Into the Fire

Christians know God Is Love. Not God knows how to love, which He does. Not God loves, which He does. Not God demonstrates love, which He does, has, and always will. None of these are adequate. God Is Love. As in embodies, defines, and IS.

What Christians are more reluctant to address in light of the Love thing is that God is just, as in Justice, Judgment, Judiciary. Consequences follow sin. Always. Even when they’re unseen or unrecognized by human eyes or hearts.

The “IS” word cannot be repealed or rearranged to accentuate one characteristic over another. God IS love. God IS just. God IS truth. God IS life. God IS the way (the only right direction to perfection).

What some people of faith tend to do is choose one characteristic of God and make it more important than another. And of course for most of these people, Love is the chosen and preferred element of His constitution. However, there are a number of people who select the Judgment part of His character to emphasize and wield as a weapon over sinners and those who’ve fallen into disobedience.

I notice Christians who amp up the love message create a relativism among sinners. Perhaps if we simply understood the reason for their sinfulness, we could somehow love them “more”. We could find that “perfect” love which God dishes out and discount, even overlook, their sins. In the process of desiring to be like Jesus, some manage to enable others to continue in their sinful mode, extending love without warning or correction.

The message of true love was and is: Repent for the kingdom of God is near. Jesus is right here. Right now. Waiting for that sinfulness to be acknowledged in order to reach out with His forgiveness. Interaction is required—the need that only He can fill recognized, confronted, and claimed.

When love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13, we are given the perfect Jesus—His attributes within salvation. It isn’t human love and it’s not attainable in our human form. We fail. “Love never fails.” (vs. 8)

I find it amazing and somewhat disconcerting when the scriptures report the separation of the goats from the sheep, the judgment of the lost, the sin of ignoring and disbelieving the sacrifice of God’s son which produces the absence of one’s name in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and people who profess to love Jesus, the Lamb, choose to declare that this loving God will surely not send anyone to hell. They deny the White Throne Judgment in favor of an improper definition of God’s love without addressing His other qualities.

People often choose the scriptures which tell them to “turn the other cheek” and to “love their enemies” without considering the ones which pronounce “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” and “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin!”

It’s all about how Love rescues the sinner IF the sinner chooses to be rescued. If not . . . the sinner dies in his sin. Love weeps. The objective is the rescue. It’s been done, accomplished for all generations, but people either keep swimming in the sea of sin or grab the available Life-line. There is always a consequence to sin.

Finding the balance between Love and Woe trips us up sometimes.

God, you are perfection. Inclusive of all things right and good. The very definer of those “qualities”. I love you, and I’m desperate for you, Jesus. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.