John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
As I age in the faith, I find that I am beginning to develop some intolerances. I find this interesting and comical in that some of my current positions were not previous strongholds. They have become that, however, and more.
One of the intolerances I am developing is towards those who characterize our Father as angry, judgmental and vengeful. Even people who know and quote today’s scripture sometimes confound its meaning by teaching, preaching and claiming God’s anger. Does an angry, vengeful God sacrifice His only son for miscreants? Only great love can motivate an act so profound. Can you imagine this verse reading, “For God was so angry that He gave His only Son.” Of course not.
God is love and He so loved that He created the greatest act in human history and, for that matter, in the heavens. He sacrificed His one and only for us even when we didn’t love Him. He wasn’t motivated by vengeance. He wasn’t trying to get retribution against an unruly race. He sacrificed the best He had to save the lot of us.
This position is especially enjoyed and understood by those who recognize their lives as in a fallen state. The issue becomes, at once, challenging when we become “the saved.” No longer are we “the world” and we begin to separate ourselves from those unholy heathens. That is when it is important to remind ourselves that God loves them even as He loves and forgives us.
It bothers me when I read books and hear people talk about “we and they” in such a way as to categorize sin and sinners. People have their pet sins and poster board sinners. I hear some ridiculous things and I am beginning to have less and less patience with those who pretend our beloved Father is angry so that they can cast some people into hell while ignoring the love of God, and the person in the mirror.
We can’t know what is in the heart of a person, but we can, and should, know the heart of the Father. Like Jesus, He is moved by compassion; He is motivated by love. Yes, He knows anger, as do we, but we are reminded that though we feel anger, it is no excuse to sin. It is not an excuse to act unbecomingly. Is our Father less graceful than we are instructed to be?
John 3:16 is arguably one of the best know verses in the Bible. Its theme is love, redemption and salvation. We should never use this verse as a means to judge others. To do so is, to me, sacrilege. If we learn only one lesson from the Bible, hold only one Biblical tenet in our hearts and minds, it must be this one, “God is love” (1 John 4: 8). However, that is not all the verse says. It also declares “The one who does not love does not know God.” So, describing God as angry and vengeful is a way to make God in our image. Because we don’t have love in our hearts, we turn God into a wrathful despot so that His reputation mirrors our self-image.
We must be careful in our assessment of others because that person whom we would condemn is the very one whom God loves so much that He sent Jesus to the cross. The purpose in my writing this devotional is to cause a shift in the church paradigm regarding evangelism, salvation and forgiveness. We need less focus on those whom we consider “sinners” and a great deal more attention on the Father, Son and Spirit. It is not for us to judge what is right and wrong, who is a sinner and who is a saint. Even Jesus said he didn’t come to judge (John 3: 17). Verse 17 says all I need to know because we are to walk according to Jesus’ ways. We need to receive the love of God in our own hearts and then share it with the rest of the world. For God so loved. . .