People: because He loves us

Relationships. God created us for them and in them. We are created through the relationship of our parents. We are created to be in relationships with other people, with the earth (shelter and food) and with animals (food and clothes). But more than anything we are created to be in relationship with Christ. Purpose. From being in a relationship with Him we learn how to be in relationship with other people, Christian or not. We love because He first loved us. He showed us what love is, excuse me, shows us what love is. Read the Gospel. It is FULL of love. Look for it, it will bring you to tears, or at least a welling up of joy within (for the less sentimental among us).

Relationships. That is the basis of Jesus' ministry. Not was, not will be, is. The story of Creation hints at God's design of relationships. He created Adam to be in relationship with Himself, and it was good. He created Adam also to be in relationship with a suitable mate, and it was good. Notice how this mirrors the greatest two commandments quoted  by Jesus in the Gospels :Love the Lord your God above all else, and love your neighbor as yourself. God created Adam alone at first maybe that he might learn to love the Lord his God above all else. Then a suitable mate was made for him (by GOD), that he may love his neighbor as himself. God created this mate, this friend, out of His love for Adam. This infers that God created other people for us to interact with, to live with, to talk with, because He loves us. God created us to be in community, and He created for us a community. Because He loves us.

Being around other people, I sometimes forget this. Forget that God created every person, every relationship, every circumstance. And His every has a purpose. Naïve of me to forget, I know. I get caught up in the people, in the expectations of relationships apart from God that I forget: relationships are built by God and for Him even if they exclude Him.  My challenge for myself as I am around family and friends of the past, believers and non, is to remember. As I engage in relationships that have spanned my life pre-, post- and concurrent with Christ, to remember. To remember Him, to remember the purpose of relationships, to remember my purpose in Him. Being around people that do not know Him, it is hard to remember that purpose. But the purpose is there nonetheless. These people, these dear friends that I can laugh and cry and recall with, are in my life for a reason. I get to share life with them because Christ loves me. Praise Him. He has loved me enough to bless me with this family and these friends. And I am oh so thankful, though sometimes that is hard for me to see. However, hard is no excuse. Hard is no alibi. Hard is merely a perception, a perception of an untrue reality. The true reality is that God loves, God loves me, God loves them and thus we are in each others' lives for purpose and reason. Now to seek that purpose, that reason, and above all, seek to love. "Love always protects, always hopes, always perseveres." 

Love has no boundaries, has no conditions, has no expectations. It just does, it listens and it responds regardless. People are in our lives because God loves, we get to love these people because God loves. Every relationship is an opportunity to love God and be loved by God regardless of the other person's perception (or lack thereof) of Him.

1 John 4:7-14

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God sent His only begotten Son into that world that we may love through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loves us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at anytime; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."

Be Loved

I have been thinking, well reading which has led me to thinking. Good thinking. I went to coffee shop this evening with the intention of doing some impending homework. However, upon arrival to the second coffee, as my safe first choice Panera was packed with a line out the door, I found the wifi inept. Opposed to inquiring with the barista as to why, I shut down my computer, put away my textbook, and pulled out a Donald Miller novel I have been intending to start back up. No complaints there. Within 20 pages of reading, my computer was back up, chai latte and Don pushed aside (gasp), and I was intently typing away. I don't know why, but there I was…well, am. What will come of those now said pages, I don't know. They are healing, I know that. Healing scabs I didn’t realize I was still picking. But there was one theme that good ole Don mentioned that I have spent so much time thinking about recently, one theme that initialized and catalyzed the clicking of my keyboard, one theme that is an integral truth to humanity, to life, to, well, everything: Jesus loves us.

Most of what I wrote has to do with one word, Love. (expect many subsequent posts to delve into this topic) The Bible speaks extensively of it. God is love. 1 Corinthians 13 is famous because of its theme of love. People seek love from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Every child craves the love of his or her parents, every teenager the love of acceptance from friends, and most of us awkward twenty-somethings, love in the form of a spouse or lifelong friends. We all want to be loved, feel loved. We say we want to give love, well, some of us do at least. If we do give or not, that is another topic for another time. But love, we all inherently seek this.

Jesus as been blowing me away recently with the depth of His love for us. When the stereotypical evangelist shares the Gospel, they will say (and rightfully so) that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him, will not perish but have life everlasting (John 3:16)." This is then supplemented with an explanation of how man is bad, separated from God because of sin. God loves man so He came down in the likeness of a man, Jesus, lived a perfect life, died for our sins, rose again, and will return. We then accept Him as our Lord and Savior and are saved. The end.

While this is all true and good and God definitely moves in people through this explanation, it's barely half the story. Christ did more on this earth than "live the perfect life" and die on the cross for our sins. He loved!!! Read the Gospel. I think evangelists would be immensely more convincing if they took the time to explain the way Jesus not only came because of love, but came to love. Jesus came because of love, in love, and to love. THAT is the Gospel.

These verses in Mark struck me the other day, Mark 3:33-35:

"Who are my mothers and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

Jesus' earthly family came to see Him. Instead of getting up to meet Mary, the woman who birthed him, raised him, and cared for him as a child, who had known Him the longest of any other earthly person; He remained where He was. He then addressed people He had just met, and claimed them to be His family, equal with those who had known Him His whole life (on earth). Wow.

The first thing that jumped out at me was that He counts me a sister. Me, a continually failing and falling sinner, a sister to Christ. Wow. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to be counted kin to the God who created me; but He loves me, despite of me. I am oh so thankful and blown away by that. That He loves me. Not only does He love me, but He enables other brothers and sisters to love me, despite me; and inversely, me to love other brothers and sisters, despite them. It's beautiful.

After thinking on this a bit longer, something else a little less obvious struck a light on in my mind: Jesus shows absolutely NO favoritism here. It would be understandable if He were to get up and meet His 'family;' but He doesn't. He is in the middle of a conversation and that conversation is important enough to Him, the people He is talking to are important enough to Him, that He stays where He is. He shows no favoritism to people that have known Him His (or their) whole life, versus those who have only just met Him. He gives equal respect, equal love, equality overall, to both. Wow.

So, as a sister of Christ's and a sister in Christ, be loved. Be loved by Him, be loved by me, be loved.

Know that Christ loves you regardless of your acknowledgment of Him or not. His love is not conditional upon our realization. It is unconditional. Our subjective experience of His love is dependent upon our perception of it. So, be loved. Acknowledge Him, and be loved.