Reimar A.C. Schultze

Past Issues of the Call To Obedience

I JUST CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Wherever electricity is in use, there is a fuse box. The more electrical power used in the house, the greater and larger the fuse box. Once in awhile, an electrician forgets to mark the fuse box letting us know what fuse goes with what circuit. And then, we husbands end up standing in front of the fuse box and hollering to our wives to tell us which lights or receptacles connect with that particular fuse.

Well, what are fuses for? Fuses are to protect the electrical circuits from an overload of electrical power so it will not do any damage to the system. When you draw too much power, when you plug too many things into any given circuit, the fuse blows and says, "I just can’t take it anymore! You are expecting too much from me." Consequently, everything in that circuit shuts down: the motor stops running, the lights go out, the music ceases, the washing machine stops washing, and the elevator gets stuck between floors.

Now, as there are limits—fuses—in the physical world, so there are fuses in our emotional lives. Our nervous system has a fuse. We can only handle so much stress, and then we react other than the way we want to react. We get angry at the one who has crossed us just once too often, or we shut up and stop talking for awhile, or we refuse to call "that person" on the telephone or greet another one at church, or we just stay home from church altogether for a little while, which all too often ends up being forever. When something blows the fuse of our nervous system, we start using words we may never have used before toward another person such as, "I am getting a divorce," or "You’ve never loved me," or "You always have to have it your way," or "You are always right."

When our fuse is blown, we may make quick, radical decisions which we are likely to regret the rest of our lives. At worst, we may kill someone. At best, we may speak an unkind word. Oh, what damage is always associated with the blowing of a fuse and these words, "I just can’t take it anymore!"

My friend, we all live in a world of limits. Everything other than that which is eternal has a breaking point. Everybody can be stressed only so long and so far before something gives within us.

Psychologists have devised a stress scale that assigns a certain number of stress points to every major human calamity. There are so many stress points when a person goes through a divorce, there are so many when he loses his job, there is a certain number when a person goes bankrupt, and there are a fair number of stress points when he relocates to another area of living, and so on. When a person’s total stress score goes too high, he is said to be near a nervous breakdown.

So, my friend, I believe you have joined me in this sad tale of, "I just can’t take it anymore!" You have come to agree with me that we all have limits, that we all are in search of a fuse that is big enough to never blow, to never stop motors, to never turn the lights off, and to never end the music.

Well, hallelujah! Let’s go to the Jesus Fuse.

Jesus had a fuse that never blew. His conduct never, never became a slave to the limits of his nervous system. Oh, precious Jesus, did you have a monopoly on this fuse, or is there perhaps one of them just like it available for me?

The answer to this question comes to us from possibly the most important biblical chapter for the Christian: 1 Corinthians 13. In verse 7, we find the fuse department of the Holy Scriptures. It says: Love "beareth all things."

If we believe that every word of the Bible is inspired, we are stuck with the "all things." If we do not believe in this verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, we can reinterpret this verse, fitting it to our own human limitations, making it say, "Love beareth most things." Oh, think of it, how important it is that we believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible? If we don’t, what tricks can we play with anything Jesus or the apostles said?

Love "beareth all things." This is the Jesus Fuse. That is to say that this is a fuse that never blows, as the next verse also tells us that love "never fails." Oh, how wonderful and how powerful this passage is. Let us look at it again from the Amplified Bible:

"Love bears up under anything and everything that comes." Again, it is followed by the words of verse 8, "Love never fails."

If you don’t believe in the verbal inspiration of the Word of God, you sure have your work cut out here to make the text suit your infirmity and your excuses for allowing your fuse to blow.

Friends, we need to replace our human fuse. We need to extract it from our fragile nervous systems and replace it with the Jesus Fuse. The Jesus Fuse is love divine shed abroad in our hearts by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).

Oh, life is such a pressure cooker but, my friend, with this divine love, all things can be borne with patience and kindness and longsuffering without any breakdown whatsoever. Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28–30).

Oh, how beautiful this passage which stands before us: "Come unto me...," "Come unto me...," "Come unto me...," keep coming unto me. Jesus calls you like that. He calls you like that every day, every minute of the day. He waves to you in love: "Come, come, come unto me, just keep coming. I have something for you that the world cannot offer. Only I can give it to you. Come unto me and stay with me. Abide with me. Abide in me, so I can give you the love that beareth all things, that bears up under anything and everything."

My friend, this love has been tested. Is it not true that our nerves are the thinnest, the most fragile, when we have been deprived of sleep? There, on the Calvary Road, Jesus had been practically sleepless the night before the crucifixion. Then he had to bear up under the questioning, the beating, the mocking, the spitting, the false accusations, and the weight of his cross on his frail body. Would you say that if any man’s nerves were at the edge, his could have been, should have been on the Calvary Road? If any man’s fuse ever had a right to blow, if anyone could have said, "I can’t take it anymore!" Jesus could have. Yet, he did not utter one single word out of control.

"Love bears up under anything and everything that comes." Jesus had the divine love, and it was tested in a 100% human body that had the same nervous system that you and I have. Jesus did not break!

You can say, "But Jesus had the supernatural at his disposal." I have good news for you: Jesus came into the world to make that same supernatural power available to every one through the gift of the precious Holy Spirit. With that supernatural gift, no spouse would ever have to raise his voice in anger, no church member would ever have to blow his fuse and run out of the sanctuary or the board meeting, none of us would ever have to be stressed out—out of control—acting like we had never met Jesus. But we would discover that, indeed, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Yes, dear one, Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden." Jesus bids us come to drink of the fountain of his love: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters..." (Is. 55:1).

Perhaps, we have sunk our buckets into that well of life and have drunk of it; but, oh, may we want to put the well itself to our lips and never stop drinking. We need to fall in love with Jesus—head over heels. In that relationship, we shall have that love that bears all things and bears up under all things that may come along—that love that never fails.

If we love anything or anybody more than Jesus, we are in idolatry, the door to the Jesus Fuse is closed to us, and we shall continue to blow fuses.

Someone has said that the early Christians preached most often from the Song of Solomon. Why? Because it portrayed passionate love. Jesus wants us to love him with the passion like the Shulamite woman’s for her lover. Because the love of the average Christian for Jesus is so weak, the average Christian only has human love, the same limited human love as the sinner that’s apt to break down any time to spill out his anger, resentment, lust and greed, hidden deep within the carnal nature of the unsanctified life.

Oh, my friend, true Christianity is supernatural. It draws the power of God and the love of God out of heaven to supplant the old sinful man and his ways.

Please obey the Lord—keep obeying—and the love that bears all things, that never fails, will be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit, and you will come to a life where the words, "I can’t take it anymore!" will be replaced by the words, "Christ is able to save me to the uttermost...seeing he ever lives to make intercession for me" (Heb. 7:25).

Yes, my friend, it is not "too good to be true" that we don’t have to blow our fuses. Rather, it is "too good to be false." If you blow yours again, ask Jesus to help you get to the point of the soul tranquillity that he had. He will lead you there.