To Love Jesus Means to be Able to do Everything!

God lives and works today, not as a faraway, unapproachable deity, but as someone who is near to us, who cares about us, and who is eternal love. Yes, because God is love, he longs for us to respond to his love by giving him our love in return. Then he can shower us with his joy, peace, and divine strength.

But how can we find this love for God? What kind of love is it? Listen to the answers in today's program by Basilea Schlink. What a power the love of Jesus contains! It's the one thing which cannot be destroyed, since it glows with a divine flame. Yes, as we read in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, love never ends, even when all else ceases.

Faith and understanding, we know, can be blotted out through brainwashing. But the love of Jesus is strong as death. Yes, love for Jesus is stronger than these, because Jesus is stronger than Satan, and because the powers and armies of heaven are stronger than all the forces and demons of Satan.

Love actually extinguishes anguish and despair. A well-known Dutch evangelist tells us of such experiences she had while she was in a concentration camp. Once she had to march naked in a parade during ice-cold weather.

That seemed to be the worst possible shame that she had ever had to suffer. It seemed hardly bearable. Miserable and freezing, she was unspeakably ashamed.

But all of a sudden, when she envisioned Jesus so naked on the cross, she grasped the tiny bit of the great ocean of love that Jesus pours out to us and to her. This made her so thankful that it helped her to bear her own suffering out of love for him. Jesus, Lord, to love you only, I shall live for that alone.

To your heart's uncomfort bringing, all your suffering made. Not I care now for my troubles, since I've seen your pain and loss, but endeavor to console you, willingly take up my cross. Yes, everything depends upon whether this love for Jesus is really burning in us.

What kind of love is this? It's the love which gives Jesus the first place in our hearts over all other people and things. It always gives Jesus' requests and concerns priority over one's own. But whoever is prepared to give God that which is dearest to him will receive from God that which is dearest, God himself.

Those who love God will be like the sun when it arises in all its strength. Yes, to love Jesus means to be able to do and to bear everything. May my heart now burn within me for your grief and agony, leading men to heed your suffering and your comforters to be.

This program by Basilea Schlink has come to you from the little land of Canaan. If you would like a free leaflet by the same author, please write to God Lives and Works Today, 9849 North 40th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, 85028-4099. That's God Lives and Works Today, 9849 North 40th Street, Phoenix, Arizona, 85028-4099.

God bless you.