We all have a love box. For some it’s a spouse and children. For others it’s an inherited vacation home filled with memories, one that we’ll sacrifice everything to keep. Some people keep a retirement account in their love box, afraid to dip into their savings, no matter the cause.
Our love box holds the things we consider most dear, the things we will protect no matter what storms batter our lives. We only let go of them when we are backed to a wall and we have no other choice.
Then we break our love box, and everything inside comes flooding out.
The storm of drug abuse might come our family’s way, and if we do not break our love box and let our daughter go to prison, the rest of our family will be shattered against the rocks. That inherited vacation home we share with our brothers, sisters, and cousins becomes an anchor around our neck. Family squabbles and rising taxes break our love box, and the home is sold to satisfy our siblings’ desire for cash. Or experimental surgery for that rare disease requires money we cannot borrow, and our love box cracks, leaking our retirement savings into the creditors’ greedy hands.
We never choose to break our love box, not willingly, anyway. That’s why we’ve filled it in the first place. Our family, our home, our retirement, all are inviolate. Why would we choose to give them up? It would be foolish.
Or the act of a desperation situation. In the book The Center’s Child, it says, “When the need is desperate, the actions must be equally desperate, and unacceptable risks become acceptable.”
What risks are we willing to accept for Christ? Let’s look at several examples of broken love boxes in the Word of God.
Exodus 30:23 names spices to be used in a God-directed anointing. Yet, we have to imagine ourselves as if we lived three millennia ago. We can’t stop by a grocery store and pick up a dozen bottles of the finest available. Spices in this time period were precious beyond compare; they were to be mixed to form the oil of anointing; and they were to be used only in service to God.
“Take the finest spices: of liquid myrrh 500 shekels, and of sweet-smelling cinnamon half as much, that is, 250, and 250 of aromatic cane…”
The love box was broken, and the contents offered unto God.
Hosea 6:6 was written at a time when Israel’s love box had become polluted with things of the world. God’s pronouncement set them on their ear.
“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Writing big checks on Sunday does not excuse us if we ignore God all week long. He wants us to break our love box and offer the contents unto him.
Revelation 22:1-2 gives us a hint of what God offers us in exchange for our love box.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
If we haven’t figured it out, God loves his creation. He wants to be loved by us in return. All we need to do is break our love box, so that he can fill it back up with his glory.
1 Timothy 4:1-5 assures us heaven is not our only reward. We can have a bit of God’s majesty even here on earth.
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”
If others tell us we must live a life of poverty and attrition, we can look at our love box and find Jesus inside. He tells us otherwise.
Romans 14:1-5 tells us what God wishes to find in our love box. It’s something so simple anyone can store it up.
“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.”
Everything in our Christian walk hinges on our faith. When we break our love box, God wants to see our faith come flooding out.
What we store up for God reflects our devotion to God.
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