LOVE OF CHRIST

"I'm empty and I just need you....Here comes your light to shine...."

These lyric phrases remind me of a passage of scripture that Dave Olson, my pastor, brought to our attention recently. The message most commonly drawn from these verses is clear: We must always be ready for the second coming of Christ because we never know how long he'll tarry:

At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'

Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'

'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'
Matthew 25:1-9

But Dave drew us on a different track with this passage this time. To "trim a lamp" means to cut away the burnt, useless part of the wick that dims the flame. We must each know how to trim our own wicks...you know, how to repent, to cut away and to crucify the useless flesh in our lives so that our flame can burn brightly.

But we'll never shine properly if we run low of that oil flowing from a fresh, abiding life with Christ, no matter how well we trim our wicks. And just like the foolish virgins above, if we find we're running on empty, we have no choice but to head to our only Source to get some.

Trimming your wick and filling your flask-both are critical in your walk with God. There is no substitute for either one and there never will be for any child of God. That was even true for Jesus Himself.

No one ever trimmed a wick like Jesus. He kept His flesh so perfectly trimmed that he never sinned and He never had to repent of a single thing.

But no one ever filled his flask as perfectly as Jesus, either. Though the crushing needs of the people pressed in on Him relentlessly throughout His ministry, He always kept an ample supply of oil on hand, regularly pulling away from the crowds to spend extended times alone with His Father in a garden or off on a mountain somewhere. He lived like the wise virgins, and always knew just where to find His fill-up.

Of course, knowing where to get the oil is not the same as having some, is it? Both the wise and the foolish virgins knew the address of the oil merchant, but only the wise ones had visited there recently:

Let me speak plainly here. It won't be the guy who believes in prayer who will get that close connection with His Father. It will be the one who prays who will get that closer connection. You need to get started, and you need to keep going.
Tactics, page 162

Like the virgins, we often know where to get the oil and we know what it costs-time spent alone with the Father in worship and prayer. But we're often too foolish to get alone with Him and to pay the price, so our oil runs low and our lamps dim out into sexual sin and fruitlessness.

In Every Young Man's Battle, I taught guys how to trim a wick when it comes to our sensual flesh. My book Tactics, however, teaches guys how to find the fresh oil that changes every young man's battle forever. As I said, both are very important, as there is no substitute for either one.

Still, we often act as if there is a substitute, like our own strong will, for instance. Since it is far simpler to exercise our will in the battle for purity than it is to patiently and regularly seek the presence of an invisible God, many guys place their entire focus upon bouncing the eyes and starving the mind from lust, while their spiritual oil gage scrapes away at empty.

Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat-for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Psalm 127:1-2

We can labor and run ourselves to death in fleeing from sexual immorality, but unless the Lord is in the battle with us and unless we're abiding in Him for that love and intimacy we need, we will flee from sin in vain.

Now, don't misunderstand. Your choices and your will always have a place in the battle for purity. I'm the first to stress that we have a role to play in this battle for purity, and we must trim our fleshy wicks ruthlessly. There is no substitute for this. We must bounce the eyes. We must starve the mind. We must observe and always obey. In my own life, the fleeing took me deep into the homestretch of victory, just as 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 suggests it should.

At the same time, I couldn't find complete victory in trimming wicks alone, no matter how strong my will became. I never broke the tape in victory until I learned to fill up with the fresh oil of love and intimacy of Christ. We have our responsibilities, but God's responsibilities in our battle are clear, too, and being your Source of oil is one of His most important:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
John 15:1-8

The awesome truth is that there is a place in God where there is constant supply of fresh oil for you:

Then the angel who talked with me returned and wakened me, as a man is wakened from his sleep. He asked me, "What do you see?"

I answered, "I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lights on it, with seven channels to the lights. Also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left."

I asked the angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?"

He answered, "Do you not know what these are?"

"No, my lord," I replied.

So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty.
Zechariah 4:1-6

In Zechariah's vision, those living trees were the continual source of oil to the bowls and channels that kept the lights burning brightly. No one had to run around the sanctuary every day filling bowls. They were filled naturally by the living trees as long as the channels of connection were there.

You can live in this place of constant supply, too. You sing, I'm empty and I just need You to be my refuge from the pain. Christ is already your Living Tree, and you'll always burn as brightly and as endlessly as those temple lamps as long as you're channeled into Him.

Of course, that begs a very important question, doesn't it? Where exactly do we find these channels? Are we supposed wait around on the Lord to build them, or is there a way to position ourselves to receive that flow from Him?

God told us not to sit around when it comes to our relationship with Him:

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13

You see, Christ wanted to "be your shelter from the rain" even before you asked. In fact, He died for the chance to be your shelter. Too many of us, however, are waiting for God to move in closer to us. We are not supposed to wait. We are supposed to get up and press in to Him. We will be as close to God as we want to be.

How exactly do we press in like that? I don't know about you, but at the time I engaged my own battle for sexual purity, I had no mental matrix or understanding for building those kinds of channels and finding that intimate place in God. I knew plenty about trimming wicks and repenting in tears, but I hadn't a clue how to build an oil pipeline into the heart of God. I didn't even know I needed one, for Heaven's sakes. I was worse than foolish....I was completely blind.

Since that time, I've found that we start building this pipeline by pressing in to the habitations of God from which the oil flows:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.
Psalms 46:4-5

How do we find God's habitation? We build it:

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Psalm 22:3

We create the habitation of God in our lives through one-on-one prayer and worship times. God inhabits our praise, and that intimate flows from there:

The Bible calls the church the bride of Christ, comparing His passion for us to a husband's devotion to his wife. But when I try to come up with the language to explain the intimacy I feel during my personal worship times with the Lord, I cannot. The words that come closest are "romance," fascination," and "intoxication."

Nothing I've ever experienced beats the electricity of these moments with the Lord-the captivating touché, the deep passion, and the emotional tears you might expect in a love relationship but without any of the sensuality or self-focus that's part of relationships with females. It is all about Him and His overwhelming beauty. Your heart becomes one with His in these moments, and nothing else matters but Him.

This kind of intimacy is so vital in claiming long-term victory over sexual sin that it would be difficult to overstate it....The passionate connection locks down a new, genuine companionship with God that replaces longing for the false kind that masturbation delivers.
Tactics, Page 174

What's more, this kind of practical, one-on-one singing turned out to be the key to my permanent victory over sexual sin in my life. A thick growth of genuine intimacy with Lord soon replaced my old desire for the false stuff from masturbation. When it comes to cementing your final victory in place, daily worship on the spiritual front of the battle will be every bit as important as bouncing your eyes and starving your sumo on the physical front, because it can convince your heart permanently just how much your Father loves you.
Tactics, Page 172

In this song Love of Christ, you'll sing, How deep, how wide is the love of Christ, the love of Christ? You'll find out personally just how much God loves you as you move in towards Him. As you do, He'll undo the chains and the pain and He'll make you to understand His ways so you'll be whole again, just as the song says, and it will be in that place that you'll find out just how badly He wants to be your shelter from the rain.