ARE YOU IN LOVE?

Love: Self-Examination   

Imagine you were the only surgeon in town; and the Police had just rushed a man in to your hospital in a very critical condition. You also learnt this man was shot because he tried escaping after killing your pregnant wife and raping your twelve year old daughter.

The Police want him alive to face prosecution, and you know the courts and some smart lawyers may get him off the hook. You know you can still save him and it is only you who knows that a little dragging of feet before wheeling him into the theatre; a few seconds of unnecessary fumbling with needles and checking out some equipment will actually kill him without any investigative panel ever finding that out. Will you go about your duty the way God would do it?

Anyone who tells you ‘ah this is what I will do’, most likely, had never been faced with a semblance of that situation. But the question, ‘what would God want me to do?’ will go a long way in revealing the level of our soul maturity.
Certainly, if God wanted this imaginary suspect dead, he probably would not need the help of the surgeon to do that. Very likely, the reason the young man was still alive may be that God still want to save him. Though God can still save his life and soul with or without the help of the doctor (after all He resurrected Lazarus and Jesus Christ from the dead, and there have cases of contemporary coming back to life after doctor’s dead certification).

The most likely reason may be that God wants this doctor to have opportunity of being a vessel of pure and divine love.
If we find ourselves in the same situation as this doctor – a situation which calls for our having to choose between an instinctive (though popular) reaction and a conscious restrain from our basic instincts – we should see it as an opportunity to set ourselves free from the most basic and the most dangerous of chains, SELF.

Check out Jesus’ teaching on love: Matthew 5: 43-48.

•    Love your enemies
•    Bless and do good to enemies
•    This is the way of showing that you are God’s Child
•    This is Perfection

The most frequently asked questions, on the above passage centres on real cases of enmity and real risk of letting a confirmed and powerful enemy go free, when one has the opportunity of incapacitating him for life. These cases of enmity are especially sensitive, knowing that there is still the risk of enemy striking anytime.
Whenever I have the opportunity of responding to those questions, I try as much as possible to avoid much argument, I simply point to verse 48; you see these parameters are for those who are ready to “be perfect even as our heavenly father is perfect”. This is both an indicator of perfection in love and a process of perfecting our love.

Did you expect the process to be easy?

One of the books that have done much harm to humanity is a book I would not want to popularise by mentioning its name and author. The book which claims to teach on control, power, influence and dominance advocates a total elimination of every potential enemy. It portrays every opponent, challenger and competition as enemy to be eliminated.
Truth is, God, through the Holy Spirit, has shed abroad His love seeds in our hearts. Many of us are reluctant to even believe we are capable of such a special kind of love. We are reluctant to allow God grow these love seeds to the point of touching people, even, our perceived enemies.
Mark you, when you refuse to love the way God wants, those love seeds eventually die and we discover that hate replaces love, jealousy and envy replaces appreciation, help and cooperation

‘Good’ Samaritan

Perhaps the best illustration of active neighbourly love is the ‘true story’ of the Samaritan who actively did acts of love to his Jewish neighbour.
Imagine acts of kindness between George W. Bush with his Republicans on one hand and Muamar Ghaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden on the other hand and you will the story of the Good Samaritan.
Going by the relationship between the Jews and Samaritans, the least and the last person expected to help this Jew was this Samaritan. Inversely, the last person expected to ask for help from this Samaritan was this Jew. Did you notice another case of extreme incomprehension of love? The Samaritan had what I call ‘the love seed’ in him – Jesus calls it ‘compassion’ (v.33), that was why he was able to yield himself to be used by God as a vessel to transmit divine love.
Regrettably, the Priest and the Levite (both religious leaders) were not capable of carrying such a responsibility because they did not have the love seed (compassion) in them.

I am so certain, if the man was a prominent financial donor in the central Temple or Synagogue, they would help. But then, people would be misled to see that as love. Whereas in real sense that would be greed.

 So, can you say "I am really in Love with everyone around me"?

Culled from my yet to be published book "Becominig Christ"

NIGERIANS POLITICIANS: The Way We see Them

Human beings, they say, are political animals. Joggle those words a bit like ' To be a good Politician, you must be a good animal' and you won't be too far from the truth in Nigeria.

Or how can you explain the case of a well known South-West leader of the ruling party coming out of prison after being convicted of corruption and the next thing you see is a Thanksgiving service in his honour (read that, dishonour ) and in attendance was the former president who set up the Anti-Graft agency that convicted the politician. Few days later, our ex-convict politician was 'seated at the right-hand' of the president in a campaign to capture Lagos - which is the city with the has the highest voters, highest income and biggest commercial city in Nigeria.

Do they think we are fools?