December 16,1996
Dear Brother Fullerton:
It is one of my greatest joys to correspond with Christian brothers and sisters. Although I know absolutely nothing about you except that you are an attorney, I know that through Christ, you are my brother and it is about time that I write to my brother concerning the love of our Father as displayed through the life, death, and sufferings of Christ.
I don’t even know if you are a Christian or a member of another
faith, but that doesn’t matter, you are still my brother
because we have the same Father.
I never had the privilege of having a natural brother, my parents
had two daughters, therefore, I have adopted every man whom I
become acquainted with, as my brother through Christ.
When I speak of a loving and kind father, most men grow quiet
or reluctant to discuss their views of God. There are good reasons
for this hesitation; most of our natural fathers failed to teach
us of God’s love through their personal love for us. It has
almost become unmanly for men to adore other men or, at least
in our society, conversations of compassion among men conjures
up images of homosexuality or inappropriate gestures or mannerisms
or effeminate men, cross dressing or other oddities.
When I speak of love I mean the Godly type, purified of all perverse
sexuality or corruptions of all types. I mean the self-sacrificing
type of agape that seeks the welfare and well-being of another
person in preference to our welfare or well-being. I mean the
type of love that places a higher value upon others and a lesser
worth upon ourselves. This is the type of love that God and Christ
have for each other and for each of us and they desire us, as
men, to reflect to other men with whom we associate, not to mention
to our wives and children.
This love is available to all who desire it and who seek for it
earnestly. It is not hard to find or difficult to practice and
brings tremendous rewards in seeing the joy and happiness it brings
to others. There is one drawback, however, it comes at a price;
the price for this commitment is our death, not our physical death,
although that is occasionally required, but the death of our selfishness,
our self-centeredness, our love of self. In order to have the
devotion of Christ for others, we must die as Christ died. Most
people think of the death of Christ as a physical death, but this
is not the death to which I am referring.
Several hours before He died the physical death, He died the death
of self; this occurred in the garden of Gethsemane. Here He was
tested as we shall never be tested; while Christ was fully God,
he was also fully human; in this garden, His divinity was tested.
Would He voluntarily die, go to hell, in effect for a world that
hated him. The death of the cross was not the torture of being
nailed to boards but of going to hell for us that we may have
the opportunity of living with Him throughout eternity. The test,
for God, the divine side of Christ, was wether He was willing
to die that we, rebels from His government, might live. His supreme
sacrifice was made when He voluntarily gave up the rights of divinity
for an eternity. He went to hell on our behalf.
Can you think of any other god, who has ever claimed to be god,
who acted in the same fashion; no other god has ever claimed this
title and loved as Christ loved; no other god can love this way,
for Christ, His very nature and very person, is agape. Just as
we are flesh and blood, so God is love.
This tenderness He freely gives us that we may have compassion
for others, especially men, with the same self-sacrificing, unconditional
love as He first displayed toward us. This is not a ferry tale
but reality. Just as your law books are real, and the tannates
they contain govern your practice of law, so Christ’s love
is real and these principals govern His kingdom in heaven and
the kingdom of love found within the hearts of His faithful children
here on earth.
This principal prompted me to write to a total stranger words
of encouragement and hope that you may come to know my Father
as I have known him.
May the Lord bless you in your business and in your personal life
and in your family. God loves you, brother Fullerton. Your brother
in Christ.
Allen A. Benson