That God so loved the world cannot be questioned with any integrity.
He formed the worlds because of Love.
He formed man from the clay then breathed life into him because He is Love.
He prepared the way for mercy toward me before I ever came to be.
He made the world a place of opportunity and formed in me potential to excel.
I could not have foreseen the sorrow that my choices might produce; but I could and would if I chose to walk out of the pathway of His Love-Design, experience the guilt and shame. Then two options would be mine: to confess to Him and trust Him to bring me aright; or to hide from Him – which I would learn cannot be done.
“Adam, where are you?” He came asking. The truth answer was, “I am hiding.” (Genesis 3:9)
Why are you hiding. . .?
All sin destroys usually in slow, tortuous ways. But sin offers sometimes, immediate sensory pleasure. It used to be a practice to place razor blades and blood in water, freeze it and set it out for the wolves to lick. As they licked into the sharp razors their own blood would begin to flow. This excited the wolves even more and the result was that they drank to their own death. All sin brings the same to us; but we are given warnings, even pleading from God to turn to Him.
God came to Adam in the garden, not to shame Him; but to help Him. Jesus came to earth not to bring blame; but to take it away – to take our blame upon Himself – and there, on the cross, He despised (our) shame – “for the joy that was set before Him.”
Some of us know what it is like when our child turns back from the wrong path. God anticipated that many of us would do the same: this was “the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.”
The pathway of Love is not as we romantically suppose. Love goes into the world, “seeking to save the lost.”(Luke 10:19).
In that pathway of Love, Jesus found me. I was so lost that I didn’t even know what I was lost from. His rescue mission has saved multitudes like me: “For God so loved me” that, I became absorbed into His love for others.
Love’s pathway is a rugged cross, faith, being rebuked and misunderstood: but “Love never fails.” It is not God who fails, or me, if I am rejected when sharing Him. Some men willingly “grieve” the Holy Spirit and even “lie” to Him, and these block from them the Love sent to save them.
Do we want to be one with God in Christ? We will travel a sometimes very lonely pathway. But with the greatest purpose; “It is not God’s will that any should perish; but that all should come to knowledge of repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
The lost will not hear unless the saved leave the ninety and nine and “Go into the highways and by-ways” where Hell seems to enjoy its grip.
“Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” is not simply a scripture mantra to be used as an argument to refrain from the world. We are His Ambassadors sent into the world to rescue those who seem un-rescue-able. Our God is “Mighty to save,” but we will miss seeing Him do it unless we dare to believe Him. (1John 4:4),
“He who calls you will also do it.” Jesus relied on the faithful and powerful Holy Spirit without which even He could not bear fruit.
(1 Thess.5:24)
“For the joy that was set before Him,” is the joy that is set before us.
One of the last things my pastor told me before he died was, “Buddy, don’t ever forget, heaven rejoices when one person repents.”
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Buddy