What's the Temperature of Your Love?

(Mat 24:12 KJVR) And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

Jesus makes this statement as He prepares His people for His return. I have personally thought and heard many times that this verse refers to God's people compromising with the sinful world and thereby drifting away from the Lord. I still believe that this verse refers to such and has proven to be a true indictment of far too many of God's people today.

However, I believe another facet of the verse is overlooked. Looking at the word translated "iniquity", we find that another meaning is lawlessness. Now I am not saying that lawlessness is not sin or inquity. Yet it does have a nuance that enlightens another view. The lawlessness refers to the lost, and Jesus tells us that sin will have its normal, progressively negative effect. Have you seen any evidence of this in our world today? Good being called evil, and evil being called good seems to be the rule of the day rather than the exception. Criminals are receiving little to no consequences for their evil actions to good citizens. Politicians are continually misusing and abusing the trust of the people they have been elected to represent.

How do these things make you feel? Does it seem hopeless to even try to tell people about the great news of the Savior? Surely people have no interest in church or things of the Lord, do they? I think you can see where I am going with this. All of this is enough to make a Christian forget that God still loves these people and Jesus died for their sins. If we are not careful, our love will begin to cool as the cold breath of lawlessness attempts to extinguish the fires of evangelism.

Jesus told the Ephesian church in the letter addressed to them in Revelation that they had left their first love. They were doctrinely sound and had a great passion for exposing and dealing with those who taught contrary to the scriptures. However, Jesus reminds them and us that God's people must remain focused on our main mission. The mission that God established before He created man and revealed in the person and ministry of His Son, Jesus Christ. That mission is to seek and to save all that are lost. He does not want any person to go to Hell no matter how lawless they have been.

Let us never forget that it is only by God's grace that we are not in the same or worse shape than those who seem so uncaring of the hope we have. Let us be faithful ambassadors of our great heavenly kingdom. Let us pray, witness, and live that the lost may see the love of Christ in us. Let us guard our attitudes by keeping our eyes on things above. Let the love that motivated God to send His Son and Jesus to willing die burn passionately in our hearts and minds!