With the Love of God

September 16, 2026

From Pastor Joseph Wamack

Hello MAC Family, Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord and the second is to love your neighbor like yourself. In other words, love God and then His love will fill us up, so we are able to love others in the same way and with the same love as God loves us. Sounds true but does it sound easy?

When I think of letting God’s love fill us, I think of this incredible story I read in Corrie Ten Boom’s book-The Hiding Place. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch woman, born in 1892 in The Netherlands. She worked in the family business as a watchmaker, along with her father. When the Nazi invaded The Netherlands in 1940, and began arresting Jews, many Dutch people took to assisting and hiding Jews, even though they knew it was illegal and dangerous. Corrie, her father Casper, and her sister Betsie hid many Jews in their home. Eventually, Corrie, and all of her family were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Sadly, all of them except Corrie died in the camps.

After the war ended, and the camps were liberated, Corrie-a devout Christian-was asked to speak in churches, sharing about God’s love and faithfulness, even during the horrors of concentration camps . She wrote:

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center in Ravensbrück. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there-the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? “Lord Jesus”, I prayed, “forgive me and help me to forgive him.”

I tried to smile; I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. “Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give Your forgiveness”. As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while in my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

This is the transforming love of God. This is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is what can happen when you allow Jesus to be your friend. You are not a slave-you are a friend to Jesus. And when you are His friend, the sad moments can be transformed. You might still experience sadness, but you have Him with you. In this case, Corrie could not love on her own, it was humanly impossible, but with the love of God in her heart, she could overcome the pain and move forward into life. You and I can have new life in Jesus' name.