John 5:42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.

Sometimes we have to see things stated in the negative to understand the positive. Our use of the word love has many meanings. I love chocolate. I love fast cars. I love the mountains. I love to fish. I love you.

In the Greek we have three words that translate love. Philo for friendly, the enjoyment of company. Eros for passion, the erotic energy of the body stimuli. Agape for love-feast, the all-encompassing sharing of self often translate in English as charity. It is foreshadowed in the parable of the Prodigal Son when the Father tells the elder son, “All that I have is thine.”

I trying to grasp the “love of God” issue I found each Greek word woefully short of God’s love. Then as I meditated upon love the expression “falling in love” took shape. The love of God is not an emotion as described by the three Greek translations, it is a force much like gravity. It draws, grounds, and holds objects of attraction. It acts upon as well as acts through its residence. It cannot attract if it does not reside. It shares its property evenly and effectively. It does not favor substance. It pulls on the feather with equal attraction as it does the bowling ball.

God’s love attracts the sinner with the same force and affect that it does the saint. The only difference between the two being residence.

Ephesians 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

The gravity affect.

Hebrews 1,2a God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son …

Here again I find myself refreshed in Word much like hitting the refresh button at the top of this web browser. You know that is when the page can be viewed but all the activeX controls aren’t working and the cursor arrow doesn’t change to a pointed hand, or the cursor is frozen.

I know this passage and it said so much to me about how God’s Word was used to foreshadow the future. So much prophesy, so much information about the coming Christ, all to know Him when we see Him. At the time of the writing of Hebrews the authors use of “these last days” was relevant to the times and people to whom the letter was sent.

Something happened this morning to refresh the Word for me, to make it active and alive in that moment. I wasn’t seeking answers, I wasn’t seeking instructions, I wasn’t seeking anything, yet suddenly “these last days” became alive in the moment, the activeX controls showed that they were ready to perform their tasks with a mere click of the button.

It was almost like watching a delayed tape replay and hearing the announcer say “We’re back live.” What that means for you I do not know. What it did to me was to bring a sense of excitement and urgency to the here and now. The future is upon us and it is not a time to fall asleep.

1 Thessalonians 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

A day is coming.