'You can't love God and hate your brother!' 1Jn 4:20
I learned, after many years of struggling with this, that the person I have before me is the image of the invisible God made visible and that I need to look for God in them rather than recoil at the person in them; I need to sometimes help them see the God in them too. This is something that has helped me deal with people a lot more kindly that I once would have and has meant that God is (generally) present in my thinking and encounters.
The problem is that I am finding more and more people who wish to deny and mar the image of the invisible God in them and what is sad is that whilst many of these revel in the titles 'pagan' or 'not religious' others still rejoice in the title that they are fundamental or liberal or creationist or free church or ..... (add your own particular classification)!
What is so very sad is the fact that not only are people failing to see the image of the invisible God made visible in others but they are failing to display the love of the Father in their desire to be right and better still, to prove God right!
My thinking goes like this:
1. If there is a God then this God, being the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God doesn't really need me to be telling Him what to do (but could do with me listening).
2. If God is a God of love, and the Cross (and more besides) gives me a feeling that indeed He is, then surely we who bear His name should be people of love too?
3. If God provides us with 'best practice' tips for living, shouldn't we adopt them and encourage (not merely impose them) others to do the same?
4. When we seek to make Christ known this results in people knowing Christ not joining our particular piddling church, denomination or grouping. It's about Kingdom stuff not local stuff!
So why are there so many who are so keen to see that raised hand, prove creation was literally a seven day thing, deny evolution and defend God through twisted science, flawed theology and dodgy philosophy (we can leave that to Dorkins and his mates)?
I think a hero of mine has the answer:
"There have been men before … who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God himself … as if the good Lord had nothing to do but to exist. There have been some who were so preoccupied with spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Seems to me that we have too many people who wish to portray themselves as Christians but forget that the greatest thing we have is LOVE.
Not an all-permitting love, not a 'turn the blind' eye love but a love that seeks to see the image of the invisible God made visible in others and in so doing displays the love of that same being, in themselves regardless regardless of situation, circumstance or pressure upon them.
How are you doing?
1 comment:
Or, as someone once said to me, "If God is your co-pilot through life, change seats".
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