A Prayer About Cold Love
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matt 24:12-14
Dear Lord Jesus, as you know, it’s pipes-freezin’-cold here in my hometown this morning, and it’s supposed to get even colder. One of my first thoughts and prayers for the day is offered on behalf of the poor and elderly in our community–those whose homes are not insulated and heated well enough to withstand this kind of extreme cold. I pray for their safety but I also realize that loving you, Lord Jesus, involves not only offering the thirsty a cup of cold water in the desert, but offering a cup of hot coffee, warm blankets, extra coats and space heaters to those in the frigid regions.
Such a concern for the poor seems to be directly connected to your sobering words about the danger of our love growing cold-first and foremost, our love for you, Jesus, but just as dramatically, our love for others.
As soon as I read your words this morning, Jesus, I thought of the line in the hymn, “don’t let me out live my love for you.” Jesus, that is certainly my earnest prayer and my firm hope. I only love you because you first loved me and gave yourself for me as a sacrifice of atonement… as a propitiation for my sins. I praise you that the Holy Spirit preached the gospel of the kingdom to my heart, en route to the nations, and I was made a citizen of that kingdom… a part of your bride… and an heir of the new heaven and new earth. I will never be able to say thankful well enough of long enough.
Yet Jesus, I am well aware of the times when my heart grows tepid, then cool, then chilly, and then cold. Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy. Holy Spirit, breath upon the embers of my heart and bring forth the flame of the love I first had for Jesus when the gospel of grace was applied to my heart. I don’t want to be another believer who keeps doing many right things with the wrong heart, a cold heart… because in time, I’ll even stop doing the right things. Come, Holy Spirit, come. You will give me warm bread and not a cold stone. So very Amen, I pray, in Jesus’ kind and powerful name.