love makes the world go round

Someone aptly said “Love makes the world go round”. Is this just a cliché, a dusty ideal, a mommy bedtime story? Or is it true? If it’s true, it must be true in the end, or so basic that we hardly see it. Politicians and thinkers like Plato have devised entire systems to govern us. There are also anarchists who reason that we should do away with all laws. There has been the feudal system and Confucianism, or communism, capitalism, socialism. Some Christians argue that capitalism is Christian. But why then did the first Christians have everything in common, and that without imposition or force? I believe that all these systems would go a long way, if and only if we had true Love, with a capital A. Not sexual love, not even friendly love. That too, but in the first place the love of God and neighbor.

But who will give us true Love? Islam cannot give it. Even Judaism can’t. Yes, as a Christian I must conclude that not even Christianity can give us true love. Christians, myself included, have failed miserably. But I still believe that Christ can and will give us true Love. And he does. The love of a mother for her son, for example. If we look for it, we will find it. And I keep looking for it. The apostle Paul claimed that he did not fight as if he were striking the air, but controlled his body and his senses. She cared for his body with love for him and guided him wisely.

I am not announcing any political system here, but rather the millennial reign when Christ, who is the embodiment of Love, will restore paradise both in the natural world and in our hearts and minds. But in the meantime, as citizens, we are stuck with one system or another. Some people try to overthrow them, they become revolutionaries. And still others choose some form of martyrdom. The apostle Paul calls us in the Bible to obey the government that is above us. And he probably wrote this when the notorious Emperor Nero ruled in a sometimes crazy and capricious way. He even admonishes us to honor the king. He also affirms that the governments that exist have been established by God. Corry ten Boom, a well-known Christian survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, chose Christ as supreme king. She obeyed the Nazi rules, but her faith led her to protect some Jews in her house. She refused to become a murderer for Christ and therefore did not choose the path of militant resistance.

Without true Love all political systems will collapse sooner or later. And they have. There have been the Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians, the empire of Alexander the Great and his generals, the heyday of the Roman Emperor Augustus. And they all ran out of fuel, so to speak. But you and I, in our own circles, whether large or small, must carry the banner of the Love of Christ. Only He can truly inspire us. Once again, no system or religion can save us. But the Lord Jesus Christ can set us on the way to the heavenly Jerusalem. Repent, believe, and develop a personal relationship with Christ! Paul: “Godliness is useful for everything, having promise for our lives now and in the future.”