Love for the Shrugger [SPOILERS]

Someone evaluating my life  (I'm a little paranoid/perfectionistic) might tell me I should read more Christian books; I read a good number, but I also read a lot of completely secular fiction. I consistently find, though, that the stories in the books I read help me understand things in the Bible as they apply to my life. Like the illustration of a Christian's reaction to grace at the end of Jane Eyre: She receives a fortune, and immediately realizes that she wants more than anything to share it with the people she loves the most. [insert what Paul says in the introductions any of his letters] Or seeing the effects of a broken relationship between Creation and Creator in Frankenstein [Insert Romans 1]. Or understanding the pain, necessity, and gain of cutting off "sin that so easily entangles" (Heb. 12:1), illustrated in Between a Rock and a Hard Place. And so many others!

This morning at Perimeter, Randy mentioned the story of imprisonment and torture of a middle eastern pastor whom he had the opportunity to meet recently; it was a side point, but I barely heard anything else he said because I kept thinking about the horror of what he described and asking, Would I be willing to suffer that much for the Lord? and trying to find ways of getting around admitting, "Well, probably no."

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged and watching the rain, the Falcons, and my house plants--and the topic of suffering for something you love/believe came up in Atlas Shrugged. Francisco tells Dagny, "The measure of the hell you're able to endure is the measure of your love. The hell I couldn't bear to witness would be to see you being indifferent."

My first thought was, I'm not sure what measure of hell I am willing to endure out of love for the Lord; I remembered Revelation 3:16, "So, because you are lukewarm [indifferent], and neither hot nore cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." What I remembered right after that was, Jesus endured LITERAL hell out of love for me, to save me. "Greater love has no one than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Clearly, Jesus' love for me is greater than I realize.

Maybe I did hear the rest of what Randy said, because his message from Romans 8:35-39 was that Christ loves me in spite of my lack of love for Him. ". . . While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). THAT truth is the small seed for the love I have for him now. Clearly it's a seed for something huge if people are willing to lose everything for His sake, as He did for us. I do see though that the more I look at Christ, the more I see his love for me, and the more my love for him grows. So I attempt to "look"at him often--by reading the Bible, talking about him, thinking about him, and finding glimpses of him in fiction books!