The Angel Love

Nehemiah 8:1-3 “And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water
Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to
Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen
with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square which was in
front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who
could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
Nehemiah 8:6-7 “Then Ezra blessed the Lord the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen,
Amen!” while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the
ground.
Nehemiah 9:1-3 “Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the sons of Israel assembled with fasting, in
sackcloth and with dirt upon them. The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners,
and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. While they stood in their place, they
read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day; and for another fourth they
confessed and worshiped the Lord their God.” 1

One day an angel came out of heaven with the express purpose of seeing first hand what the fuss being
made over the State of the Church was all about. There was uproar among the Host about the travesty that the
Church had become. Reports of weakness among men in teaching and training the family of believers into
maturity and man’s general apathy about his own weakness were whispered among the angels. Reports of pride
and self aggrandizement among the leaders of the bodies of men were also heard in the courts of heaven to the
shock and dismay of the angels. But above all else, the worst reports of all were those that told of fellowships of
believers that had forgotten their truest purposes in the One Church. There were stories told of bodies of
believers that had begun to worship their own opinions over the true will of God! They struggled to serve not
the Savior but rather their own man-made ministry even to the detriment of their Savior’s will. The accounts
repeated in heaven spoke of the worship of money, position, and ministry, ‘church’ size, ‘giving’ quotas, and
building maintenance, none of which was of even the slightest interest to the God that the angel worshiped daily
and none of which had any nutrition for the vine of life that the Son had so long ago begun to tend for His
Father.
The angel, whose name was Love, could not believe that the conditions among the people that God had
so faithfully cared for and delivered into His own unyielding hand, could have ever transgressed so far from His
original purposes for them and His Son’s Church. Love, being a free thinker and never one to simply take the
word of another for something that she could very easily look into herself, decided that to best understand the
situation she should experience the church for herself, firsthand. So, with wings tucked into her traveling
clothes as best she could, Love set out to visit man's ‘churches,’ as they were called, and to measure their
standing accordingly. During her journey, the angel, whose name was indeed Love, reflected upon her surprise
and awe when she had first received the revelation of the Father of the sacrifice that He made for His created
race of men. She had been astounded at the depth of His love for creation and the limitless bounds of that love
within Himself. She, like all the rest of the host of heaven, was struck dumb at the sight of Jesus on the cross
and the glory of His resurrection and the beauty of His re-ascension to His Father’s side. The sheer enormity of
the act of God in expressing His love and mercy to a fallen people in such a magnificent way and the
transforming and liberating power of that love and mercy upon those people was certain to bring a great change
upon the earth and among the men who were now free to love their God and to love each other, without fear,
without measure, and without limit. Love, happily remembered that after the host of heaven’s momentary
dumbness had passed there erupted in heaven reverberating shouts of praise and hallelujah to the God who had
accomplished such an awesome act.
Upon her arrival on the earth, Love found, after a frightfully boring and uneventful day of visits that the
churches were indeed standing quite impossibly small. With such power at their fingertips to love and care for
the world and to spread the love of the Father and the Son within it and toward each other, the ‘churches’ were

1 New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995
unbelievably short reaching and unimaginative. She witnessed much of the form of worship and teaching and
rather little of the substance. She heard the words of the Savior and His apostles and prophets read and spoken
of quite elegantly and even forcefully in some of the ‘churches,’ but she viewed among the people a
disappointingly small thirst for the gospel itself. From the sun’s rise in the east Love traversed the globe on the
day of Sabbath and witnessed congregation after congregation, fellowship after fellowship, community after
community, rehearse and execute liturgy after one fashion and another. The songs were sung, the words were
spoken and the sacraments were given. But missing from the majority of the ‘churches’ was a fundamental
appetite to heal the sick, care for the widow and the orphan and the stranger, visit the imprisoned, and feed the
poor. Among the believers of God in the many ‘churches’ that Love visited she found only a scattered few who
understood, amidst the distraction of the ‘church’ itself, that tradition and liturgy, doctrine and dogma, were
merely works, akin to the old and undone Law itself. Their worth was of no more importance than the tenets
found in the books of Moses. These few knew that the Lord alone was to be worshiped and obeyed and He
commanded only that men love His Father and each other. But these few were fast dwindling. They once
numbered in the majority and had established the Church in power on the face of the world. But in the time
since man had largely forgotten the truth of the gospel and the need for his complete and utter submission to it
and it alone.
The Church, that great and glorious bride of Christ, will one day be offered to the Father as an
unblemished virgin, holy and blameless. Must this be in principle only? Might not the men of God turn from
their ignorance, their apathy, their weakness, and their fear, and repent of their foolishness? Might not man turn
back to the will of God, as it is in heaven and seek to love Him and each other, in spite of the trappings and
turmoil that he finds his own ‘church’ embroiled in? Will man, leader and layman alike, take the chance of
baring his soul before God and begin again, seeking not a continuation of his failed past but a rediscovery of his
promised future?
Shaking her head in dismay the angel Love unfurled her wings against a gray winter sky and soared
back into the arms of her Lord and God. In one sense she was glad that she was not made man, but angel, for
men are stricken with soul’s that are easily perverted and puffed up. But in a larger sense she longed greatly to
know what the redeemed of creation must surely know, that God’s love is permanent and forever, and that His
promise has been sealed and witnessed by all of creation, both mortal and immortal.
Back in heaven Love rushed to the side of her Lord’s throne and looked deeply into the vastness of His
eyes and countenance. She knew that He saw within her the troubles of His Church; she loved how transparent
He always made her feel. And He showed her a glimpse within Himself of a tremendous secret that only He
alone fully understood. She backed away from that secret more in awe of Him than ever before and worried no
more about the fate of man, for their fate must be secure in the hands of such a God as He.

December 28, 2009