Being a Vessel of LOVE, Love’s Procession

Being a Vessel of LOVE, Love’s Procession

Love exposes all that isn’t Love. Love is unregulated and dangerous. When you enter into the untamed waters of the heart and love with God’s Love, all that’s in you which isn’t Love, erupts and comes to the surface. Straight up, you can’t manage Love. I always think that Love should be clean, but it isn’t. By its very nature, Love attacks and assaults all that would stand in Love’s way, both in the giver and the receiver.

I’ve asked God many times, “Why can’t Your Love just be clean? Why God, can’t it just be crisp, neat and tidy? Shouldn’t it be like the pictures where it’s just rows of orderly people sitting in pews?!” Nope! Love is so holy that it finds all that is unholy and exposes it to make way for Love’s procession.

Love’s Procession

God has not chosen to use my human heart, that filthy, desperately wicked vehicle, to bring forth His Love. That heart is unworthy of His pure Love. He removed that stone-cold heart and gave His children a new heart that beats with His pulse and flows with His passion.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26 HCSB

I thought, “And why not the mind?” The brain is not up to the task; it would reason everything out. In the logical mind, I would choose where His Love flowed and just how much would be delivered. I’d mark boundaries, limit borders, control and restrict it for fear of being excessive. I’d say, “Ooo, that’s messy! I think that’s over-the-top.” The brain is unreliable as a measuring gauge for any reality of His Love.*

God chose to make a newly created heart! Why the heart? God uses the new heart because it engages my full person and faculties, and requires the most dependence on Him. Yes, my heart reveals all that’s in me, while including all that is me.

The Presence of LOVE

I’m indicted by the presence of Love, challenged by its flow, and rendered hopelessly vulnerable as Love passes through my heart. I can tell you that in being a vessel of His Love, I’ve had to commit my Yes to Him over and over again. I need His Love so badly – as well as His keeping of me in it. Without love I wouldn’t have any Life, and certainly my deepest self wouldn’t be challenged. Love is cleansing, purifying, and radically changes everyone involved–the giver and the recipient.

This major force of our universe, one that we sing about, write stories and movies about and celebrate – why is it one of the most feared forces known to man? Because it’s unpredictable and unmanageable!  And of all loves, we fear His love the most because it takes us over and out.

So when is Love too much? Do I need to stop loving when jealousy arises? How about sexual vice? What about obsession? Shouldn’t I put a quietus on it when my dirty flesh muddies the waters? No, in these and the countless other offenses of the flesh, we are called to Love more, not less! This is what it looks like to have genuine Love flow from your heart. Love cleanses the vessel to make way for Love’s parade. Like I said, Love will force out and bring to the surface all that is not Love. When flesh raises its ugly head, you’re called to beg for an increase of His divine Love – not to retreat from loving.

To you whom I love I say, let us go on loving one another, for love comes from God. Every man who truly loves is God’s son and has some knowledge of Him. But the man who does not love cannot know Him at all, for God is love.
1 John 4:7-8 PHILLIPS