Covenant of Love

As I think more about this recent subject in our church of the “Covenant of Love” I am having to ponder some of the deep things of God.  Why don’t we see in ourselves the deep profound love we see in the scriptures.  In this age I think we see so many Christian’s lives that are a mile wide and an inch deep in the things of God.  When I read Tozer I feel that way myself.

Only through death comes life.  This is a Kingdom principle that we must embrace.  Only through death to self comes the life of Christ, which is, among other things, love.

In reading A.W. Tozer’s book “The Divine Conquest” I read this quote:  “Failure to get a right viewpoint in the beginning of our Christian lives may result in weakness and sterility for the rest of our days.  May not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the Kingdom like children through the marketplace, chattering about everything, but pausing to learn the true value of nothing?  In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons; but such wishes are vain.  No shortcut exists.  God is not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age.”

Wow!  It’s good to read Tozer often.  As applied to our subject at hand, I see no other way to real agape love by avoiding the work of the cross in our own lives.  “Take up you cross and follow me” Jesus said.  This is often a painful season in our lives.

The Apostle Paul wrote much about love in his letters.  His sacrificial life embodied love.  His inner man was renewed daily by the Holy Spirit.  But in order to get to this place Paul had to experience his own death.  He first had to face Jesus and conquer himself.  There were no shortcuts.