DON'T LET YOUR LOVE GROW COLD

Speaking of the days in which we live Jesus said; “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (Matthew 24:12).

I have been noticing a trend in our society for a long time now. It seems that everywhere you turn, every product that is sold, every ad you see, in some way promises to reward your purchase with love, or friendship, or the admiration of many. You buy a phone, you are instantly a part of a network, you play a video game, “friends” that enjoy the same game surround you, even eating the right hamburger makes you an instant hit with the ladies.

In addition to our purchases, we can now live in online social societies where “friends” are acquired with a tap on the trackpad. It is instant friendship, instant popularity, and instant status. “Reality TV” allows us to watch and judge as various kinds of relationships are staged before our eyes. We can feel like we are involved, without ever knowing these individuals.

But, in the real world (remember the real world?) we struggle harder and harder to make relationships work for more than a few days or weeks at a time. It seems that as our society embraces more forms of contrived relationship, we grow hungrier and hungrier for real relationship, and become less and less capable of pulling it off.

Human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and God is a relational being to the extreme. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons that enjoy a oneness that is inconceivable to the human mind. The three are one, and yet three – if you figure that out, please explain it to me. God is a lover, and an eternal lover at that. Real relationships do not happen quickly, they can’t be purchased, coerced, or clicked into existence. They are not shallow, or fragile, and they hold such a high value that only a fool lets them go without a fight. Relationship is not a spectator sport.

Jesus said that in our day, lawlessness, a condition of heart that is so self-interested that it rejects all forms of restraint, would cause the love of many people to grow cold. The term “many” can be accurately translated “most.” In other words, the majority of people who give themselves to a spirit of lawlessness will find it nearly impossible to maintain a long-term relationship. Why? Simple really. Lawlessness rejects authority, moral standards, rules, and anything that it perceives as a restraint to it’s own pursuit of self-gratification. Love, God’s love, actively seeks ways to lay down it’s own agenda to make the life of another person better. The two attitudes are antithetical; they can’t exist together.

As long as we view relationships as something that primarily exist to make us happy and fulfill our needs, we will be unable to make them last. Relationships do bring great blessing and deep satisfaction to our lives. But strong ones like life-long friendships, marriages, and deep family ties, are built slowly over time, and tested when we go through difficulties and tragedies, and when we rub each other the wrong way.

I like Facebook a lot. I enjoy a little banter with distant friends. But I never confuse a few lines of text exchanged in a controlled environment, with the nitty-gritty work of maintaining a friendship in real time, in real face-to-face conversation, through days and years of good times and bad. In a shallow, distant “relationship,” you can exchange pleasantries, and keep in touch. But everything you post on your wall, every picture you up-load, can be hand-picked, and washed clean. Unless you want them to, no one sees your bad side, no one knows your hurts and fears, you never have bad breath – that is not relationship.

I encourage you to buy the products you enjoy because you enjoy them. Do all the social networking you want. Stay in touch with friends and relatives on the internet. Watch a “reality show” if you must, but never confuse watching life and relationships happen on the screen, with living them yourself. Take your heart before the Lord, and let Him check it for the invading virus of lawlessness. Let the Holy Spirit teach you the skills of love, forgiveness, and endurance that make for long, strong, deep relationships. Love, serve, be a person of undying loyalty and fidelity. The reward is well worth the price.