food after the long journey, or even to quietly rest by the well until they returned, no one would have given it a second thought. But Jesus, despite being “wearied from His journey”, had compassion on this pitiful woman who had one broken relationship after another. Paul later explained why Moses, or Jesus, or Mother Teresa, or Heidi Baker, acted in these radical ways. He wrote: “for the love of Christ compels us” (2 Cor 5:14). One who is under compulsion acts spontaneously and instinctively. There is an inner urge, a push, a lift.

We live in treacherous and shallow times. Friendship are casual to the point of being virtual. Commitments are made and broken willy-nilly. We love a sport’s team, a certain flavor of ice cream, and we love our mother and our spouse. If we look around us for a definition of love, we see a boat without a sail, a rudder, or an anchor. People are confused, and in that state of mind, in the face of unprecedented evil, Christians are being challenged to a higher place. Our hearts are being tested. Will we be made bitter, or better as evil increases? Will we retreat to our palaces as oppression and death abound around us? A standard is being raised throughout the earth for believers to be motivated by compassion, to see people as our brothers and sisters, to stir up the fire of God’s love in our hearts for the lost and the broken.

Excuse the cliches, but love is not sloppy agape. It is not passionate kisses, and it is not a dozen roses. Love is much more than a feeling. It sacrifices, it risks. It may involve words, but it must involve actions. The hearts of men will grow cold in our time. Our capacity to love will be stretched to the breaking point, when we will find no other way but to cry out to God for His love to take over and compel us from the inside. Persecutions will increase, and our enemies will begin to come out from among the shadows. Moses refused the label he had been given as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose the way of love. My love, your love is being tested in this hour. Choose love. Amen.

“Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you have planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.”  Ps 40:5

David wrote that he told of God’s salvation “all the day long” (PS 71:15). Too many to declare? Sounds like an obsession, or fixation, wouldn’t you say? I mean, didn’t he have something else to talk about?!

OK, let’s give him some room for literary license. He was probably being somewhat hyperbolic (overstating) here. And yet, many would be hard pressed to tell of all His mighty acts for even one solid minute, say nothing of one solid day. I say this to our shame, especially those of us who are called, and sent. I mean, that was the Old Testament, before Jesus came, before the Holy Spirit was poured out lavishly! We live in the day of the Last Things, when God is visiting His people around the globe in unprecedented ways. Surely this is something we can do!

One of the things that David did was set his heart to PRAISE God for His mighty deeds. The amazing things God had done were continually before him. Too many scriptures come to mind about this:

“I will bless the Lord at all times,

His praise shall continually be in my mouth…

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;

He delivers them out of all their troubles.”   PS 34:1,17

Much of Psalms 71 and 145 are devoted to this. And this is one of the real keys to being an effective witness for the Lord. I asked my ten year old son to take five minutes to write down a list of the mighty things God has done. He came back with a paper filled, and asked me if this was enough. Because David wrote down and sang of the awesome ways of God, he was reliving them over and over again, making them as real each day as they were on the day when they had occurred in his life, or the life of his friends, or in the life of his people.

Another thing he did was he TALKED about them among his friends, and family. One huge mistake we make as believers is we leave the talking to the professionals. We have redefined the word “preach” so only mean something that is done behind a pulpit. In this matter, Satan’s deception has proven most successful. What was meant to be the work of all has been deftly relegated to a few. To this I only need point to Acts 8:1-4, when persecution rose against the church following the stoning of Stephen. History clearly records that all were scattered from Jerusalem “except the apostles” (i.e. the “professionals”), and that those who fled “preached the word wherever they went”. Sounds doable. Beloved, they did not even have Bibles, much less had they taken a homiletics class. This one thing they could do, they did with power; they talked about the mighty things God had done for them.

He also MEDITATED “on your wonderful works” (PS 145:5). More than just singing the songs, or listening to or casually reading the stories, David made a point of pressing it to really consider the incredible things God had done:

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” PS 9:1 (ESV)

No wonder he found them too many to declare. He was downright intentional about this. He did it with his whole heart, and kept re-counting them over and over again. What had been so marvelously carved on his heart through meditation overflowed into his speech. What a great idea!

Beloved, Jesus commissioned you to proclaim His might acts. When we speak of the amazing things He has done and is doing, when we testify of His miracles, of His amazing intervention in our daily affairs, we are doing that which we have been called to do. Stir it up! You know what will happen? People around you will get jealous, and hungry. David said “none can compare” because when people hear about all the incredible things God has done, they are convicted to wonder what their god has done for them. At the right moment, you can even fan this conviction with a question. “So tell me, what has YOUR god done for you?” Their silence will be deafening.

Many missionaries, even whole organizations, have fallen prey to distraction, and forgotten that our duty above all else is to preach this gospel to all creation. Mission founded schools, hospitals, and social institutions which long stopped obeying the Lord in this matter dot the face of the earth like scarecrows in a field, and testify against the hollow works of people who began with good intentions. Satan’s crows sit on the hats of these lifeless creatures with corn in their claws cackling their pleasure at us over their triumph in these things. The Lord deserves better! He is awesome, and mighty are His acts towards us! The great stories of all He has done should be ringing from our rooftops and echoing in our streets. The best place to start is right around our dinner tables, as the Word teaches us:

“One generation shall praise Your works to another,

And shall declare Your mighty acts.”  PS 145:4

Let us fan this gift into flame, rekindling all our energies to proclaiming in whatever way we can, whenever we can, to whosoever will listen.

“The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot
was sitting in the gateway of the city.” Genesis 19:1

You suppose Lot may have regretted the day he chose to part from Uncle Abe and “pitch his tents near Sodom” (v.13:12)? I’ll say! Yet even after Abram had risked his own life once to recover Lot, his family, and all his possessions after being taken captive, Lot still went back to Sodom! Now, years later, Lot was in a quandary. The sin of the city was so great, 2 Peter 2:8 says every day he was “tormented in his righteous soul”, just trying to cope. And so he sat in the gate of the city in this vexed state. For what? What was he thinking?

Before I get to this, let me refresh you on the facts of the story. For in reality, many have held God to unfair judgment, as though He willy nilly rained fire and brimstone down on a group of helpless people. In fact, the story is more about God’s mercy than it is about His judgment. Sodom was completely filled with evil. Not even ten decent people could be found in the city, and that included the members of Lot’s household! When one considers the extent of the depravity and depths of wickedness, it is a wonder that God stayed His hand as long as He did just for the sake of a few.

Details you ask? OK, how is this. Lot invited the two angels to be his house guests. When they were preparing to settle down for the night, “all the man from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house”. They insisted that Lot release his guests to them “so that we can have sex with them” (Gen 19:4,5). Ouch! Every male, young and old, completely bent on vile deeds, even to the point of raping any unsuspecting journeyer who happened to enter the gates of the city and not leave before nightfall.

So, back to Lot sitting at the gate. Daily, Lot had to withstand the onslaught of evil around him. I believe Lot was doing the following:

• Lot was devising creative ways to shelter his family from Sodom’s poison, and consider how he could nurture them in godliness.
• From the gate, his gaze was fixed outside the walls, yearning for a place free from perversion, a kingdom which would have no end, full of justice and truth.
• He hoped against hope that someone would pass through these gates with whom he could have godly communication.
• His conscience pricked him to warn and even rescue (provide a safe haven) travelers from the corruption and dangers lurking within.

Cities and nations don’t become Sodom and Gomorrah overnight. Paul describes one such slippery moral slope in Romans 1:18-23 which begins with men who “suppress the truth.” He says, “for although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God not gave them to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” The slope continues down to the cesspool at the bottom, where God “abandons them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desire…they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.”

The Sodoms of Biblical lore are no longer Sunday school material. Our own cities and streets are being “sodomized”. Whereas the day will come when we will be told to flee, until that day, God is looking for Gatekeepers in the same spirit as Lot. If you are being tormented in your righteous soul, there is a place for you at the gate. It’ s a place to ponder, and a place to plan. It’s a place to find hope for the future, as well as for today. It is a place of rescue, for there are yet those who are seeking refuge, who refuse to give in to the spirit of this age.  It is not a place to complain or fall into despair.  For Lot, the gate was a place of action, a place of service.

Now you know why Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. I can imagine him singing this song as he waited:

“Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.”
PS 24:7-8

“And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments                              and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” LK 1:6

We make a grave mistake when we compare ourselves with superstars. In a very practical sense, not everyone can be LeBron James. You can practice 20 hours a day, have the best coach money can buy, watch every film of all the greats of the game, but if you are not physically endowed like LeBron, you are never going to get there.

When we read through the annals of Biblical history, if we try to be a Moses or an Apostle Paul, we are also not likely to get there since these men stand out over thousands of years of history as exceptions. While we should emulate them, and be inspired by their accomplishments, none of us were raised as a son of Pharaoh or discipled by Gamaliel (one of the most highly respected Rabbi’s of Jewish history). And I am not likely to all of a sudden be able to preach with the passion and flare of Reinhard Bonnke. We are each unique, but there is something which each one of us can do to qualify us for service in God’s house: we can obey Him.

I find myself gravitating to the more “common” men and women of scripture. I see myself in them. Did you know that Acts used to be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit rather than the Acts of the Apostles? If the great things of God were only intended to be done by a few apostles, then the majority of Christians could just relax and let the professionals take care of all problems out there in the world. In fact, that is the way many think about the Christian faith. “Let the Pastor do it!” But that is not the way God works! That is why Acts may chronicle the first century church largely through the exploits of Peter and Paul, yet there is also a splattering of others whose stories remind us that uncommon things are often done through common people. Philip and Stephen were appointed to “serve tables” (6:2) at the church’s first soup kitchen. Ananias, whom God used to propel Paul into ministry, was only “a certain disciple” (9:10). Tabitha just made clothes for widows, yet was instrumental in the town of Joppa’s revival (9:36). While the Apostles stayed in Jerusalem when intense persecution hit the church, “those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word” (8:4).

That is one of the reasons I like the story of Christ’s birth. God chose common people, whose primary trait was that they were faithful. I did not say perfect. Which brings me to the main person in this article: John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias. I love Zacharias. I love the fact that he was not contaminated by the politics and snobbery of the Jewish leaders of his day. I love that he was upright, walking before the Lord blamelessly. I love that he never gave us praying about having a son even though he and Elizabeth were much too old (LK 1:13). I love that “he lingered so long” (1:21) in the temple after the angel appeared to him.

I also love the fact that he had issues. Aren’t you glad that the angel didn’t tell Zacharias when he did not express the fullness of faith in his announcement: “Well, Zacharias, I can see that you are not really qualified for this. The Forerunner for the Messiah was going to come from your loins, but I can’t allow history to record that he was born the son of someone who dared question God!”

Instead, he was made mute. This is where it really gets interesting. We know that Zacharias had not blamed God for the shame of he and his wife bearing the stigma of being childless into their old age. Now, publicly bearing the brunt of sneers and criticisms for being a mute man due to his disobedience to God, yet Zacharias amazingly did not swallow the pill of bitterness. Risking further disdain, at the christening of his first-born son, against tradition, in the face of the astonishment of the crowd, he named his son John even though “no one among your relatives is called by this name” (1:61). Did Zacharias know at that moment his tongue would be loosed? No! He simply knew that it was always right to obey God. And then, opening his mouth, what would he say? He who had suffered punishment, scorn, and shame did the one thing that was in his heart to do, and it was not complain or be angry. He praised God. What integrity! What a testimony! How many have become bitter by lesser things? How many have given themselves over to self-pity or self-justification? Not Zacharias. He praised God.

I like Zacharias because he doesn’t have a big “S” on his T-Shirt. I love him because he was real, touchable, common. We can see ourselves in his story, for not many of us were born with a silver spoon, and not many of us have always had things go exactly the way that we would have liked. Life happens. We fail. We suffer disappointments, injustices, and rejection. In all these things, we have a choice just like Zacharias. I will choose to walk blamelessly before the Lord. I will choose to trust even when it’s hard. I will choose to continue in prayer, to lay my petitions before the Lord when it seems so much easier just to give up. I will choose to guard my heart from anger and resentment, so that if I am ever made mute for a season, the first thing that will come out of my mouth will be high praise for the One who has saved me and Who is ever true, even when I am not.

Beloved, you don’t need to be a superstar. You just need to be faithful.

“Jesus replied, ‘Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures,

and you don’t know the power of God’.” MK 12:24 NLT

Jesus made it very clear to His disciples that only those who know both the scriptures and the power of God are living according to His design and purpose. It is not either/or, but both/and. If we are completely honest with ourselves, we would have to say that we have not handled this tension very well. Christians have often had to choose between one camp or the other. Will I gravitate towards the “Word-based” group or the “Holy Ghost, power people”?

Beloved, can we decide once and for all that we are for both?! We do not have to sacrifice one for the other! We CAN have our cake and eat it too. We CAN be scholars and yet wake up speaking in tongues. We CAN have a ministry that witnesses healing and deliverance and not bow to the altar of “strange” fire.

Our church has begun a movement called #365, which mobilizes people to read the Bible through in a year. When I consider how Biblically ignorant this generation of Christians is, I say Hallelujah. This generation has no excuse for ignorance, for we have access to more knowledge and tools and education than any generation before us. I once gave a New Testament to a man in China on Monday. He came back on Friday to return it to me. I was deeply disappointed, so I asked him why he was giving it back. He simply said, “because I have finished it.” God have mercy! He wasn’t even a believer, and yet there as many, many Christians who have believed in the Lord for years and have never even finished the New Testament, much less the whole Bible.

I have been reading about Revival history, of movements, of revivalists, for the last several months. There are many features which characterized every past revival, and without fail one of them was an all-consuming passion for the Word of God. I just listened to the testimony of former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi say that for the first 20 years of his life whenever he got into debates with Christians, none could show him from the Word of God where Jesus said that he was the Son of God. Is it any wonder that people will follow after the hypergrace teachings of a Joseph Prince, or fall prey to universal salvation, or no hell, or other unbiblical yet popular opinions. We must know the Scriptures. Jesus said so.

One of the most striking facts of past moves of God is the inability to strike this balance, or to sustain it over time. An example of this can be taken from a mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit around 1800 in the newly established states of Kentucky and Tennessee. So powerful were these “camp meetings” held for days leading to weeks in the open air of these frontier regions that an eyewitness account wrote:

“At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment, as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon them, and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens.”

One of these preachers, Barton Stone, wrote detailed accounts of the manifestations of the Spirit’s power. I cannot highlight the detailed descriptions of each here, but he called the manifestations “exercises” which were common occurrences. They were:

* The Falling Exercise
* The Jerks
* The Dancing Exercise
* The Barking Exercise
* The Laughing Exercise
* The Singing (i.e. in the Spirit) Exercise

Barton Stone went on to become the founder of The Church of Christ denomination, which no longer reads the records of these things by their own founder, nor do they encourage or embrace them when they come. They have run to the “Word” camp and found “safety” there.

We must also know the power of God. Most of you reading this know something of the power of God. Granted, we might know more ABOUT the power of God than we actually know the power itself, but at least we identify with this camp. While that is a good start, many of us are more spectators than we are actually participants. We say we know the power because we listen to Bill Johnson, or because we fell on the floor at a Rodney Howard-Brown meeting. I’m just now reading the book God’s Generals: The Revivalists, and I am under deep conviction because I am measuring myself against those who didn’t just plug into a toy car battery. These men and women were wired to the state power station!

I want more. I want more Word. I want more power. I want more of Jesus. I want more of the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals in the early days disdained the heady, proud, and powerless preachers of the traditional churches of their day, and in doing so threw the baby out with the bathwater, rejecting theology and advanced education. Thank God that stigma is past, and we now have some of the world’s most learned Biblical scholars and historians who come from the “power-based” camp. This is as it should be, for in these last days, as the winds of Revival are stirring again, these words of Jesus will be staring us right in the face.

Beloved, let us be a people of the Word, and a people of power. Let us be the generation who will not only experience the power of God, but who will witness a sustained move of God worthy of the Master who gave His life to redeem a Bride who is without “mistake”, yes, without spot of wrinkle. Amen.