Lazy Love

[Jesus speaking] So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35 NLT

In his book, Secrets of the Secret Place, Bob Sorge writes, "One of the most profound ways you can love someone is by praying for them. Intercession does something very powerful in the intercessor: It joins the heart of the intercessor to the heart of the one being prayed for. In intercession, you are investing yourself in another person’s life." 

I never thought of intercession as an act of love. I saw it as a duty, a Christian obligation to pray for others. How did I never see it as an act of love? 

In my renewed quest to love as Christ loves, I don't even come close. I realize I have a lazy love - it's selective and leans more toward being selfish. I'm not always moved by the feelings of others - I am more so than before but not always. What if those we call on to pray for us prayed the same way we pray for others? Would our prayers availeth much? (James 5:16) Father, forgive me for those times when it is more cursory than fervent.

Which for me shed a whole new light to the depth of Christ's love when, while ON THE CROSS, He prayed, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. They had ridiculed and lied about Him, beaten Him. Betrayed Him. Abandoned Him. He left the splendor of Heaven and all that was good and perfect to come to save us. He invested His life - EVERYTHING - and prayed for the forgiveness of the ones in the middle of crucifying Him. And it's not over. Romans 8:34b tells us, It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 

STILL making intercession. STILL loving us. Strenuous love. Fervent love. Nothing lazy about it.

Prayer:

Father,
         How do we thank You enough for Your unfailing love? Forgive me for lazy love, conditional love. We pray Your Word from Ephesians 3, that as we continue to trust in You, our roots will grow down into Your love and keep us strong. We pray for the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep Your love is. We pray that we may experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully, so that we will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from You. In Jesus' Name. Amen