2 I had a vision in which Jesus told me to write to the angel of the church in Melbourne:

Holiness without love

"A part of you uphold the Word of God, and preach righteousness, holiness and a strong moral ethic. You hate the worldliness of the liberal churches, which Jesus also hates.

You show me love in worship and offerings and an eagerness to study the Scriptures.

Yet the Father holds this against you: you have forsaken the love of his family and his people. When others make it hard to meet, you acquiesce to their demands. When helping the hurting would take too much effort, you stay home. When you preach, you don't lift a hand to help put that preaching into action. When watchmen cry, you ignore them to preserve your comfortable cruise ship.

But watch out! The ship has holes! It will take all of you working together to fix it, and to gird yourselves once more to rescue the drowning and dying.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says. Those who seek their own comfort I will reject on the Day, but those who seek others' comfort I will reward."

Love without holiness

"Yet there is another part that is proud to be loving and others' focussed and socially just. They exercise mercy, grace, forgiveness and love. You have concern for the poor, both among your own and in those around you. You have this in your favour.

Nevertheless, your light is neutered by your love for what I hate. You regard it 'love' to love what I regard as sin! Get back to the Word! Understand what is right and good, and let that be your concern. You have distanced and made it hard for those who are noble BereansActs 17:11 to be amongst you–woo them back. Change your ways, so that you love what I love and hate what I hate."

Love with holiness

Love without boundaries is easy–you just accept all without questions. And Jesus accepted the woman caught in adulteryJohn 8:1-11. But when Jesus says "take up your cross"Matthew 16:24 to follow him, it means you give up your way of life. It means "go and sin no more"John 8:11. There are hard boundaries because God has made us for specific purposes. We cannot just do whatever we want.

Some of you struggled with pornography, and when Matt came up with an IT solution to help make the internet more safe, and more accountable, you baulked at the cost and effort to set it up. You had committed to holiness, but it was revealed to be hard. But when an anonymous donor paid the entire bill–and more–you were overwhelmed with joy! This is love that serves holiness, producing a harvest of spiritual fruit.

We all know we want to live in community together–but will we pay the price of giving up our current comfortable life, and count the financial cost, to achieve that which we know is far more like "the Body"? We want the right way, but do we love God–and others whom we will serve–enough to move into this way of living?