Get Close To The Lord

The Fruit of the Spirit - Love #5

Galatians 5:22a
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, ...”

Love in the world.
We live in a very impersonal world. Most of us only care about ourselves. Grief is but for a moment and we again take up the activity of living. One reason for this impersonal aspect is the rapid population growth. We live in a sea of multiplying thousands of faces. Rapid transportation even multiplies it more. Individuals are losing their identity.

The world has become so impersonal it is driving itself crazy. Men draw up on their own tight little islands and do not know how to cope with the problems of an impersonalized society. (For instance - Recently, the press carried a heartrending story of a young father who shot himself in a tavern telephone booth. James Lee had called a Chicago newspaper and told a reporter he had sent the paper a manila envelope outlining his story. The reporter frantically tried to trace the call, but was too late. When the police arrived, the young man was slumped in the booth with a bullet through his head. In his pockets they found a child’s crayon drawing, much folded and worn. On it was written,“Please leave in my coat pocket. I want it to be buried with me.” The drawing was signed in childish print by his blonde daughter, Shirley Lee, who had perished in a fire just five months before. Lee was so grief stricken he had asked total strangers to attend His daughter’s funeral so she would have a nice service. He said there was no family to attend since Shirley’s mother had been dead since the child was two. Speaking to the reporter before his death, the heartbroken father said that all he had in life was gone, and he felt so alone. He gave his modest fortune to the church Shirley attended and said, “Maybe in ten or twenty years, someone will see one of the plaques and wonder who Shirley Ellen Lee was and say, “Someone must have loved her very, very much.” The grieving father could not stand loneliness or the loss so he took his own life. He felt it better to be dead than live in an impersonal world).

Immediately, our hearts are moved and we say that we would have shown kindness to such a one. But the truth is these lonely people do not wear signs making them identifiable. They are disguised behind expressionless faces. Behind ragged rum-stained beards and unhappy masks as fake as that of a circus clown. The only escape they know is the bottom of a bottle, at the end of a blunt drug-stained needle, or inside the shiny jacket of a barbiturate. We pass them each day and don’t really see them. We fail to see the lonely soul inside.

The truth is that very few of us really know how to love the masses. Jesus could look at the multitude and be moved with compassion. He could walk the lonely hillside at night and weep over a city. He loved the masses of lost so much that He even died for them. He drew no line of demarcation in station or rank. He loved the whole world regardless of race or creed. His love knew no bounds.

Listen, too often we judge a race, nation or individual by their lowest expressions. However, real love is evaluating them by their highest ideals and potentials in Christ. Real love that is the fruit of the Spirit is the love Christ showed toward mankind.

You may ask how can I have this kind of love? We will talk about it tomorrow.

Russell Stolp
Chaplain, CFO

Psalm 37:4 "Delight thyself also in the LORD: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."
Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy
ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.