devotional - day 5

2 Corinthians 5:14 ….Christ’s love controls us

Control. Whoa. For me that word makes me cringe and my body goes tense. Even in a sentence about Jesus and love. In fact, I wanted to use an alternate translation of this verse other than the NLT version. One that didn’t use the word “control”. I prefer other translations which state “Christ’s love compels us” or the NLV translation that says “For the love of Christ puts us into action” or a myriad of others that have it “For the love of Christ urges us on” or “urges us forward.”

However, I figured if it was creating such an adverse reaction in me that I might want to delve a bit deeper into why that might be.

I don’t know about you but I don’t like being controlled. In fact, I’m a recovering control freak. Being the oldest of five with a type A personality I’m much more comfortable controlling others. It literally took me many years to let God drive. For a ridiculously long time I asked God to sit in the passenger seat and asked him to bless the journey I was choosing. Needless to say I got very very lost and very very frustrated, angry, and sad. It finally got to a point when I gave up, stopped the car and reluctantly got out and walked around to the passenger seat and implored him to drive. 

Allowing God to drive the car on this journey of life has gone much more smoothly, even if most of the time God seems to want to take the most scenic of all possible routes and chooses to stop and smell each and every rose we come across. 

So. Giving up control is hard and when the verse above is stating to let Christ’s love control me, I instinctively react with resistance. 

However (and ironically), I do actually want Christ’s love to control me. I do aspire to be a woman filled with love toward others in a genuine and authentic way. To be a woman who makes others feel good about themselves because Christ’s love is just exuding from me. That all of my actions are about showing Christ’s love so that others will be blessed by it. That he is choosing to use me to spread his love is such an honor. 

And yet. There is that slight tug of resistance at times, especially to unkind, mean, vindictive, unfair people to let myself be controlled by Christ’s love. But it is a must. It is the only way to bring God’s kingdom down to earth as it is in heaven. The only way. And that is what I live for. That is my purpose.

So…even though it’s hard, allow Christ’s love for you control you so much that you infect others around you with it. Who knows what good things might happen if it goes viral! Let us be zombies for Christ!