Do You Know God's Love?

I do not believe that we actually have a clear picture of how much God loves us. The intensity of His love is so often portrayed graphically through the prophets of the Old Testament that is really more than we can take in. No human being has ever loved another human being as God has loved us all.

He created us in Him image. He gave us life and complete wholeness with the promise of ongoing, ever increasing glory.

Then we believed the lie that we could actually LIVE life without Him...who is the singular Source and Author of life...Who is Himself very Life.

We broke the whole world. Even creation has been subjected to futility since Adam's FALL. Life began to fall apart, relationships unraveled, hatred, murder, war, famine, racism, envy, pride, lust, fear, idolatry...it has been as if a colossal & deeply infected boil has erupted and nothing is left unsoiled.

Even good things are twisted into monstrosities: food to gluttony, intellect to arrogance, intimacy to debauchery, beauty to a thing worshiped, strength to brutality, melody to cacophony, art to decadence. And as we look upon the ruin of humanity it is amazing that we have not been able to utterly deface the image of God.

There is still goodness to be known and lived, love to be shared and nurtured, kindness that expects no reward, beauty in the creation around us that is there for the beholding, without regard to merit or accomplishment. The beggar, the prisoner, the addict and those who live insulated lives of great surplus...the eyes of them all can behold the glory of sunrise, storm and sunset.

Sadly, the tragedy Adam's fall has set the stage for ongoing calamity. It's when the inevitable strikes that our ancient foe whispers that God doesn't love us. God is put on trial as if it is all His fault.

That's when the old habits, old default responses to pain and sorrow are once again presented to us as "plausible" means to meeting the gnawing needs in our hearts and lives. That stuff has NEVER delivered on its promises before, but under the cover of suffering and disappointment, the Devil makes them all look quite reasonable.

That shame cycle keeps billions of people slaves to sin, slaves to the gods of men and hearts become hard if only out of self-defense. If we have believed the lie that God doesn't love us, then we are left to ourselves and the prospects for flourishing dim quickly.

But God has made a way for us to return to Him. We can actually turn from death and be brought fully into Life in God. Something we will never be able to accomplish has been done for us.

God, Himself has come to the rescue. In His life, death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has dealt with the sum total of the sin of the human race. He has removed every obstacle and opened a way (a singular, unique way) for all people from every tribal group, ethic group, linguistic group, national group, gender group or age bracket to come home, to begin to live life as God created it to be known.

People, we need to simply get honest and acknowledge our personal and corporate abysmal failure at the enterprise of life. Jeremiah 3:11-15 is the declaration of God's heart for us. We need the honesty of Jeremiah 3:22-25.

We need to see ourselves in the crowds that mobbed Jesus. They were described as people who knew they had missed the mark and were reaching out to the first Authentic Life they had ever seen.

Little did they know that the One they were seeking had been seeking them first. Jesus came to rescue and to restore, to forgive and to reconcile us back to God, to heal and complete us in God's love.