After reading about 2 police officers being shot in New York and also reading about the abuse of women and children in Iraq and Syria by IS, it is hard to think that there is a God who loves us and is in control, but remember there is. Some would say that some of the worst violence in history has been perpetrated by those who profess to love God. In some case they are right. But what does it mean to love God?
It is easier for many people to love those we see. To love those that we can see the love physically and tangibly returned to us, and I think that for many people to day we do not always see God at work in our lives and are not taught how to see God at work in our lives. Others may have trouble believing that they can see or relate to God. Yet God has revealed Himself in Jesus, through the Bible (the inspired word of God), through His Holy Spirit, and through the many miracles that surround us every day. But most of all God has come to those He loves and invites us to love Him. In the life of Jesus, the aspect that was most troubling about Him was that He was showing God’s love through actions, not through rules. Yes the rules were still there and Jesus was working within the realm of those rules, but Jesus highlighted the love of God and showed His disciples, the people that He met and those He healed how powerful God’s love was, not how powerful God was, not how quickly God could wipe out a city, or get revenge, how powerful and important the love of God is in our lives. No it is not going to suddenly take all our problems away. But it is real and it is inviting us to come to Him, to be renewed by Him, to be loved and accepted, and to grow into the people that we are meant to be, not just the people we choose to be or told by our society or culture we are suppose to be. We are given value and are valued by the creator of the universe, not by a passing fad, not by a prideful culture, not by the majority or the minority, but by God through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. God’s love that came down at Christmas, meets where we are at no matter how perfect or messy our situation is, and calls to follow Him, not leaving us where we are at, but bringing us along to something precious because He is precious, because He has loved us and invites us to love Him. What is stopping us from loving Him with everything that we have? Is it because we are too busy, too stress, too comfortable, or we are too unsure and we are afraid to commit because what happens if we are wrong? In the Bible the people are continually pointing to all the things that God has done and is doing. Why do we now doubt what the Bible says, what our friends and families might say about God and Jesus. Are we taught to question everything and trust nothing? If so we are in trouble because we have been taught to trust things that have only been around for a short period of time and doubt what has been tried and true for hundreds of years. I’m not against change, or science, and I don’t think that science and faith need to battle against each other but I do believe and think that we need to remember to love the one that has loved us for longer than we have been alive. We need to trust God who seeks to lift us up, not push us down. We need to trust in the heart of the Gospel, the truth that God has given us in Jesus, and in His Bible, and allow His Holy Spirit to lead us. We need to allow truth to be real, because in the truth that comes from God is a deeper love than anything or anyone can offer.