Daily Jewel

by pastor J.T. Carnell, McAlester, OK
Sept. 16 2011

“I Want to Know What Love Is”
“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." – Proverbs 3:3

There was a song recorded in the 80's by a Rock Band known as "Foreigner." The title of the song is, "I Want to Know What Love is." The chorus of the song says: "I want to know what Love is...I want you to show me. I want to feel what love is...I know you can show me." The lead singer, Lou Gramm, co-wrote the song, writing the lyrics, and then a few years later would turn his life over to Christ. He said in an interview: "As I was writing this song I was really struggling with my life and was looking for answers. Not long after we recorded the song, I met the woman who would eventually be my wife who would then introduce me to Jesus. Obviously I was not thinking of either my wife or Jesus when writing the words - but if I were to sing it today - it would be dedicated to what the Lord has done in my life." I have been studying this verse for quite some time and I must admit I am having a difficult time getting away from it because there is so much that can be said and I will not even be able to scratch the surface of all the things that could be written! We’ve already talked of love and then yesterday referenced “faithfulness” in terms of being a loyal person…but isn’t there more we can learn from this? How can we truly grasp the kind of love this is referencing? Solomon encourages us to not let love leave us but he does not define it. Sometimes the best way to understand biblical concepts is when it comes from the pen of another…and in this case it comes in the form of one of the best hymns ever written by a man in the 17th century, Isaac Watts. Watts was not the prolific hymn writer that Charles Wesley was (his 697 hymns pale in comparison to the thousands written by Wesley), but a number of his hymns are some of the most loved and they continue to bless the Christian world today. Watts was born in 1674, thirty years before Charles Wesley, and both lived long and musically-productive lives (Watts was 74 when he died, and Wesley was 80 when he passed). Watts was the eldest of eight children, and Wesley was the second surviving son of 19 children born to Susanna Wesley and her husband Samuel. John Wesley was the oldest child of the Wesley clan. Isaac Watts was a very gifted child. By age four he had learned Latin, and by age nine, Greek. By his thirteenth birthday he had also learned French and Hebrew. But being brilliant did not open doors to the universities at Oxford or Cambridge for him. His father was known as a Dissenter, and children of dissenters were not allowed to study at the British universities. This didn’t seem to affect Watts in any significant way. His academic gifts opened doors for him throughout England , and beyond. Watts wrote poetry (in Latin) and experimented in hymn writing while still a young man. Although German Lutherans had enjoyed singing hymns for more than a century before Watts was born, the churches of England had no such tradition. Their hymns were “heavy,” lifeless, as was the mood of their public worship. Like Wesley, Watts preferred hymns that departed from the texts of the psalms, and some of his contemporaries complained that Watts’ hymns were too “worldly” for the church. He might have been considered a contemporary Christian writer of his day. Wesley’s hymns drew similar complaints, but years later. When Watts was 27 he was called to pastor a congregation in London. For the next ten years he totally immersed himself in the responsibilities of the pastorate, while at the same time he wrote books, poems, treatises, and hymns. His early success ended, however, when he became seriously ill and was forced to step aside from full-time ministry. He never fully recovered from this illness, which lasted about four years. During the next 38 years he attempted to return to pastoring, but he was not able to handle the rigors of full-time work. In 1739, at age 65, Watts suffered a stroke that left him able to speak but not write. With the assistance of a secretary, he continued to dictate his poems and hymns until he died in 1748. Perhaps his most famous hymn is one many Christian churches sing this to this day, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”
When I survey the wondrous cross, On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ, my God. All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood.
See, from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!

The last line of that song says it all! “Love so amazing!” God’s love. It is the only example of love that makes sense. It is in response to that love that we should cling to – and to let it be a visible part of our lives. It truly demands our soul…our lives…our all! That, I believe is the kind of love that we need to be examples of. There are a number of "Lou Gramm's" out there searching for something in their lives and if we can show them what love is then could it be that they just might see Christ as well?
Pastor J. T. Carnell