Love Is for Nothing

What does it mean to seek the bread of life only for the loaves and fishes? How often do we find ourselves thinking in terms of what Jesus can do for us instead of reflecting on what Jesus has already done for us? What are the implications of this kind of attitude for a church which is called to be a servant?

Thomas Alva Edison, possibly the greatest inventor in history, lived in a large house with a huge fence around it. Visitors had to push open a heavy iron gate in order to enter the compound and then push it back again until it clanked shut. One of Edison's friends complained to him about the tremendous amount of energy it required to open and shut that gate. With a twinkle in his eye Edison escorted his friend up onto the roof of his house and showed him an elaborate mechanical device made up of levers and pulleys and pumps. "What you don't know," said Edison, "is that everyone who comes to visit me and opens and closes that gate, automatically pumps a gallon of water into the tank up here on the roof."

Isn't that what often happens in our own walk with God? When we invite God in aren't we thinking, "What can you do for me?" Twelfth century mystic Meister Eckhardt warned that "Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love him as they love their cow. They...