Don’t Make it Complicated. “God Loves You.”

No I haven’t become lax or negligent on the Good News of Jesus Christ but there is a time to share the Good News in more detail and depth as the Spirit gives and there are other times when we need to feed the people of God’s affection in actions of love and in the simple but powerful truth that God loves them.

We at times would all love to beat people over the head that they need Jesus but in what motive are we doing that in? We want to set people free but the Spirit must guide our actions as well as our words. If not done in love it is worthless. Zeal is great but is the zeal in the humility of God’s love or something else?

I remember my grandmother saying to us grand-kids when we were teenagers, “God loves you.” Our response not really understanding this truth would say, “I know Gram.”

Sometimes loving actions and the simple truth make a bigger impact then trying to stuff the Spiritual steak and potatoes of the message of the Good News through people’s ears. I think we also make “God loves You” into the mentality of a bummer sticker on some old grandma’s car but it is NOT. Think about it. “God loves you” is probably the most powerful statement in thought. And if said in the sincere humble love that has been nurtured and matured and delivered by the Holy Spirit, it is the finest aged wine ever tasted.

I know from personal experience that I often put up walls when I felt preached to and people who already feel like outcasts- feel like greater outcasts because the message isn’t delivered in a real genuine loving manner or their heart has not been prepared to receive the message. Instead of hands helping to them out of the ditch of their robbers throw them in, they are given a swinging banter of religious verbiages instead which are not help at all- good intentioned or not.

Live in God’s love and when God wants you to speak he will guide the your words and the length and depth of the words you will speak.

How did you come to Christ? Think about it. Did God make you feel like you had to jump through hoops to be loved by him or did he make himself approachable to you? Why? How? How did the God make himself approachable to his chosen creation? What made it so you could freely come to him and give your life to him?

Remember Colossians 1:19-

“For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in the Christ, and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. This includes you who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own body. He has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to stand in it firmly. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News…”

God made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. Man will never have peace apart from God. Man will fight and wage war against man and cause other men to go to war for them and against them because they don’t have God’s peace in them, which is only born and matured in and from God’s love.

Just because God reconciled everything to himself does not mean men reconciled themselves to him. Humanity will always separate themselves from God by their thoughts and actions… innocent or not… ignorant or not.

God’s heart is for his creation- he is available to the lowest of the low. He made it possible with his love and the evidence of that love was signified in the blood on the cross so it could be seeded and grown in the hearts of men. He healed you and birthed you of his Holy Spirit who now empowers and calls you to live according to his love.

When people’s hearts are stubborn and hardened and far from God -throwing seed on the ground does nothing if loving actions don’t come with or before it. The Holy Spirit guided actions and words that come forth out of the vessel of man are like the warmth of the sun thawing the frozen ground. People may know God by the little measure that he has planted inside them but that little measure of a seed will only grow when they allow God’s love to grow in them. (Know not just “of” God but “know” him and know him more intimately.)

I did not know Christ even though I had a religious tradition of celebrating his birth every Christmas. I would pray to God and still knowing how far I was from him he answered but I did as the bible said, I did not even thank him and continued on my path of ignorance and stupidity.

The Father drew me in by his love and faithfulness and when his cleansing light came into my life with my choice of surrender and submission to him I became a changed man and the realization of my debt to Jesus Christ became very real.

That is way Jesus says, “For people can’t come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them from the dead. As it is written in the Scriptures, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me.” John 6:44-46

The Father gives the Son (Jesus Christ). The Son becomes the Shepherd and the Shepherd gives the Holy Spirit who gives all who trust and believe in the Son (Jesus Christ) have eternal life.

Human effort accomplishes nothing. I have found only by submission, a humility that allows God’s peace to find a seat in our soul, and the growing understanding of God’s love in the depths of our heart- does many powerful things despite the hardness of circumstances, situations, actions and words in this life.

May you as well as I know God’s love greater in our hearts and live in his love so we may have peace, and the power to act graciously and mercifully. May we live and endure spiritually and mindfully in Christ while we are here on this earth. May we let go of ourselves and or own ways of thinking and doing in order for God to able and secure us in his ways of doing things. May we become less and he more. Let us not become arrogant, or blind, or complacent. Let us not become doers by our own means and understanding where the rules of men emerge and God’s love becomes absent in our ways. Let us honor God with our lips and our heart. Let us worship God in Spirit and Truth. –In Jesus Name Amen.

Remember God welcomes the lost. Don’t make it complicated. You and those around you are better off if you remember the simple but powerful message that “God is Love.” Those who trust and believe in this simple message will be productive in the Spirit of the Lord.

Scriptures: Colossians 1:19-23, Romans 1: 19-22, 2 Peter 1:5-9, John 6:44-46, 1 John 4:7