His Love Compels Us

2 Cor 5:13-14 (NIV)
“If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us…”

(This blog was written on a short-term missions trip to Rosarito, Mexico)
Imagine: leaving the comforts of home, work, family, recreation, to spend over a week’s time in an unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar people, doing unfamiliar things! Imagine: your diet is drastically changed from the well-managed healthy McSalad to the daily variation of McBeans, Rice, and filtered (we hope!) water. Imagine: being awkwardly transplanted in a place where you can’t find a bathroom or buy a soda without a translator, let alone share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Did we sign up for this voluntarily?! What would drive people to do such things? Paul says, “The love of Christ compels us”.

It is the love of Christ that dangerously carries Bibles across foreign borders, that spends a lifetime in a hard field with little fruit and no conversion, that gladly trades the mirage of safety and comfort in America for the unknowns of faith and blessing. His love wakens men to trade the corporate ladder for the servant’s seat; it harkens young women to abandon the pursuit of courtship and seek a better reward in serving their Bridegroom; it draws young and old to people that have never seen a white face, heard an English word, or the saving name of Jesus.
The love of Christ calls the broken, the failed, the fallen, the forgotten, and the firm equally, to lose their lives to find what is truly called life by their Lord. What compels us? It is the love of Christ.

Paul says, “the love of Christ compels us”, which literally means, “to hold together, to press the ears together, to press on every side, to hold fast, to hold oneself to”. His love is a keeping love, as He holds us to Himself, holding us together. That gives comfort to the struggling marriage in the struggling work in a struggling field. That brings peace to a young couple looking for direction in a wide-open valley of choices and opportunities. That brings endurance to the missionary that is questioning the will of God and whether this furlough is their last. His love is a compelling love, a staying love, a love that keeps us close. And as Paul said, it may seem to others that we are out of our mind, but it is for the sake of God.

At 8am, a man walked into a bar, sat at his usual seat, and ordered his usual drink. The bartender smiled, but could only imagine how empty a life must be when liquor was on the menu this early in the day. A man approached the window of the bar, and tapping on the glass, held up a sign that read, “I’m a fool for Christ…who are you a fool for?” May the love of Christ compel us to be His fools, if it means winning some for Him.

-Pilgrim