THE HAVOC AND TRIUMPH THAT LOVE HAS WROUGHT!
Love…what a word!
This four letter word, although different in various languages, has a magical power in it. The magical power of love can be attested to by history. Kingdoms have risen because of this word. Nations have fallen because of this simple word. Wars have been started because of the word love. Empires have been ruined and divided on the basis of this one word. Genocides and massacres of whole people groups have taken place all over the world because some people felt they were not loved, or deserved less love than others. People have attempted to wipe out these whole races just because somebody professesed to love his own race better than another…. Love!
Nations attempt to annihilate other nations in war just because they profess to love their nation better than the other one. As a matter of fact, religious wars were started across continents because some people claimed to love their God more than other people’s Gods. Again the word Love!
Indeed most of the conflicts we have in the world today have their origin in what men have come to call Love. Millions have been deprived of their fundamental human rights, because those who deprived them claimed to love themselves and their own minority groups more than the other. The explanation again is Love!
As you are reading this ladies and gentlemen, weapons of mass destruction have been invented. They are powerful enough to wipe out the whole world 100 times over. The justification? Nations claiming to love their own countries more than another. You could call this the absurdity of love.
THE WORLD OF SOCIAL MEDIA
In our modern age of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google plus and Skype etc, mothers have lost their teenage daughters because of this same word love. Men and women have become victim of love scams, because of the word love. Homes have been broken. Families have been destroyed, because of love found and lost over the Internet. Girls and boys have turned their backs on their parents who gave birth to them and invested at least 20 years of their lives raising them up, just because they found love.
Covenant relationships, like relationships between father and mother, parents and children are easily thrown out the window, because somebody wrote those magical words on social media –I love you. Trust has been broken because of this so called love.
There is no end to the tales and stories of the havoc and triumphs that love has wroth. Yet it is through this word love that the greatest evolution in mankind occurred. A man came into the world 2000 years ago and amidst military struggles for empires, he declared the futility of military power. He was ready to conquer the world, but only by love…
CONQUERED THROUGH LOVE!
…Jesus did what no human being was able to do in the history of humanity. He conquered the world indeed, but not through the power of weapons or military forces. He brought nations to submission, by the power of that singular word- love.
“Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
2000 years later, the world does not nearly look how it used to look before He introduced that one word… love. Before He came, nations were never subdued by anything else but war. When He left, nations were not won anymore by wars, but by love. It used to be that military power and strength determined the greatness of a man or nation.
After His love revolution, you are only great according to the amount that you love. Men of love have become greater than men of war. It is He Who declared that for you to become great, you must be small. To become first, you must be the last. It is a paradox that could not have been imagined in the slightest when Jesus walked the earth. But years after His ascension, even government ministers refer to themselves as servants, while the most important of them all, the Prime Minister, is translated as the first of all servants or as the chief servant.
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always. – Mahatma Gandhi
Who does that without the power of weapons? How could changes like this be accomplished without the fierceness of war? Friends, only one force could do this, the force of love. To crown it all, that man from Galilee, declared that only one thing matters in life – LOVE.
According to Him, the supreme assignment and purpose of man on the earth is to demonstrate his abandoned love to God and his fellow man. What? Of all the activities on the earth, do you want to say that the only thing that is important is love? Not building industries? Not governing nations? Not even making money? And it’s not building empires? Not forming armies? Or creating military might? Just love?
“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.” ― John Joseph Powell
To be continued tomorrow with the Following points:
- Nothing Works Without Love
- The true meaning of the command to love
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CHURCH AND NATION
By Pastor Sunday Adelaja
