Being the Bride (and the Blogger) in Love

Guest post by BJ Stockman

Christian bloggers are known for being vigilantly (and sometimes annoyingly) after the pursuit of doctrinal faithfulness. Much of the purpose of the Christian blogosphere appears to be aimed at showing the popular preachers and pastors of large churches how, why, and where they are wrong. A sure way to increase traffic on your blog, no doubt, is to call out Christian leaders. Sure, at times, from the right person with the right attitude, this can be helpful. But the Christian blogosphere could use less heresy hunting and more writing encouraging readers to love Jesus with a love incorruptible (Eph. 6:24).

That’s what this blog post is for. This post is about calling blogging and non-blogging Christians to love Jesus. Live the kind of life that shows you are the Bride of Christ in love with Christ.

Faithfulness to Christ, like faithfulness to your spouse, is not enough for a flourishing relationship. Obviously, your spouse wants your faithfulness. That’s practically assumed. But your spouse also wants your love–to have won your heart.

Jesus too desires your affection. The resurrected Christ had “this against” the doctrinally faithful church in Ephesus–they “abandoned” the love they had for him (Rev. 2:4 NRSV). The Ephesian believers were caught in that awkward position of being faithful to Jesus but not loving him. Jesus was not pleased by this. He is a jealous lover who wants the affection of his Bride.

Affirmation of Jesus is not enough. He wants your heart.

Francis Schaeffer, one of the best Christian philosophers of the twentieth century, called Christians to more than just intellectual acumen for a Christian worldview but to love Christ. He writes,

We must ask, “Do I fight merely for doctrinal faithfulness?” This is like the wife who never sleeps with anybody else, but never shows love to her own husband. Is that a sufficient relationship in marriage? No, ten thousand times no. Yet if I am a Christian who speaks and acts for doctrinal faithfulness but do not show love to my divine bridegroom, I am in the same place as such a wife. What God wants from us is not only doctrinal faithfulness, but our love day by day… 

We must be the loving, true bride of the divine bridegroom in reality and in practice, day by day, in the midst of the spiritual adultery of our day. Our call is first to be the bride faithful, but that is not the total call. The call is not only to be the bride faithful, but to be the bride in love. [the Church at the End of the 20th Century (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1970), 129.]

How are you doing about being the bride in love?