john3610
New Member
I was listening to a song by a band called Leeland yesterday called "Tears of the Saints" and it touched my heart and I felt like God was giving me a glimpse of the love He has for people.
Before reading on go ahead and listen to the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg1jBuInMqA
The song paints the picture of a lost world, of a people who are utterly bankrupt. It is a call to love them as Christ commands us to love.
Matthew 22:36-38
36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Love is the foundation.
And also Paul goes on to say:
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 and 13
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Love is the most valuable of all the things listed above. The song "Tear of the Saints" made me think about what the church (in many instances, not all) has become: a self contained inward focused social club, a religious country club. When God called us to be "set apart" he did not call us to be separate from the dying world around us. He set us apart and called us to be "salt and light" (Matthew 5:13-16) to people without hope.
There are broken people crying out for help. Hopeless, dying, and afraid. As the song says, "This is an emergency". We have to grasp some measure of the compassion that God has for the lost.
Paul goes on to say it in Romans:
Romans 9:1-3
1I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
That is a heartfelt cry for the lost. My commentary says, "Paul suffers from great anguish because his Jewish kinsmen are unsaved. Indeed, if it were possible, Paul might almost choose to be accursed (to suffer God's punishment in hell) so that his fellow Jews would be saved."
I cannot claim to have that kind of love for lost people, but I want to... I want to love people like God does, He does not want anyone to perish.
2 Peter 3:9
9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
This is a little more rambling and fragmented than what I typically write, but I guess I have a lot of information I want to put down and I'm trying to get it out without there being too much information to take in. I'll try and summarize succinctly.
I remember a scene from the movie Titanic near the end, the ship has finally sunk beneath the water and all the lifeboats are sitting a safe distance away watching as people are freezing to death in the water. One of the lifeboats realizes that there are people back in the water dying. Rather than sit and wait for their own rescue they decide to turn back and try to help as many survivors as they can. While that movie was incredibly lame that was a good picture for us Christians. We have already been rescued, we are safe, but there are still so many people dying in the water. Let's live out the love of Christ and be a light in this dying world. Let's reach out our hands to the broken and offer them hope.
Tears of the Saints
Leeland
There are many prodigal sons
On our city streets they run
Searching for shelter
There are homes broken down
People's hopes have fallen to the ground
From failures.
This is an emergency!
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We're crying for them come back home
And all Your children stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
There are schools full of hatred
Even churches have forsaken
Love and mercy!
May we see this generation
In its state of desperation
For Your glory.
This is an emergency!
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We're crying for them come back home
And all Your children stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
Sinner, reach out your hands
Children, in Christ you stand
And sinner, reach out your hands!
And children, in Christ you stand!
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We're crying for them come back home
And all Your children stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
And all Your children will stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home.
Before reading on go ahead and listen to the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg1jBuInMqA
The song paints the picture of a lost world, of a people who are utterly bankrupt. It is a call to love them as Christ commands us to love.
Matthew 22:36-38
36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. Love is the foundation.
And also Paul goes on to say:
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 and 13
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
13So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Love is the most valuable of all the things listed above. The song "Tear of the Saints" made me think about what the church (in many instances, not all) has become: a self contained inward focused social club, a religious country club. When God called us to be "set apart" he did not call us to be separate from the dying world around us. He set us apart and called us to be "salt and light" (Matthew 5:13-16) to people without hope.
There are broken people crying out for help. Hopeless, dying, and afraid. As the song says, "This is an emergency". We have to grasp some measure of the compassion that God has for the lost.
Paul goes on to say it in Romans:
Romans 9:1-3
1I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
That is a heartfelt cry for the lost. My commentary says, "Paul suffers from great anguish because his Jewish kinsmen are unsaved. Indeed, if it were possible, Paul might almost choose to be accursed (to suffer God's punishment in hell) so that his fellow Jews would be saved."
I cannot claim to have that kind of love for lost people, but I want to... I want to love people like God does, He does not want anyone to perish.
2 Peter 3:9
9The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
This is a little more rambling and fragmented than what I typically write, but I guess I have a lot of information I want to put down and I'm trying to get it out without there being too much information to take in. I'll try and summarize succinctly.
I remember a scene from the movie Titanic near the end, the ship has finally sunk beneath the water and all the lifeboats are sitting a safe distance away watching as people are freezing to death in the water. One of the lifeboats realizes that there are people back in the water dying. Rather than sit and wait for their own rescue they decide to turn back and try to help as many survivors as they can. While that movie was incredibly lame that was a good picture for us Christians. We have already been rescued, we are safe, but there are still so many people dying in the water. Let's live out the love of Christ and be a light in this dying world. Let's reach out our hands to the broken and offer them hope.
Tears of the Saints
Leeland
There are many prodigal sons
On our city streets they run
Searching for shelter
There are homes broken down
People's hopes have fallen to the ground
From failures.
This is an emergency!
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We're crying for them come back home
And all Your children stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
There are schools full of hatred
Even churches have forsaken
Love and mercy!
May we see this generation
In its state of desperation
For Your glory.
This is an emergency!
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We're crying for them come back home
And all Your children stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
Sinner, reach out your hands
Children, in Christ you stand
And sinner, reach out your hands!
And children, in Christ you stand!
There are tears from the saints
For the lost and unsaved
We're crying for them come back home
And all Your children stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home
And all Your children will stretch out their hands
And pick up the crippled man
Father, we will lead them home.
I love that song. Surely there have been moments where I have felt love for strangers I have never met and I knew instantly it was the love Jesus has for all people. I get in the way of that sometimes, letting my mind focus on the negative...if you're too focused on the bad there is no room for positive thinking or a positive outlook on life...therefore no room to show love to others. So I either vent to God or friends, push it out of my mind and clear the way...you get a lot more joy out of life if you see things with 'the glass half full' attitude.
