This music video is by the Black Eyed Peas and is a song that has been around for some time. This is the same group that has produced songs such as "Don't Stop the Party" and "My Humps." Pardon me if I step out on a limb and question their devotion to the message of Christ, but this song is true. Where is the love?
Why is the outcry coming from secular artists, those with no regard for righteousness, rather than from the church, who was purchased by the blood of Christ to be a symbol of His righteous love?
We have become so concerned with "our best life now" and how to live the "blessed life" and how to escape our addiction to approval and reputation. We go to conferences to find out how to be peace keepers and women of faith. We travel across states to renew our passion, to ignite a flame, and to experience revival. We seek signs and wisdom and joy and peace and confidence and all these things that sound good. All these things that will give us purpose. We teach people that God blesses us as an example of His goodness. We teach the principles of sowing and reaping. We talk about how to be good Christians and live lives that honor God, yet all the while, our feeble attempts are a stench in His nostrils. Where is the love?
The modern American church is famous for coining phrases like, "its about a relationship not a religion." We preach that the "do's and don'ts" don't matter. We do this, not to honor God with our motives, but to free us from the obligation of His grace. We shift our focus from freedom to law and back again, over and over. We are so caught up in the do's of love rather than the motives of love. We are so concerned with the don't of sin rather than the motives of abstinence. Where is the love?
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
Paul said, "If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clashing cymbal. And 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. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body up to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Love is not about the actions, but the motives that lead to those actions. Where is the love, church?
We are constantly looking for books, teachings, revelations that will excite our senses or invigorate our spiritual lives, but we rarely take the same time to examine our hearts to see if we are "abiding in the love of Christ." We let opportunity after opportunity pass us by and wonder why there is so much division and animosity within the church. What happened to "if someone strikes your cheek, turn and let them strike the other"? What happened to "if someone asks for your shirt, give them your coat too"? For those of you looking for your "best life now," what happened to the verse that says, "he who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for me will find it"? Where is the love, church?
Who will love the forgotten in nursing homes, the scared in the hospitals? Who will serve the hungry in your city, the inept and the elderly? Who will meet the needs of their town, not for the sake of meeting needs, but for the sake of building relationships that glorify God. The needs exist for the sole purpose of building relationships of love. It's not about the doing, but the motive. We are to be doers, but not in our own righteousness, but through the love of God that wells up within us to produce the works prepared for us before the foundations of the earth. Who will love the least, church, if we neglect our purpose?
To quote the song above...
"People killin' people dyin'
children hurt, you hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
and would you turn the other cheek
"Father, Father help us
send some guidance from above
cause people got me, go me questionin'
where is the love?"
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