God loves all of his children.
Whether we like it or not, that is humanity as a whole.
Sometimes I look at my three children and I say to myself: They couldn’t be more different. Sometimes I wondered if they switched at birth or swiped with clones when I wasn’t looking.
I can only imagine that this is sometimes how God sees us: those who believe they are his chosen people and those who sit on the outskirts codemned by others around them.
As I ponder the condition of the nations, I often think about the journey of parenting. It never ends.
How we love our children paints a picture
You see, sometimes our children represent humanity at war – its extremes between good and evil.
I cannot count the number of parents I walked through tremendous heartbreak because of the brokenness they experience with their children. Some of whom have not had a visit, a loving phone call or postcard in decades. Others who have had to pray for children incarcerated for crimes they actually committed or addictions beyond their control.
I have witnessed and led so many prayer-lines, altar calls and ministry sessions in my time in ministry. I’ve learned two things: 1. Hate can run as deep as love; and 2. There is absolutely nothing on earth that compares to the genuine love of a parent who gives his or her best.
My heart weeps sometimes because I long for those of us who have had children, long to have children or who have loved children of all ages to remember what that kind of connection feels like.
Then, I want us to understand that God’s love for humanity is greater than that. He loved Jesus and both of those sinners on the cross next to him. The only difference between the two sinners was that one decided to use the last second of his life on earth to love God back.
Love’s Heartbreak
It is heartbreaking to watch the people God love and who profess him to continuously exercise a double-minded love. The kind of mind that cannot reconcile the difference between love and hate. The kind of mind that doesn’t understand that there is no inbetween.
You see, when it comes to dealing with the worst in our children, I have seen parents sacrifice everything and everyone around them. Those who grieve over their children’s toxicity (like God did), learn to let go and trust God with their healing, restoration.
But what they never let go of is love.
God loves Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barak Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. I hope I listed them in order. He loves Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
We might forever hold our view of how we see these people in the earth, but it is ONLY the Lord who gave them life in the womb and longevity in the earth. It is only the Lord who knows their soul’s future.
And somewhere in this earth, each one of them have probably known the kind of parental love (whether from natural parents or surrogates)that so mirrors the love God has for us.
Love doesn’t hate
It is not God’s will that humanity kills humanity — not in families, friendship, bonds of faith or in war.
It is not God’s will that humanity takes pride in stripping others of their dignity, exerting humiliation as a sport and going to great lengths to dominate the minds of others for the sake of power and greed.
If someone treated our children the way we treated theirs, it would break many.
Writings like this make it seem as a person is blind to the work of the ruler of “this” world. For me, it is that I believe my eyes are being opened greater to the God of Heaven.
All I can think about sometimes is how God has dedicated His entire existence to COVENANT LOVE. And then, how He has had to watch humanity (including those who claim the faith), choose hate.
The Doublemind
The doublemind will have people hold an evangelistic outreach on the street one day, and then call forth a witchhunt on the same people the next day.
The doublemind will have will agree with salvation, the need for discipleship and spiritual growth one minute. Then the next, they will expect people who don’t believe to act like they do believe.
The doublemind will always long for grace and mercy in its own shortcomings and sin. Yet, take no compassion for the short comings of others.
- We can scream about issues.
- We can pitch fits about philosophies.
- We can argue about our traditions.
But if we cannot touch love for those we perceive to be our enemies, we can never really know God.
The core purpose of the cross was to create a clear pathway for love, grace and mercy.
If law and force couldn’t do it when God was micromanaging the Nation of Israel, what in the world makes us think we can do it today.
As a mother with three adult children, my loving influence is all I can give now.
Each one of my children know that there is absolutely nothing they can do to separate ME from loving them.
It is decision time
You see, parents can see Jesus in their children when others cannot. Just like God sees goodness in us when we are at our very worse.
Despite what many people are prophesying and saying these days, what the church lacks is an understanding of God’s love. It forgets that Christ did not die just for SIN, but also for giveness and hope. He WAS RESURRECTED for love.
May we wake up every day and every moment being born again. May we find ourselves on the side of grace and mercy when we are at our worst moment before people. May we find compassion when we miss the mark and our growth is misunderstood. May we find grace to empower us to move forward inspite of hate.
MAY WE keep growing. May we FIGHT to love others – in their worse places – as we love ourselves. May we lay down the instability of our doubleminds.
