In the previous post, What’s Love Got To Do With It?, I shared briefly of my own experience when love began to morph beyond 2-dimensional lists into 3-dimensional expression. To say this transformation happened overnight or imply that it’s anywhere close to completion would be a big fat lie. In fact, the sobering reality of my inability to love others seems to smack me upside the head first thing every morning, thus bringing me to my knees in the form of a beggar. A beggar in need of mercy and grace before I can even think of extending it to others. A beggar in need of love because without it I have only cheap charity to offer this world. I’m not pretending when I say I come empty…
And I’m not kidding when I tell you that I leave full.
For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.” Romans 5:5
When I look at the lives of my own spiritual heroes, and especially Biblical examples like Moses, Stephen, David, Nehemiah, and Paul, I see a love that goes beyond nice behavior and charitable deeds – like WAY beyond. And that’s the kind of love I want! I want the kind of love that Paul had when he says, “I would be willing to be forever cursed–cut off from Christ!–if that would save them” (Romans 9:3), or like Moses who pleaded on behalf of the Israelites, “But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, erase my name from the record you have written!” (Exodus 32:32).
Erase MY name?! Man you guys – I am not there. And I’m pretty sure there isn’t a list or program – no matter how religious or spiritual – that can produce that kind of heart-flowing, earnest-pleading, self-sacrificing sort of love. But the same God who poured supernatural love into these people’s hearts delights to pour it into yours and mine as well!
So I ask the question we left off with at the end of the previous post:
How then do we come and receive the Father’s offer to fill our hearts with His love?
In a word: Empty.
We come empty.
I know, I know… we don’t like the sounds of that… but track with me for a moment…
It’s not uncommon in third world countries for women to walk miles to the nearest well to fetch water. It only makes sense that when they do so they carry empty buckets ready to be filled. It would be utterly ridiculous to carry a bucket half full of water in order to fill it the rest of the way. The wasted energy and wasted opportunity for more water is apparent here. There is no shame in arriving at the well empty; it’s the only way you should come.
When it comes to our thirsty hearts, however, there is a notion that somehow we do God a favor by coming to the well partially full. Half-full of our own resources… thinking that we spare Him some trouble by holding up our half-full bucket or that perhaps He’s impressed when we carry such a heavy load and arrive less needy than the person beside us. Doesn’t this seem a bit silly when pictured this way?
For our hearts to be filled with fresh, life-giving water to be shared with others, we best come empty.
Emptied of our own ZEAL.
Paul was a passionately religious man, steeped in the Law and devoted to righteousness. And yet the Lord met Paul on his hell-bound road to Damascas and chose to empty him (Acts 22). Paul later pens these words as he relates to others still bound by the Law:
I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.” (Romans 10:2-3 NLT)
With the best of intentions we can be passionate about the things of the Lord! But if all our striving to do, be, give and serve is in an effort to prove something, then our zeal is misdirected. In Christ there is nothing left to prove. He simply bids us come, abide in Him, and we WILL bear much fruit (John 15:4).
It is precious grace when Jesus blind sides us on our own roads to Damascas, emptying us of ourselves (even our religious passions) in order to fill us with Himself.
Emptied of our own AGENDA.
Moses, a rescuer at heart, couldn’t turn a blind eye to the injustice he observed around him; he had to do something. To his own horror, ‘something‘ turned into murder… and Moses fled (Exodus 2).
Perhaps you and I are similar to Moses – we see problems and want to help; we want to make a beneficial difference in the world. If so, then you and I are also quite like Moses in that our flesh can rise up in ways we never imagined. When good intentions go sour we’d like to pack up and flee town as well.
Take heart.
God finds us. There is no desert, no wilderness, no Midian for us to truly hide from Him. And it is there in that empty place of remembrance and remorse that He speaks from the burning bush saying I see you… I see your heart… and I see the needs of the people. I have chosen you for this, BUT – I need you to listen to Me and do things My way (Exodus 3).
Emptied of our own POSITION.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
Christ emptied Himself. Completely. The magnitude of this glorious truth fills volumes upon volumes – and will be pitifully touched on here.
The point I want to make is that Christ willingly left the perfection of Heaven, laying aside His position as equal with God, in order to embrace the realities of earth and reveal to us the love of the Father. Like a billionaire who takes on rags and destines himself a homeless man – living their life, walking their streets, talking their talk – for the sake of inviting them back to his mansion and giving them a life they never could’ve imagined!
If our aim is that of Christ’s – to reveal the love of the Father – we too will have to lay aside our desire for position and perfection in order to embrace the broken. Whatever title and authority you or I have it is for the benefit of serving others not as a means of serving our own ego and selfish appetites.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself…” Philippians 2:5-7 NASB
The command to love others as Christ has loved us is impossible if we’re drawing water from our own well, relying on our own resources. But – hallelujah! – God never commands the impossible without offering the Supernatural!
So let us go… let us drink from the well that never runs dry – the well of Living Water. Let’s dump out the dirty, stale water of our own striving…
And come to the well empty…
Ready to be filled with fresh, life-giving water to share with others!
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Niki Brown is a wife, mother of four children, and self-employed as a birth doula at Durango Doula, LLC. Her love of singing led to nation-wide travel and performance as a teenager. Later in life, that passion was joined with a love for Jesus and she became a worship leader, a role she has served in both professionally and voluntarily for 22 years. She and her family reside in Durango, Colorado.