What is the theme of the bible? Is it God loving man, or man loving God? I believe the bible is overwhelmingly centralizing the theme of God loving man. In the climax of God’s romantic, beautiful and triumphant love story between himself and man, we come down to the most pivotal, crucial and critically meticulous moments of time, space and creation itself. The time that would pass by as Jesus dangled on the cross were so universally altering that it determined the state of existence of everything God had created.
Sin was at hand. No, it was more than that — sin had wrecked, stepped over and ruined everything. It ruined the human and animal races, the shrubs and trees, and I believe it ruined the galaxy and the rest of space. I can’t help but believe that before sin, the universe wasn’t filled with such destruction and chaos from asteroids, planets and stars colliding into one another, or stars dying out and turning into black holes where even light cannot escape. On a more personal scale, I also believe a time when the earth wasn’t meant to be a battleground for humans, weapons and Mother Nature. People wouldn't commit evil against other people, weapons would never be created for death, and tsunamis, wildfires and hurricanes would never destroy families.
To the many dogs across the world who would be hit by a car today, to the gorilla who had to be tragically put down at the Cincinnati Zoo, to the millions of children who would die from unclean water, to the men and women who would sacrifice their lives for our country -- the repercussions of sin can be seen everywhere.
Sin's intention was to keep this rampage of evilness on forever. The humans and the universe never stood a chance. Hell would be our resting place. The universe, a barren waste land. An eternity of sin was in store for God’s creation. And, unfortunately, we deserved the punishment. Yet that is why the entirety of the Bible -- more specifically, why the first four books of the New Testament are so incredibly and inexplicably the most confusing but powerful testaments of any sort of love story that could ever be told.
There is absolutely nothing that humans have ever done nor ever could do that would mean absolutely anything compared to the god-like scale of our Lord, Father-Almighty. Have we really come to the point in our senses that we believe we could actually make an impact on God? That we could do something for God that would mean anything? Have we as Christians come to the point in our faith where we believe we have the ability and power to persuade God, to move God, to do anything that would shift the slightest atom particle on God as if he was even made out of atoms? Humans are so utterly and insignificantly nothing compared to God that I say we dare even have the audacity to think about looking up at God. We should think of ourselves as lower than dirt.
This is what it should have been. This is how Christians should think. But it is not what God wants. That is not the relationship he wanted between himself and humans, even when he has all the rights and means to it. In god-time, with the few moments of Jesus walking on the earth, his love story was able to reach its peak. Jesus willingly submitted himself to humans, whom he loved, and died for the humans because of his love. The cause of death? Crucifixion -- by his beloved humans.
Jesus loved us and died for us while we were still sinners and had no mentally of ever loving Jesus back. He loved us before we had the opportunity to love him back, before we were born, before the creation of the world, and he loves us after we spit in his face, stab him in the back, and promise to change but never do. The most confusing but powerful love story to date.
That’s how much he loves each and every human -- it’s a scandalous love because that’s not how our society works, it doesn’t make sense. If somebody wrongs us, we wrong them back. If somebody thinks about wronging us we hold it against them. If somebody doesn’t love us, we won’t love them back. If we don’t feel loved by our partner or spouse, we expect them to love us more, not for us to love them more! If somebody were to kill one of our beloved family members, our hearts would never heal from despair and rage. Have we forgotten that we killed one of God’s beloved family members? If anyone has ever sinned, they have taken part in the killing of Jesus Christ. But that’s not how God’s love works. For Jesus, if you wronged him, cursed at him, spat at him, took part in killing him, and never loved him, well -- he’ll just continue to love you.
I am not here to say that it is wrong to tell God you love him. It’s a good thing! It’s the first commandment! But I want to challenge and encourage Christians to think differently. We will never understand the full capacity of God’s love. Only by God’s grace are we allowed to speak and are able to say that we love God. But push yourself to do it in a different way. When we pray and tell God that we love him, say it like this, “I love you too.” We love God too. God has already loved us and is still loving us now. So when we tell God that we love him, it is a response to his already present love. We love him back because he loved us first.
It’s more important and more central to the Christian faith to recognize God’s love for us than to tell God about our love for him. God doesn’t need to hear about our love for him. But doing so in such a way that doesn’t make our love for him the spotlight, but reinforces our knowledge of his love for us, is something I believe should be practiced. Every second of every day is only possibly because of the gift of God’s love, each breath of air we take is a reminder of that. It’s like God is saying (with every inhale of oxygen) that he loves us, over, over, and over again without end.
I love you. I love you too, God.
