Inexhaustible Source

Back in the 70's when I really began searching, I read Corrie Ten Boom's books:  My Father's House and The Hiding Place.  These real-life stories of the Ten Boom family hiding Jews, and as a result being sent to concentration camps, started me wondering.  I knew that Jesus had said to love your enemies and do good to them that persecute you, but how do you do that?  I knew the power would not within me to love my enemies in the face of that kind of hatred and persecution. 

At the time, I belonged to a group of seekers called Yokefellow, based on Elton Trueblood's work in California.  We would meet once a week to explore our faith or lack of faith, to ask questions of the Gospel and of one another.  One evening, they brought in a Hari Krishna guru to speak, and I listened to him.  I don't remember anything he said because all the time I was thinking that he would know the answer to my question.  After his talk, I raised my hand and asked my question:  where does the strength come from to love your enemies? 

I remember being so disappointed because he could not answer my question.  He did not know!

At the time, although I went to church faithfully and although I did love God, what I did not know was the nature of Christianity.  I, like so many others, thought it meant practicing your religion and being a moral person.  Until I met Jesus Christ personally, I did not know that Christianity is simply allowing Him to live His life through us.  It has nothing to do with "trying to live a good life."  It is more an "exchanged life," where we hand over our pitiful, sinful, and selfish lives to Him, and in exchange, He moves into our hearts and minds to live His life through us. 

I cannot forgive; He can and does forgive in me.
I cannot love my enemies; He can and does love them through my eyes, hands, mouth, and words.
I cannot do the good I wish to do; He can and does do good even when I am not aware of it.
I have no water with which to quench the thirst of the poor; He is the Living Water given from above.

Corrie Ten Boom said this:  When God tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.  In the desert, Jesus came to the end of His own human strength, that the power of God's word might be His very life:  Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God, He said.  And Isaiah 55 tells us that the word "which goes forth from my mouth" does not return empty, but accomplishes the purpose for which He sent it.  When God said, "Light, Be!" light came into the world and never departed from it.  So, too, when He says, "Love your enemies," His words are not "good advice," but they actually create in us the love which He commands. 

Whatever or whenever we find lack in ourselves, if we can just find the Scripture which has the power to "do" in us what we cannot do for ourselves, we will find that the words of His mouth can accomplish more than we can ask or imagine.  And the Christ, the Living Word of God, in us can do all that seems to us impossible.