Love and Order

One of America's longest running and most successful T.V. dramas is Law and Order. The actors who signed on for these programs many years ago have become a steady presence in the hearts and minds of millions. The human desire for a sense of justice runs so deep it can keep programs like these on the air for years and years.

It is a shame there is not a series called Love and Order. Such a series would be more in tune with the Kingdom of God and the life of Jesus. Law may show the way back to where things went wrong among us, but law has never created lasting order among us. The only hope for order is love, not law. Love produces justice and order. Law never has.

The Apostle Peter calls for a kind of love and order in the life of Christ followers in II Peter 1:5-9

"But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love.

For if these things are your and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins."

Love produces order. It produces order not as an end but as a means. Order in one's life is important because it allows for love to be delivered without competition or distraction. Love was meant to flow continuously from us like a river of life. Love must be continuous and without interruption-- in order--to truly satisfy. When love flows without interruption from us into other's lives in an orderly way, God is glorified. God's glory, continuous love, is made visible and available.

The order love produces is to continuously bless the relationships God allows us to enjoy and influence over time. The first order of love's delivery in my life should be between me and God. My personal relationship with God must be ordered in such a way that God receives from me the first and best of my attention and response. The next order of love's delivery in my life should be between my wife and I. Between Pam and I love and order should be an ongoing, continuously renewed experience. Next in love and order should come family and then all other relationships.
Love and order go together so nothing interferes with love's arrival from God to man.

Order must be produced by love. If it is not it will become a legalism and kill love. Law and Order is not he Kingdom of God.
Love and Order is.

The existence of the living body of Christ in the world is for Love and Order to be made visible and available as continuously renewed love. There may be no T.V. series called Love and Order, but there is a 2000 year old manifestation of Love and Order called the Body of Christ. Millions and millions have lived lives of Love and Order instead of Law and Order. God watches them night and day. God is not a fan of Law and Order. May the world take notice of Love and Order among us, too, since Love and Order will run forever.