A New Day

By: Pastor Johnie Akers     

Song of Solomon 8:7, “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”  William Gladstone, in announcing the death of Princess Alice to the House of Commons, told a touching story. The little daughter of the Princess was seriously ill with diphtheria. The doctors told the princess not to kiss her little daughter and endanger her life by breathing the child’s breath. Once when the child was struggling to breathe, the mother, forgetting herself entirely, took the little one into her arms to keep her from choking to death. Rasping and struggling for her life, the child said, “Momma, kiss me!” Without thinking of herself the mother tenderly kissed her daughter. She got diphtheria and some days thereafter she went to be forever with the Lord. You see, real love forgets self. Real love knows no danger. Real love doesn’t count the cost.  Such love, as our Scripture lesson today relates, cannot be quenched or drowned.  The moment our Lord laid aside His eternal robe of glory and donned the robe of human flesh, coming to live among us—Emmanuel, God with us—He chose to embrace us, though certain death awaited Him.  How else could He bring life to sinful, dying man, lest He love us beyond His own life?  He was born to die so that we might be born unto life.  He was not compelled against His own will, but in John 10:18, of His life He said, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.”  Our Western culture today is fraught with a variety of expressions and interpretations of love.  Love stories abound in print and in film.  But in the midst of it all, let us not be so preoccupiedwith transient and often times fickle expressions of emotionthat we fail to keep in the forefront of our mind the precious gift of life bestowed upon us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  In turn, may we also demonstrate that same spirit of unfettered and unselfish love by embracing those in dire straits.  1 Corinthians 13:8 in the Amplified Bible says, “Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].”  The giving of God didn’t end when He gave His Son to us 2000 years ago—that was only the beginning.  We are to continue that incarnation each day, by likewise giving the same expression of unselfish love to others, with each new day.