Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Rev. Roland Hearn, Australia and New Zealand Field Coordinator for the Church of the Nazarene, for writing this devotional.
You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
The Priority of Love
Romans 13: 8-14
8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off[a] the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Devotional
We, Emmy and I, were sitting on a log at Cedar Creek Falls on Tamborine Mountain. We were having, what turned out to be, the most important conversation of both of our lives. Everything that has happened in both of our lives since that “log chat” is a result of that “log chat.” There we declared absolutely our love for each other, and our profound desire to build a life and family together. We had had similar chats before, in fact, but each of those seemed more like a daydream in comparison. This was a stark unwavering commitment birthed there on that old log, lying next to a beautiful clear mountain stream, under an almost painfully bright cerulean sky – a typical Queensland winter’s day. Years later we visited that same spot and took a photo with four early teenage children and more than fifteen years of happy memories. I’ve been back to that spot since and sadly the log is no longer there. As old as it was progress, has moved it on – but the love declared on that spot still endures. I wonder if we are the only ones to say such words on that perfectly placed fallen timber.
To say that there have not been troubled times since then would be a ridiculous maladjustment of the truth. We have together lived through some very dark days. Sometimes focused on out-of-control circumstances and sometimes focused on each other’s inadequacy. Those were the “most dark,” of the “dark days.” But the love declared on that precious log always triumphed. As I see it, we gave declaration on that day to something that had happened deep within our very being. A change had come to our very selves. We belonged to each other, and no trial, struggle, or misunderstanding could ever take that away. The truth is love like that has a priority over being. It literally changes us.
This is a small reflection of the love that Paul is referring to in the passage from Romans from which these thoughts come. Paul understands, and desires to communicate, that the love we experience from God leads to a priority of love toward others. God’s love literally changes us at a being level so that we live outwardly toward the other with a sense of their worth and dignity upper most in our thoughts and actions. Love just does not do evil to others, and therefore: “love is the fulfillment of the law.” Love becomes the starting point for all relationships. It is not simply an idealised, fanciful, feel-good love. It is a love that literally changes our being from identities that seek self-satisfaction, and Paul describes some extreme examples of such to make the point, to an identity established in the love of Christ for us. The “desires of the flesh,” that Paul speaks of, are those drives that come from our distorted need for validation and worth. When that is our focus, we claw to make for ourselves that which we can only find in an identity purified in Christ. In a life lived in the love of God, love comes first, trials, pitfalls and temptations follow, but with an identity already transformed, the life lived is a reflection of the love received.
Prayer
Our glorious Father in Heaven, as we come before you today we are struck by the thought that we do indeed owe all the joy of our lives to you. We invite You to help us understand that it is Your love and Your grace that is wooing us toward our tomorrows. When we see this clearly we begin to understand that every step we take in life, every word we speak in ministry, every action we do for the Kingdom of God comes first from your love for us individually. May we fall into your arms with utter abandonment and know the depths of your grace and love. We pray these things for your glory and in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Rev. Roland Hearn (NTC Board Chairman, Field Strategy Coordinator Australia New Zealand Field, Church of the Nazarene)