Chaplain's Corner

A month or so ago my wife and I visited our oldest Son’s church after attending our own.  After the service we met our grandchildren as they came upstairs from Sunday school.  As I met Evan, my 5 year old grandson, I stooped down and he crawled up on my knee.  I asked him, “Evan, what did you learn in Sunday school today?”  He looked at me and said, “Grampa, did you know that there are three things God can’t do?”  I replied, “No, tell me what they are.”  Evan responded, “God can not lie; God can not love everyone; and I forget the third one.”

He hopped off my knee before we could talk any further so that afternoon I called my son and asked if Evan had told him about what he had learned in Sunday School.  My son said he had and after exploring a bit, he figured out that the second thing, “God can not love everyone” was a five your olds understanding of “God can not not love everyone.”  Double negatives are hard to understand at the best of times, but for a five year old, they are almost impossible.

It is a good truth to understand, but we must understand it.  “God can not not love everyone” or to use better grammar, “God loves everyone.”  Yes he does. But what does that mean?  It is my experience from talking to many, many people about God, that many folks don’t understand what this means much better than Evan understood what his teacher was saying.  So, let’s think for a few minutes about what it means that God loves everyone and what the implications are and are not of that truth.

God loves everyone.   As a Christian it is easy to confirm this truth from the Scriptures.  But quoting a few verses about God’s love doesn’t always result in understanding what it means that God loves everyone.  So what does this mean?

First it means that God is open to entering into relationship with anyone and everyone, without exception.  This is precisely the reason God created humankind, he wanted to enjoy relationships with us, he wanted to share his love with us.  The reason this was God’s creative design is because God is love, this love is as essential aspect of his being, this is true.  The essence of love is the desire to enter into relationship with another for the others good.  God created humanity because he wanted to give us of his goodness and enrich our lives with his love. 

Second, the fact that God loves everyone does not mean that everyone is open to being loved by God.  In fact, literally billions of the seven billion people on earth right now are not open to being loved by God.  They have closed their hearts to God; some have rejected the fact of his existence altogether, an ultimate expression of rejection. 

Love rejected limits the benefit that can be received from the one who desires to love.   Therefore, when people reject God’s love, they also reject many of the benefits, God intended to give them, and much of the good God intended to give them through his love.

Maybe an example is in order.  Let us suppose that you love a person who lives down the street from you.  By love I am not speaking of romance or sexual matters but you have a heartfelt desire to relate to them for their benefit, even if you get nothing in return but the joy of loving.  So, one day you see them working in their yard so you walk down the street to introduce yourself.  However, as you extend your hand in greeting they pull away.  They ask, “What do you want?”  When you express your intentions of neighborly friendship they frown and say, “Thanks but no thanks.” And abruptly turn back to the work they were doing. 

You return home a bit shocked by the poor reception but decide that maybe you caught them at a bad time and decide to try again.  A week or two later after doing some baking, you think, “I’ll take a plate of baking down as a welcome to the neighborhood gesture.”  So you prepare a plate of fresh baking, a little card of greeting and welcome and walk down the block to this neighbors door and knock.   The door opens and the man appears and immediately asks, “What do you want?!?” 

You explain your intentions and before you can finish he says, “Listen, I’ve already told you once that I didn’t want anything from you so what are you doing here again?”  Before you can answer, the door slams in your face.   Not being a person who is easily dissuaded, you try honking and waving when you drive by and he’s outside.  You try saying “Hi” when you are out walking and you see him, and even though you keep this up for some time, the response is always the same.

Now, do you love this man?  Yes, you are reaching out to him, offering him your goodness, your kindness, your welcome, your friendship and even though he has overtly rejected every expression, you continue to reach out to him.  But, does he benefit from your love?  No, rejecting each overture, he is more irritated and put off by you than benefited.  His rejection does not in anyway diminish your honest desire to bless him; but it certainly prevents the benefits you offer from actually benefiting him.

So it is with God’s love.  God is not easily put off, he is respectful and generous and offers his love in many ways over and over again, but if a person rejects his love, the intended benefit sours in that person’s soul and he becomes resentful of the love offered.  The billions of people on earth today that are rejecting God’s love are missing out on the wonderful benefits that God intends us to have. 

The Christmas season that is now upon us is intended to be an expression of God’s love.  As the Bible says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son…”  But so many people are put off by God, they reject his expressions of love, the ones they do enjoy they take for granted and never say thank you for, and when they know that what is coming is from God, the turn it away.  People right here in Steinbach and the South Eastman region do this every day and the sad reality is that if we reject the aim of God’s love: entering into a relationship with Him; we ultimate reject the most profound benefit that God intends in loving us: forgiveness for our sins and everlasting life.

Third, rejecting love comes with consequences.  When the neighbor rejects your love, the consequence is that a relationship never develops and the strength and joy and support that could have resulted never materialize.  When a person rejects God’s love, the same is true: a relationship is never established and the depth of benefit that God wanted to give is forfeited. 

When we read in the Bible words about hell, about eternal separation from God some people get angry.  They say a God of love wouldn’t do this to a person.  You know, they are right.  God doesn’t do it to a person; the person does it to themselves.  By rejecting God’s love, God’s benefits are rejected.  God’s forgiveness is rejected, a personal relationship with God is rejected and ultimately, life everlasting and heaven (eternal, intimate relationship with God) is forfeited.  It is not God’s desire; he simply respects each person’s choice.

Actually if Christmas is about anything, it is about God’s desire to love us.  I wonder if we are opening our hearts to God’s love or rejecting His love.  That might be worth thinking about this month.