a message from the President
Robert Odom
Love In the Name of Christ National Headquarters
National Newsletter - Winter 2010
It started over 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was nailed to a cross to die a horrible, agonizing death – the death of a criminal. As He hung there, He took upon Himself the sins of the world and suffered our punishment. What was it that compelled Him to lay down His life? It was love.
It continued with his disciples, the early Church. People confessing his name went against the tide of a pagan world to value those whom society refused to recognize. In His name, they fed and clothed the poor, cared for widows and orphans, rescued abandoned children, and provided care to the sick, oftentimes risking their own lives to do it. What compelled them to give so sacrificially? It was love.
It continues on in our time, every day, in every place where Christians are reaching out to meet the needs of the broken and the poor in their communities. In the name of Christ, they are providing housing to families who have lost their homes to foreclosures, food to children whose parents can’t find work, needed medical prescriptions to seniors on fixed incomes, and life skills training to people needing to make a new start. What compels these Christians to do what they do? It is love.
But this is no ordinary love. This is nothing like the world’s idea of love. What I’m talking about is the love of Christ – the fullest, deepest love the world has ever known. This is the love Christ talked about the night before He went to the cross: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John
Before Christ died on the cross that day over 2,000 years ago, the world had never seen this kind of love. But on that day, God began a movement which has swept on throughout the history of the Church, and within which we find ourselves involved today. It’s the movement of love in the name of Christ.
The movement of love in the name of Christ is Christians, the Body of Christ, coming together to love people in His name, so that God can use His Church to transform lives with His love as only He can. It is a movement designed and directed by Christ as He moves His body to express His love on earth.
For Christians, loving in the name of Christ is not an occasion; it is the essence of who we are. Christ said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35 (NIV) Without Christ-like love, one can label themselves a Christian, but not bear the identity marker of a true Christian. Every person who identifies themselves with Christ must also identify themselves with a love for God and for their neighbors. As Christ said, “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV) Every Christian, every church, is part of this mandate to love others, in His name.
Sadly, not all Christians know this or understand the significance of being members of the Body of Christ – that they are called to express Christ and do His will, both corporately and individually. Or, they don’t fully understand that the expression of Christ on this earth is His love. But Christ is still the Head of the Body, and He is moving His Body to express Himself, His love. He has begun a movement of His Body, and it is Love In the Name of Christ.
Love In the Name of Christ is a movement of Christian churches coming together as the Body of Christ, across denominations, to love their neighbor in need.
The Love In the Name of Christ movement helps Christians identify themselves as members of Christ’s Body; provides practical ways for Christians to express His love; demonstrates to our communities and our country what love in the name of Christ looks like; and assists the Body in moving; corporately, to do the will of Christ by loving the poor in His name.
When I was appointed president of Love In the Name of Christ nearly nine years ago, I made a commitment to God and to Love INC that I would not bring my own vision and plans to bear on the organization. Rather, my commitment was to find out what God was doing across Love INC and then stay faithful to it. I recognized then, back in 2001, that Love in the Name of Christ was a movement of God. In fact, I shared with affiliates at the first-ever National Directors retreat that, in all my years of nonprofit work, I had never come across an organization with so much God-given potential. I realized that there was no limit to what God could do through Love In the Name of Christ. The ceiling of Love INC’s potential. I realized that there was no limit to what God could do through Love In the Name of Christ. The ceiling of Love INC’s potential is heaven, because this limitless potential comes from His Church, the Body of Christ, and every Christian should want to live their life loving in His name.
As poverty and hopelessness continue to grow across our country, we need a movement of Love In the Name of Christ for such a time as this. It is so simple, yet so profound. The ultimate Love In the Name of Christ started on the cross over 2,000 years ago, and continues to this day. Love In the Name of Christ connects like-hearted, like-minded people – Christians who are striving to be Christ-like and to love as He loves – thus forming a movement of loving in the name of Christ. Won’t you join this movement of loving others the way He loved?
“What we need is not intellectual theorizing or even preaching, but a demonstration. One of the most powerful ways of turning people’s loyalty to Christ is by loving others with the great love of God. We cannot revive faith by argument, but we might catch the imagination of puzzled men and women by an exhibition of a fellowship so intensely alive that every thoughtful person would be forced to respect it. If there should emerge in our day such a fellowship, wholly without artificiality and free from the dead hand of the past, it would be an exciting event of momentous importance. A society of genuine loving friends, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige and from all unreality, would be something unutterably priceless and powerful. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.”
Elton Trueblood, Alternative to Futility, (New York, NY Harper & Brothers Publisher 1948).
