In-N-Out
By Grant Gaines
Because of the fallen sinful nature of mankind, our warped human minds can come up with some pretty horrific ways to torture other human beings. Probably the most well-known of these cruel torture instruments is the cross. Of course there are others such as starvation, scalping, tarring and feathering, and waterboarding amongst many others.
And as disgusting as those are, arguably the most sickening form of torture is the punishment many of the medievals would assign to their criminals. Essentially at the root of this torture, the prison guards would feed their inmates delicious food and wait. No, the food wasn’t poisoned—it was actually some of the finest food any citizen could eat at that time. And it wasn’t the small portions that killed the inmates either because this was an all you can eat buffet.
But before you think this was just an appetizing Thanksgiving dinner, there is one more piece of information that needs to be added for you to understand this form of torture. And there’s no easy way to tip toe around this delicate information so I’m just going to come out and say it—the guards would sew up the prisoners’ bottoms so they couldn’t, well, you know, go to the bathroom. And it doesn’t take a doctor to know that what goes into the body—food, drink, and breathe—must come out.
But with the prisoners in this “tight” situation, there was only food intake and no output. Eventually after several days the criminals would die because of their inability to let out the food that was recently eaten.
Now you are going to need to hang with me as I make this transition because I know how gross that is but in a strange way I think that is how many Christians live their lives—they intake so much of God’s delicious, life-giving, everlasting love and keep it all to themselves. Their eyes are as wide as their ear-to-ear smile as they survey the endless depths of God’s love for them but so often that love is never replicated or shared with others.
And just as the prisoners would die when they couldn’t release the life-giving food from their bodies, I believe that we too die in some sense when we don’t share God’s love with others. It’s not a physical death and it’s not even a spiritual death in the sense that we are cut off from God, but we are just missing something.
In fact, that’s what 1 John 4:11-12 (NIV) says—“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us.”
Because of God’s sacrificial, sanctifying, and sufficient love for us, the only logical response is to love one another—it’s as natural and healthy as your body going to the restroom.
But there’s a small phrase that hides at the tail end of verse 12 that really captures my attention—“…but if we love one another…[God’s] love is made complete among us.” Apparently there is something about loving others that magnifies the Father’s love in our own life. As a shot of adrenaline is to our bodies, so loving others is to our souls. And without loving others, we miss out on the fullness of God and His love is not made complete among us.
Maybe the reason we go through seasons of spiritual drought and so often feel like Immanuel—God with us—is not with us, is because we are living with an incomplete measure of God’s love because we are failing to extend that love to others. And maybe in those times of drought if we were to go to God—the Good Physician—and ask for some medicine to help us through this difficult time, the prescription God would give us would simply be to love others so that His love can be made complete in us, among us, and through us.
I don’t know why God made it this way but through these two verses it is very evident to me, as it was to the prisoners, that what goes in must come out.
Have you been outpouring the love that God has given you?
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
©Grant Gaines 2013
