“We love because God first loved us.” (1 John 4:19, CEB)

“God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
(Romans 5:8, CEB)

 One of the great errors we make when it comes to religion is that we make it all about us.

There once was a man who wrestled mightily with faith and where he stood in the eyes of God.  Something inside drew him towards God, but something also kept him away. He felt that he had made too many mistakes, had too many shortcomings, had been too unfaithful. So, he remained at arm’s length, from God, Church, and religion. He felt unworthy to be too close. Maybe something in this story is your own.

The problem with this way of thinking is that the man places himself at the center of God’s story.  It makes his behavior the primary factor, the variable, in the story. It makes the faithfulness, grace, and love of God conditional upon his actions and attitudes. The story becomes about how good, or bad, he is.  It is a test that none of us could pass. 

The scriptures do not introduce us to a God who is controlled by the variables of our lives.  God’s faithfulness and love is not conditional or limited by us. To make God one who is blown about by the winds of our unsettled lives and egos is another form of self-idolatry, making us the center of the story. The story of our faith is not a story of how good we are, but how good God is. That is the beginning and the end, the alpha, and the omega. 

God does not love because we love first or because we prove worthy. No, the scriptures painstakingly teach of a God who is faithful, even when God’s people are not, a God who is the first One to show love, especially when God’s people do not. The journey of the Hebrew people is a story of God never giving up on God’s people, even when they gave up on God. It is true for so many other characters in the Bible; David, Solomon, Jonah, and even the Ninevites. In the passage above from Romans 5, the Apostle Paul reminds that God came to humans not when humans were perfect or mostly good, but when we were at our worst, while we were yet sinners. True religion, then, begins not with us, but with God. 

Here is the mystery, though. Once we realize this truth about God, it starts to change us, too.  We become more loving, forgiving, accepting, and gentle. Our hearts become more like God’s heart.  When we put this grace of God above all else and it allows us to be humbler and more honest about ourselves and less judgmental of others. It gives us space to grow. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God or to others. We don’t have a need to show how good or bad other people are to make ourselves feel worthy. We are simply free to be loved by God and to let that love gradually change us. 

I hope this is liberating for you. You don’t have to prove yourself any more…just simply rest gently in the surrounding grace of a faithful God. The story or our religious/spiritual journey, is not to find out how good we are, but to experience how good God is…and that changes everything else.

Together we are the hands and feet of Christ,

Brett