Brother’s Keeper

I have two posts brewing in me: one on Obamacare, as it relates to my post “Habitual Care for Self,” and the other is a clarification on my last post, “Why Love Grows Cold.”  I think the Lord is directing me to work on the cold love post for now, but stay tuned for the other.  Same bat time, same bat channel! In my last post, I told of how the enemy is attacking our love through the discouragement we suffer as evil increases.  And Steve commented on that post that this happens as we look away from the Lord and focus on the evil.  This is so true.  When I cast my eyes from the Lord and focus on evil, the Lord fades into the background of my vision.

Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. Matthew 24:12 NASB

But I want to clarify who I was addressing when I warned of love growing cold.  I was speaking about something so much trickier than just watching the horrors of nightly news.  I was writing about the toll of having your very life and destiny tied to rebellious people.  You know, when you are set to watch over someone else’s soul, and they resist God and ever turn from Godly counsel.  The ones who are more goats than sheep, but even still are under your charge. It’s one thing to not focus on evil and gaze on the Lord, but it is quite another when that evil is planted in your fellowship, or lives in your house, or is in your view every day without fail.  Yes, when your very own destiny is tied to them, and your heart is engaged through the love God gives you for them. It’s laying down your life for your brother to see Christ formed in him.  I was addressing those chosen souls who will answer with their very lives for the people God has put in their care. That is the very love that Satan attacks and wants to make grow cold. So the cold love post was not for the carefree soul who has no responsibility for another.  But you know, even Jennifer, who has been saved for just two and a half years, says she has people God has tied her to, and she’s vested.  So though I really was addressing the people in leadership, it’s a difference of only degrees.  Every born-again believer will answer to God for the souls He entrusted to them. We are our brother’s keeper. Yesterday Martha gave me the wisdom about the despair: Christ has a purpose for it. When we break under the weight of discouragement and frustration, when we hit the rock rather than speak to it, God is looking for one thing.  The desperation that cries out, “ENOUGH, I can’t do it!” On the grave of my efforts and striving, there His resurrected life can rise.  The Lord takes us over the brink so He can be the totality of the Solution. So oddly enough, the cold love – the frustration with resistant believers, the collapse of my attempting to get them to see – kills all my efforts to be the Life.  As Martha has said, Moses had to fail—he was the best that human strength had to offer.  And at the end of every day . . . that just isn’t enough.

What the law could not do since it was limited by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending His own Son… Romans 8:3 HCSB