Distinguishing Love

Sardis - what is the upshot of things in Sardis? Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.  

You look at the message to the church at Sardis and try to put it all into one word. What is the word that sums it up? Well, you have to say it is indefiniteness.

So we can say again, in the light of the whole standard, that first love, ultimate love, the love of Christ, the love which He is seeking, is a distinguishing love that marks you out as clearly defined for the Lord and all that is of the Lord.

Distinguished,different,outstanding, defined,unmistakable by the love that characterizes and governs. 

The thing that distinguishes from all else is this great love, and this great love brings about a distinctiveness of life.

You cannot be indefinite if you are mastered by this kind of love. 

First love does not care one little bit what people think or say.

Oh, everybody is saying this and that about the lover in the grip of first love. They may be using all sorts of language - He is a fool, he is mad! - it does not matter.

This love is making them clear-cut - one object, one design, one thought, one intent. 

They are people marked by one thing and not two. There is no doubt about it.

We have our humorous ways of speaking of people who are in that state. He is in love, you cannot get away from it, everything goes by the board! There is one thing and one thing only in that life. That is, of course, how it ought to be. 

You young people, never have any relationships in the beginning that are not like that. First love is like that, and the Lord says, "I want you where you were at the beginning."  

Or shall we say, I want you where I have ever been. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; I am like that from first to last.

I want you back there in a distinguishing love.

~T. Austin Sparks~