A couple of weeks ago, I read an article published by a local news site informing the public about the opening of a new campus for the already largest church in the state. The article was very informative and written in a way that gave just the details, nothing more. I shouldn’t have done it, but curiosity got the best of me and I decided to scroll down to the bottom of the page and read the comments left by previous readers. After reading about 6 or 7 comments, I had to stop and close out of the article because I found myself getting really angry about the things that people were saying. They were saying things like “this church is a cult” and “all we need is another traffic inconvenience on an already busy highway.” Every comment I read was something negative about this church. As I read those comments my attitude toward them was definitely not very welcoming. I found myself being just as judgmental and wanting to comment, “you should come give it a try” or “don’t judge a book by its cover” but as soon as I had those feelings, I started to feel convicted. I felt as if God was reminding me that the way I was presently looking at these people was not the way that he looks at them.
With that thought floating around in my mind, I felt guilty. The Church, not just the church I attend, but every church, exists to reach those who have yet experienced a life giving relationship with Christ. These people are the very people that the Church exists to reach. Some of those people who like to express their opinion may already be churchgoers, but many of them probably are not. Some of them may have been hurt by a church or turned off due to some preconceived notion about what the church stands for. They may be basing their opinion on what someone else has said, but regardless these people matter to God. These people should matter to us as well.
I find it to be no coincidence that a few weeks before this in my freedom group (a small group I am part of), we were talking about living in the tree of life versus living in the tree of good and evil. One of the characteristics of living in the tree of life is that we see the world through the eyes of God. In order for us to get to that point, we have to come to a realization of how God views us. Until we see a clear picture of his view of us, we will always have a distorted view of others. We will always operate from the mindset of good and evil, and when someone doesn’t agree with us, we paint them out to be bad. We have to remind ourselves that God sees us through a different set of lenses. He sees us through lenses that are filtered by love.
Two of my favorite verses in scripture are Romans 5:8, “ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” and 1 John 4:10, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” It reminds me of something that Eli Gold, the famous play-by-play radio announcer for Alabama football, often says. When there is a controversial penalty on the field he’ll say “I didn’t see it through my crimson colored lenses like the ref sees it.” He saw the play the way he wanted to see it, which was to benefit the “good guys.” There is easy to do with sports but life is different. When a person’s eternity is at stake, the way we view them matters. We see the world through the lens of our heart. If our heart is clouded by sin, we can easily judge others, but if we have a heart that has been forgiven and is consumed by God, we start to see the world through his eyes.
Our ability to see the world through the eyes of God is rooted in creation theology in Genesis 1; “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” That doesn’t mean that we were created to be Godlike but rather we were created to receive and give love and, most importantly, to have relationships. When God created humans, he said that we are good and he gave us dominion over the earth. He entrusted much to us because we were created in his image. Every day he would walk and talk with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This is a picture of what I envision heaven will be like. They had constant communion with God. Things changed in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of good and evil. God warned them not to but they did anyway after Satan encouraged them to. It is important to look at what God says in Gen. 3:9, “Where are you?” God came looking for Adam and Eve just like he did every day prior to this moment. When he called out to them, his tone was not like one of an angry father. He came looking for them because he cared about them. He knew they sinned but his heart was broken for them. They just gave up the greatest thing they had, which was an uninterrupted relationship with the father. After this God did banish them from the Garden but not before providing for them. Verse 21 says,” The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” I think it is important to realize that he didn’t condemn them but rather he convicted them.
To condemn means “express complete disapproval of” according to Webster’s dictionary. There was never any indication in this story that God was condemning Adam and Eve. He never turned nasty toward them or raging mad. He could have destroyed them for disobeying him, but that is not the nature of God. He never pushed them so far away that they could never come back to him. He knew the flaw wasn’t in their DNA but rather in their perception of Him. The fact that Adam and Eve felt ashamed in front of God meant they felt convicted. That is what God does when we have done wrong. He wants us to realize that we have went astray. Our hearts were created to connect with his heart at a level we won’t always understand. That is what being created in the image of God is about. Solomon understood this very well. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 he says, “He (God) has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Because our hearts were created to connect to His heart, God has taken the first step toward forgiving our wrongs by sending his son Jesus to us. It shows just how much love he has for us. I’m humbled by the thought that God would send his most precious possession to this earth because he loves me that much. Even though I’m not perfect and I mess up daily, he still loves me. He still wants me to have a seat at his dinner table because I was created to dine with the King. To demonstrate his jealous love for us, I’m reminded of something that the writer of Hebrews says in Chapter 13. Starting in verse 11 and going verse 14 it says, “The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”
Jesus went outside the city gate to demonstrate his love for those who seemed unlovable. He suffered with the outcast because he cared about them. He suffered with those that we don’t normally think about. That is true love- and since we’ve been recipients of that love, we ought to pass it along to others.
reflections of a theologian 