A love Revival
written by Pastor Jeremy Aaron
This week God has been challenging me to love my nation more than I have ever done before. So, my question to us today is, how much do we love our country?
I often find myself complaining about things that I cannot change. Even when it comes to my country, I find myself frustrated and angry about the condition of the people of my land and the corruption and injustice all around me.
But I hear God say today “ The government is not on your shoulders its on mine“ Jesus says, 'I came to India and I died for India.'
My job is to have faith in God that He will come and encounter and save people. He will deliver and restore. He will shift governments and dethrone Kings. The heart of the king will always be in the hand of the Lord, He will lead it and direct it as He pleases. Now, for the Christian, the Bible brings a great deal of clarity to our question (How much do we love our country?), because it leaves no room for doubt about the kind of love that matters most to God:
Luke 10:27
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.
Jesus called these “the great and first commandment[s]” (Matthew 22:37–39). The greatest love — the love without which we are nothing and gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2–3).
What this means regarding our question is that, for the Christians, any love for our country that does not flow from an ultimate love for the triune God, and express itself to our various and diverse “neighbours” in real, concrete ways that our neighbours actually experience, is defective, deficient, secondary love at best. And it might not be love at all.
As John Piper beautifully says it,
“Love is the overflow of joy in God that meets the needs of others.”
This is what these two supreme commandments look like on the ground when a Christian truly loves his country.
So, I am asking us today, do we love India? And the place I’m looking for the most important answer to that question is this: How am I loving my neighbours?
Suddenly everything becomes quite concrete and clear, because when I give an account to Jesus for how I stewarded my most important responsibility, I expect he will want to know if I loved my nation in the form of my neighbour.
Jai Hind!
