Adding a New Word to the List

I have a new word that I like. I know that may sound strange but from time to time I get caught up in a word that just helps paint a picture in my mind that other words just can't. So over time I have come across a few words that I call my favorites. So far my list is short...which hopefully tells you that these words are special and not just something that happens every day. My list includes : Jesus, glorious, captivate, treasure, and now my new one "compel".

I came across this word in 2 Corinthians 5 this week. Sam loves this chapter in scripture and so I have heard him talk about it many times. But this was my week to just fall in love with this passage the way he had years ago.

As a believer in Christ I have been taught, read, and even sang about the love of God and know to love others. Well in 2 Corinthians 5 Paul says "For Christ's love compels us..." and so I stop here. What does it mean to be compelled? My first thoughts were "motivated and encouraged". And then I saw the Webster's definition of compel and it means to "force".

Wait a minute! I live in America and no one "forces" me to do anything right? I am free! But then, I realize that the forcing comes from a love! A love that is bigger than any love that we as Americans...or humanity as a whole can possible grasp, much less give! This love is so big that to try to explain it would make my head spin and my heart explode. But my gracious God has slowly in time explained to me piece by piece, bit by bit, about this love. And this love forces me to do things that I look back and think how in the world did I just do that. This love is powerful!

So this week has been a week of figuring out what is moving me, or forcing me. I think whether we like the word "force" or not something out there is forcing our decisions and actions. Maybe our own opinions, or the influences of our culture. Maybe in our own understanding "love" definately forces us to do things. Obviously I wouldn't get up every single night for 7 months to feed Alice unless I loved her. Nor would I deal with all the random 6 year old conversations I listen to if I didn't love Libby. And so these acts are forced by my love for those girls. But this love compared to Christ's love are so far apart! Glimpses if you will of a greater love. A love so powerful that it raises death to life, slaved to freed, sinfulness to pureness. My love for my children and husband can do alot, but has yet to do any of those. This love is powerful! Again...this LOVE is powerful!

So may that LOVE...that powerful, huge, amazing, and beautiful love compel me. Why wouldn't it? Further down in this passage Paul goes on to say "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" Think about that...changed! Forced to be different! Did I mention that this love was powerful?

Being compelled by a powerful love!