Jay E. Adams

Love is not first a feeling. Though the feelings come later and grow thick in the basic loam of love, they don't constitute the sum and substance of love. Love is doing whatever good God says you must do for another, to please God, whether (at first) it pleases you or not. You must do so because He says so; and you don't wait until you feel like doing so. Love begins with obedience toward God in which one gives to another whatever the other needs. Love is not a gooey, sticky sentimental thing; it is hard to love. Often it hurts to love. Love meant going to the cross through the garden of Gethsemane. Christ did not feel like dying for your sins, Christian, but He did so nonetheless. The Scriptures teach that he endured the cross while focusing on the subsequent joy that it would bring.

Evil is powerful, but good is more powerful. In fact, evil is so powerful that only good has the power to overcome evil. Darkness can be driven away only by light.

The Christian is free from all other human beings. He does not have to live over against others, controlled by their actions and responses. Rather, he lives according to Christ's commands. This is Christian freedom. It is a freedom unknown by others. It is not just when others do the things that we like that we act properly toward them; we are free to do good even when they don't because our actions are not dependent on their responses. It is the Lord Christ when we serve!

When is a train most free? Is it when it goes bouncing across the field off the track? No. It is free only when it is confined (if you will) to the track. Then it runs smoothly and efficiently, because that was the way that its maker intended for it to run. It needs to be on the track, structured by the track, to run properly. You too need to be on the track. God's track is found in God's Word.