Pensamientos para hoy (afterthought for today)

Love Attraction

You've heard the proverb "opposites attract"? This theory of attraction is usually attributed to the attraction of men to women who have opposite personalities, but it is actually from the world of physics where we see that magnets attract opposite polarities, that is, positive polarity attracts a negative polarity.

The theory of attraction of opposites is also true in the spiritual world. The lost and lonely are attracted to the people of God because they see something that they don't have. God's people, the church, have been transformed by the love of God. We have the fruit of the Spirit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)."¹ Those outside the church have hate, sadness, turmoil, intolerance, wickedness, betrayal, cold-heartedness, and impetuousness. Anyone who has even one of these negative characteristics will be attracted by the hope of having the opposite positive characteristic. A life filled with hate will long to be loved. Someone who is sad hopes for joy. A person whose life is filled with turmoil prays for peace. Those who are intolerant, wicked, disloyal, harsh, and foolish dislike this negative side of their lives and admire those who are patient, loyal, good, and wise.

So in a very real sense the positive polarity of the church can attract the negative polarity of those outside the church. One problem with magnets is that their power to attract is limited by size. So too, the positive influence of a smaller church is limited. To successfully reach the lost and lonely in the world, a church needs to become a powerful electromagnet. Electromagnets are much more powerful than regular magnets. We get this electromagnetism from the power of the Spirit of God. We need to have super attraction from a super-powerful God to give us supernatural "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Only God can give us these supernatural powers. Only God can make our church be a place where the love of God is so powerful that we will attract the lost and the lonely. Let's pray that God will turn on the power of love in our lives so that we can, like a powerful electromagnet, draw in those who need Jesus.

Your loving pastor,

Pastor Steve
April 1, 2011

¹ Galatians 5:22-23, NASB (New American Standard Bible). Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.

Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived. One of Jesus' techniques was to relate spiritual ideas to common everyday life. Pensamientos (afterthought) is an attempt to follow Jesus' method of teaching. Its title is in Spanish because we recognize the importance of multi-culturalism. We hope to translate some of these messages into Spanish soon.

Find more afterthoughts at Pensamientos (afterthoughts).

You can read recent sermons by Pastor Lorenz at Featured Sermon.