Yesterday I wrote about Love Gone Cold . I am still thinking about love gone cold among those in the church, and thinking further still of just how cold that will be when the prophecy Jesus pronounced in Matthew 24:12 comes to full fruition in the Tribulation.
Of course, the weather in these parts (Georgia) is the basis for the thinking- it's cold. It's icy. We had an ice storm Tuesday which knocked out power for anywhere from a few minutes to two days. Mine was out for 12 hours. We had a winter storm warning two days after that, threatening a quarter inch of ice build-up, power outages, and sleet driven snow and rain. Fortunately that storm just nicked us as it took a sudden northerly turn. The sleet we did receive amounted to no damage and was quickly gone. Thank you Lord.
On Tuesday after the first predicted ice storm did hit, I went out and took lots of ice photos in my yard. We lost some limbs, the man next door lost a tree. All the grass, trees, and bushes were encased in ice. I looked in the bible and in poetry and online for uses of the word encased, and I found so little after so much looking I became at first frustrated, then amazed. Encased is not such an archaic word, after all. I liked my photo of the holly bush outside encased in ice. It seemed to me that the branches were veins of a living body, the blood flowing slower and slower as the ice built up on the outside, reflecting the slow drain of love away from the heart. Love gone cold.
Anyway I settled on a Robert Frost poem. We know from the bible that the world WILL end in fire (2 Peter 3:10) but prior to that, the Matthew 24:12 verse will make the world seem like it is encased in ice. The unbeliever of the Tribulation will not love. The believers will have love initially, but "the many" believers will grow increasingly cold, as the prophecy says.
It's interesting that Frost makes the comparison of hate with ice. Just as I mentioned, we think of love being warm or hot, but hate is cold. "Revenge is a dish best served cold" ... "a cold and icy stare"... "cold as ice" ... "break the ice"... "put the project on ice" ...
It makes me all the more grateful for the warm envelopment of grace and love the Lord bestows upon us daily. I pray my own love for Him and my love for other believers who have Him in them does not grow cold, dim, wane, or diminish in any way, as Jesus charged the church members at Ephesus-
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Revelation 2:4)
Let this be ever on my mind and heart:
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Of course, the weather in these parts (Georgia) is the basis for the thinking- it's cold. It's icy. We had an ice storm Tuesday which knocked out power for anywhere from a few minutes to two days. Mine was out for 12 hours. We had a winter storm warning two days after that, threatening a quarter inch of ice build-up, power outages, and sleet driven snow and rain. Fortunately that storm just nicked us as it took a sudden northerly turn. The sleet we did receive amounted to no damage and was quickly gone. Thank you Lord.
On Tuesday after the first predicted ice storm did hit, I went out and took lots of ice photos in my yard. We lost some limbs, the man next door lost a tree. All the grass, trees, and bushes were encased in ice. I looked in the bible and in poetry and online for uses of the word encased, and I found so little after so much looking I became at first frustrated, then amazed. Encased is not such an archaic word, after all. I liked my photo of the holly bush outside encased in ice. It seemed to me that the branches were veins of a living body, the blood flowing slower and slower as the ice built up on the outside, reflecting the slow drain of love away from the heart. Love gone cold.
Anyway I settled on a Robert Frost poem. We know from the bible that the world WILL end in fire (2 Peter 3:10) but prior to that, the Matthew 24:12 verse will make the world seem like it is encased in ice. The unbeliever of the Tribulation will not love. The believers will have love initially, but "the many" believers will grow increasingly cold, as the prophecy says.
It's interesting that Frost makes the comparison of hate with ice. Just as I mentioned, we think of love being warm or hot, but hate is cold. "Revenge is a dish best served cold" ... "a cold and icy stare"... "cold as ice" ... "break the ice"... "put the project on ice" ...
It makes me all the more grateful for the warm envelopment of grace and love the Lord bestows upon us daily. I pray my own love for Him and my love for other believers who have Him in them does not grow cold, dim, wane, or diminish in any way, as Jesus charged the church members at Ephesus-
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. (Revelation 2:4)
Let this be ever on my mind and heart:
Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
| EPrata photo |
No comments:
Post a Comment