Love or Ritual?

Love or Ritual?

"O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the 

secret places of the stairs, let 

me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;

for sweet is thy voice."

Song of Solomon 2:14

   I’ve always thought it was odd when people describe me as “religious”. I am a Christian, but I hope that I’m not religious. I don’t want anything to do with religion. When I stopped running and surrendered, I was not surrendering to a religion. I was surrendering to a person named Christ, and I took on His identity because of love not religion. But I sometimes wonder if they call me “religious” because I forget and get caught up in the rituals of Christianity.

  

   Jesus was severe with the Pharisees because they had forgotten their first love. They were bound by their religion, forgetting the one whom they worshipped and loved. He tried to show them their hypocrisy but they did not want love, they wanted power over the people through religion. He said, “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me (Matthew 15:7-8).”

   I have never experienced true love from a man, but I have experienced what true love isn’t. And I have been blessed to see true love between my parents, grandparents, and my siblings and their spouses. For these two reasons, I think I can define three aspects of love without making a complete fool of myself.

   I have observed that love gives without strings attached. We shouldn’t love Jesus and expect him to give us anything for our love. In Matthew 19:27, Peter asks Jesus “we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” Are we worshipping God in the sincerity of love or do we give so that we can receive?

   I’m not saying that Jesus never gives us anything. He has given us eternal life, the promise of a future, and many other precious promises because He loves us and shows us true love, but why do we serve him? Do we serve him out of a pure heart of adoration and love?  If we don’t, we are hypocrites. We don’t really love him.

   I have also observed that love desires nothing but its object. In the Song of Solomon, the bride rejects her lover because she is tired. She says, “I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them (Song of Solomon 5:3)?” I often struggle with pushing away my Christ. Sometimes, I’m just too tired to either read the Bible or spend a few moments talking to Him in prayer. My love is cold.

   When my brother started dating his Meg, he would work twelve hours a day and then talk on the phone to her for two hours at night. He would go to bed at one and wake up at six, but he loved her. He didn’t want to go to bed without talking to her.

   Our Bible reading and prayer should be a time to speak to our love, our Savior, our Jesus. We should want to speak to the one we love.

   Lastly, love surrenders itself for the one it loves. I think that hardest thing we wrestle with as Christians is that we no longer own ourselves. When I sat down on that pine bench at Bible camp, a stubborn and independent teenager, I knew that I was surrendering myself to Jesus. Nothing would be the same.
   How much do we love Christ? Do we give him a little of ourselves or do we give everything? I think that love never stops giving, it gives everything. The Song of Solomon says, “If a man would give everything for love, it would utterly be contemned (Song of Solomon 8:7).”       

   

   We think that giving everything is too big of a price for “religion”. But Jesus gave everything for us by dying for us. Because He knew that we needed redemption, he redeemed us with His blood.

   When I think that Jesus died for love, I am overwhelmed by the weakness of my love. I struggle with giving him my life, with following the commands of the Bible, with trusting Him, with letting Him plan my future, yet He gave me everything.  I do not want to be religious; I want to do these things for love. It is the least I can give Him who is “altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend (Song of Solomon 5:16).”