Pastor And Author Stuart Briscoe Writes: I Was In ...

Pastor and author Stuart Briscoe writes: I was in Edinburgh about a year ago speaking at Charlotte Chapel, and a delightful young lady gave her testimony. She had come back from Kabul, Afghanistan, where she was a missionary nurse. She said how she was really enjoying the work she was doing there, and then she’d met a young man and fallen in love. He’d asked her to marry him, but she had said, "I made a commitment to my church back home to serve on the mission field. If I were to marry you, that might change everything. So before I can give you an answer, I need to talk with the leaders of the church." And so that was why she was home. She’d flown home all the way from Afghanistan to talk to the leaders of the church.

As I was looking at the congregation, I noticed a fellow sitting in the front row who had the weirdest look on his face. So when she was through and sat down next to me, I said, "Who is that fellow? Do you know him?" She said, "That’s the young man." I said, "I thought he was in Kabul." She said, "He was. He heard I was flying back to Scotland to talk to the leaders of the church, so he said he wanted to talk to them as well. So he jumped on the next plane."

You can always tell lovers: they don’t give up. They "come after," as a lover comes after the beloved. The test of following Jesus, adoring Jesus, worshiping Jesus is answered by how much we love Him. That’s one application of the illustration.

The real application is that God’s intense love for you brought Him to Earth and Calvary on a search for you - to capture your heart and your will and your emotions and your soul with ALL that He is that you might worship Him for Who He is.