Lisa Barry: Have you ever wondered how much of your thinking has been shaped by the media? I wish I could see a kind of gage that would reveal which of my beliefs come from the Bible and which ones are only hearsay.

Here's an example. What do you envision when I say the word "love"? Is it a kiss or an embrace? If so, you may have bought into a Hollywood version of love. Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot contrasts those two viewpoints, so I hope you can stay with us for this Thursday edition coming up next. Here's Elisabeth.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you again today about the omnipotence of love. Omnipotence means the all-powerfulness of love.

Love, according to the Bible, according to God's Word, is a very different commodity from that which is dished out to us in the mass media. It has nothing to do with romance. It really doesn't have a whole lot to do with feelings. It's a matter of choosing. God gave Himself for us. This was His divine choice. Christ laid down His life for us.

Some of you know by heart John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." That's John 3:16. Then in the epistle of 1 John 3:16, we have these words: "This is how we know what love is: That Christ laid down His life for us, and we in our turn are to lay down our lives for each other."

Love is an almighty force, able in every respect. The Bible says, "Love never fails." That doesn't mean that love always succeeds. It means that love never exhausts itself, never runs out, never quits.

Look at the life of Jesus. Would you consider it a successful life? Have you ever thought about the statistics of Jesus' life? How many people actually followed Him and loved Him and did what He said? The multitudes followed Him because He was giving out loaves and fishes. The Pharisees followed Him in order to argue with Him and to catch Him out in some point of the law, about which they were perhaps very strict and about which Jesus seemed to be very lax.

If you stop and think that even the twelve disciples, whom Jesus had chosen, in the end forsook Him and fled. These were the people who had walked with Him, talked with Him, seen His miracles, heard Him pray, and yet they lost faith. They forsook Him and fled. It was for us, for us human beings, that the Lord of the universe came down, took a human body, was dispossessed, was prepared to accept the weakness, the vulnerability, the radical limitation of a child.

He was born as any other human baby is born. He was not conceived as any other human baby is conceived. We know that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but He was born of an ordinary village woman named Mary, a girl from a poor household in an out-of-the-way place. Jesus, as a little boy, grew up in that family, in which poverty was a daily thing. He accepted His weakness, His vulnerability and His limitations.

I find it quite staggering-I don't know any other word to use-to think of the One who made the stars as a prisoner in the womb of a human mother. Think of His needs as a child. Children are inarticulate. They can't tell you exactly what they need. The parent has to be discerning enough to find out. Jesus likewise was inarticulate as a little child.

He was brought up in a poor family. He wore rough clothes, undoubtedly was fed the simplest food, just the ordinary necessities, the barest necessities, of a carpenter's home. The infinite Majesty, the Lord of the universe, the Creator of everything, my Savior, my Lord, my Redeemer.

While He was here on earth, was He omnipotent? The Bible tells us that at one point He could not do many mighty works because of their unbelief. The omnipotent God could not do many mighty works? That's what the Bible says. Was He omnipresent? No. He was restricted by time and space. In order to get from Galilee to Jerusalem, He had to walk the dusty roads, just like anyone else.

He was tired. He was hungry. He was rejected. Think about the fact that He let things happen to Him. This is God we're talking about. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Yet He was put into the hands of wicked men.

There's a verse in the Book of Acts, which is worth pondering for a very long time over. I'm very often asked about the sovereignty of God and the freedom of man to choose. Well, I'm always glad that I can refer back to my second husband, Addison Leitch, who was a philosopher and a theologian. He said, "We're never going to get that unpacked or sorted out." He said, "We drive in a stake over here on God's sovereignty, God's ability to do anything He wants, and we drive in another stake way over here on man's freedom to choose. We are not going to bring those together in any intellectually satisfying way."

But think about this verse in Acts 2:23. This man, speaking of Jesus, "was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge, and you with the help of wicked men put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross." He was handed over by God's set purpose and foreknowledge, and with the help of wicked men He was put to death. Can you understand that mystery? I don't. But I believe it. I accept it. I know it's true.

There's another one in the same book, the Book of Acts, in chapter 4:27,28. "Indeed, Herod the king and Pontius Pilate the governor met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus." These words occur in a prayer offered to God, and so they're just telling God what God already knew-that Herod and Pontius Pilate had conspired together against Jesus, God's holy servant, "whom You anointed."

Those wicked men did what God's power and will had decided beforehand should happen. This is the deepest mystery that I know anything about. Of course, a mystery is not something explained. It is merely something revealed.

Think of Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, captured, blindfolded, slapped, dragged. He was hustled from the Garden to the council chamber, from the council chamber to the Praetorium, and He was hustled and dragged and led from the Praetorium to the cross.

The hand that had reversed so many human tragedies, that same hand-the hand of Jesus-was now nailed motionless, helpless, weak to a wooden cross. He made the tree from which that cross was made. He made the iron from which the nails were made. Yet He stretched out His hands and was crucified.

It was as if He wanted you and me to understand that the greatest act of all His life was when He seemed powerless to do anything. Can we think of powerlessness and omnipotence at the same time? They are paradoxes.

I had a letter from a woman who told me about an unfaithful husband and how God had changed his heart and hers. She said, "I'm learning to give up my expectations and this has led to real peace. The Lord gave back a love for him that had been lost and only God could have done that." The omnipotence of love. The Lord gave back her love for him, and only God could have done that, she said. Now there was commitment which was not there before.

True love, the love of God, suffers long and is kind. My friend Jim, who was a very powerful, very wealthy man, became a Christian. The first thing God said to him then was, "Go home and love your wife."

1 John 3:14 says, "We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death." To refuse to love is to remain in death. It's natural to refuse to love when we're badly treated and not reciprocate it. It's perfectly natural. It's perfectly sinful and perfectly useless. God's love demonstrates for us the kind of love that we are supposed to have for one another. The proof of our love is action. The valid, visible evidence that we really love God is the way we treat other people.

Lisa Barry: What a sobering note to end on. I'm sure we can all think of words we've used this week that have hurt someone else. But what a challenging message to take through the rest of the week. The best way to be sure it impacts you even longer is to get your own copy of the tape. The title is THE LOVE OF GOD and the cost is $5.

Our address is Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Or you can call us toll-free at 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Our Internet ministry address is gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible and is supported by people like you.

Elisabeth concludes this series tomorrow with an important closing thought. Find out what that is the next time we meet for Gateway To Joy.