SERIES OVERVIEW
Theologians have, for years, come up with all kinds of ways to describe God. And a lot of the words that they’ve come up with to describe God begin with the word OMNI. That’s the title of this four-part series. Omni means “all.”
This is part three, Omnibenevolent.
MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT
Tonight is the third part of a four-part series called Omni. We’ve been talking about how our God is the OMNIGOD. This word, Omni means all. And so the first week we talked about how God is the OMNIGOD, the one, true God. We said He is omnipotent (all-powerful). He is omniscient (All-knowing.) He is Omnibenevolent (All loving – All Good) and He is omnipresent (all present – simultaneously existing everywhere in time and space all at the same time.) In week two we dug more deeply into the first two omnis, God’s Omnipotence and God’s Omniscience. We talked about how our God loves to share with us. If we have faith and if we are humble He is happy to share His power and knowledge with us so that anything He calls us to do, no matter how impossible it might seem, will be possible for us. All things are possible with God.
Tonight, we are going to talk about the omnibenevolence of God, that He’s all good, all loving, that He always has our best interests at heart. He would never harm us. He always wants to help us and guide us and protect us. If you are ready to hear what God has put on my heart to share with you tonight, would you give me some encouragement and say or type HIT ME WIT IT G! I’M READY! Awesome. Mahalo. Let’s get into it! God always has our best interests in mind, our best interests at heart. That’s a major theological tenet of the evangelical Christian faith, that God is a good God. God is not a bad God or an evil God. He is a perfectly good God. He always has our best interests at heart.
Our primary verse tonight comes from First Chronicles, 16:34, that says,
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever. ~ 1 Chronicles 16:34
This shows up again in Scripture, notably in Psalm 136. The Bible clearly repeats this idea over and over and over again. God is good, God is all-loving. And there’s lots of praise songs and praise choruses and hymns written about this particular characteristic of God. Some of them are based on this very verse of scripture. [PASTOR G SINGS] Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King. His love endures forever. For He is good. He is above all things, his love endures forever. Sing praise! Right? Or about this one. [PASTOR G SINGS] Lord, you are good, you are good and your love endures. You are good. You are good. And your love endures … today.
In A.W. Tolzer’s book, Knowledge of the Holy, he says this:
“The whole outlook of mankind might be changed if we could all believe we dwell under a friendly sky and that the God of heaven, although exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be friends with us.” ~ A.W. Tolzer
Your whole outlook on life would be changed if you could really believe that you do well under a friendly sky and that the God of heaven, although exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be your friend. Do you believe that? Really believe that in the depths of your heart and soul? So that’s the first question I want you to really consider tonight? Do you really believe that? Do you believe that you live under a friendly sky? Do you believe that the God of heaven, although he is this infinite, amazing, powerful, almighty OMNIGOD, He is still eager to have a personal relationship with you, that He’s eager to be your friend? Do you believe that? And if you DON’T believe that, WHY don’t you believe that?
Is there something in your past, something in your history, something that keeps you from believing God loves you in that way, something that keeps you from believing God really wants a close personal relationship with you, that He wants to be your friend? Because, listen, don’t miss this, listen. We see this in scripture again and again. We’re going to look at a few passages tonight that show us that’s exactly who our loving, OmniBenevolent God is. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 7:9-12 He says,
9 Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! 12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets. ~ Matthew 7:9-12
Which of you, if your son or daughter asked you for something good, would do the opposite? Which of you if your son or daughter asks for something nice from you would give them something awful instead? And the implied answer is, of course, of course, you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t give your child a snake. You wouldn’t give your child a stone if they asked you for bread, if they asked you for fish. Jesus says God is an even better person than you are. He’s going to give good gifts to His children too. God is all good. He’s all-loving. He’s got these great things in store and in mind for you. When we hear that, so often, we rebel. We want to be allowed to keep on sinning, because, we argue, at least at first, it is fun. Sinning, at first, it usually really fun.
When we complain about God not wanting us to sin we are essentially asking “Why does God tell His kids not to play in traffic? Why does God tell His kids not to touch a hot stove? Why does God tell us His kids not to run in the house with scissors? Why does God tell us His kids not to take candy from strangers? Why does God tell His kids not to lie, cheat or steal?” And the answer is obvious when we think about it that way, isn’t it? It’s because He’s a good God. It’s because He’s a good father and it’s because He wants to protect His children. He wants the best for His children just like you and I want the best for our children. He’s not a killjoy who’s trying to steal all the fun out of life. He’s saying, you know what? If you make these choices, if you go down this path, you’re going to be harmed in the process or other people are going to be harmed in the process. And I don’t want that for you.
So I’m giving you Fatherly guidance to say stay away from those choices or you’re going to be harmed. And I don’t want you to be harmed. I love you. I’m your heavenly Father. He’s omnibenevolent and He wants to give us good gifts, Jesus says, and the greatest gift He can give us is His character. The greatest gift God can give us is His morality, His motivation, His wisdom, His integrity, His personality, His power and His knowledge. Again, just as a human parent wants to protect their child and see their child grow up into wise moral good adults. That’s what God wants for you, too. And so you can always trust this. God is at least as good a parent as you are. AMEN? God is a FAR BETTER parent than you are. God is not against you for your sin. God is for you against your sin. He’s on your side.
And so when Jesus asks this question, it’s kind of a ludicrous question, isn’t it? He’s posing it with His divine tongue firmly in His human cheek. He asks us, “What kind of a person, when asked for bread, would give somebody a stone? What kind of a person, if they were asked for a piece of fish to eat, would give somebody a snake?” Only a real psycho would do that. Right. Only a really abusive, mean-spirited sociopath would do something like that. And so Jesus is sort of using preposterous humor to make this point. He tells us, even though we’re not perfect, even though we act from selfishness a lot, and even though we sometimes choose to do evil, most of us really enjoy giving good gifts, at least to people we care about. We try to give good gifts to people we care about. And He says that’s who God is. He loves to give good gifts as well. So we can trust Him in this. God is at least as nice a person as you are.
Even though God does not condone or sanction evil, unlike us, He does not withhold His love from us when He finds evil in us. Even if He finds evil in us He continues to love us. And that’s hard for some people to believe. That’s hard for some people to accept. Many people have trouble accepting love from another human being, let alone accepting love from the perfect, Omni-Good God. And they’re worried that if God sees anything in them that’s not attractive, if God sees something in them that’s not perfect, if God sees something in them that doesn’t mesh with what they know they are supposed to be, then they are sure God will withhold His love from them. For many of them, that’s the example they’ve had in their life. Maybe that’s the way their parents parented them, or that’s the way a coach coached them.
Maybe that’s the way a teacher “teachered” them. “If you don’t live up to my expectations, then I will withhold my love from you.” But Jesus says that’s absolutely NOT who God is. Some people don’t love themselves, and so they assume nobody else can love them either but God loves you beyond measure. I heard a story about the father of a dying young boy. He was trying to communicate Jesus’ love to his son. And he said to his son, “Daniel, when you see Jesus looking at you, what do you see in his eyes?” And the little boy paused for a moment and then he said, “Well, his eyes are filled with tears, Dad.” His father followed up with “Why are Jesus’s eyes filled with tears Daniel?” Another long pause, Daniel said, “Because he is sad.” His dad asked Daniel, “Why? Why is He sad Daniel?” Daniel, as he began to cry, answered “Because I am afraid.” Daniel was onto something powerful.
God’s deepest sorrow for His children comes from our fear because He doesn’t want us to be afraid of anything. So often in Scripture we read, Fear Not, Fear Not, Don’t be Afraid, I am here. Yet, so often we are afraid. Afraid of God, afraid of life, afraid of ourselves and our circumstances, afraid that God may not always love us and take care of us. That breaks God’s heart that His children don’t realize how much He loves them. Richard Foster put it this way. He said,
Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence. ~ Richard Foster
God knows that we fall often. God knows that we grievously mess up often. He knows when we wander away from His path. He knows how often we do that. He knows how often we find ourselves completely lost. And we think because of all of our shortcomings, God must be angry with us, that God must be fed up with us, that God certainly has to have given up on us. But nothing could be further from the truth! Our falling and our wandering does not hinder God from loving us. God doesn’t just love us for who we should be — By the way, none of us are who we should be. God loves us right where we are. But He also loves us too much to leave us there. He’s always calling us forward to a better life, to better choices. Self-loathing and self-rejection contradict the sacred voice of Jesus who refers to us as His beloved Bride, as the beloved of God.
God’s Omnibenevolence for you and for me constitutes the core truth of our existence as Christ followers. And I want to challenge you today to make the Lord’s infinite love for you the defining force of your self-worth. I want to challenge you to define yourself from this day forward like this. If I ask you “Who are you?” At the core of your being I want this answer to swell up to the surface from within you! I want to hear you answer, “I am one radically loved by God. I am the beloved of God, I’m one radically loved by God.” Usually when someone asks who are you we heard “What do you do for a living.” We answer, I’m a pastor. I’m a doctor. I’m a lawyer. I’m a teacher. I’m an accountant. I’m an administrator. I’m a mother. I’m a father. I’m a bartender. I’m a waiter. I’m a waitress. I’m an actor. I’m a bus driver. I’m a cashier. I’m a construction worker. I’m a manager.” No. No. No. No. Who are you?
The answer is, “I am one who is radically loved by God.” That is the primary source of who you are. That is what your existence is all about. The basis of your self-worth is not the amount of your possessions. The basis of your self-worth is not your talents. The basis of your self-worth is not the amount of esteem from others that you receive. It’s not your reputation. It’s not the kudos of appreciation that you get from parents or kids or peers. Listen, don’t miss this. Listen. You’ve got to stand anchored in God’s omnibenevolent love for you. Stay firmly rooted in God’s incredible, unending, overwhelming love for you.
Omnilove God tells you today, listen, don’t miss this, listen. “No matter what else is going on in your life, no matter what else is wrong, no matter what stumbles you’ve made, no matter what mistakes you made, no matter what sins you have committed, you are still my beloved child. You are still a kid of the king.” Listen, don’t miss this. I believe with all my heart that God sent me here tonight, God sent you here tonight, there’s somebody here tonight, in person or online, that desperately needed to hear this tonight. Let me say it again. God is saying to you right now, “No matter what else is going on in your life, no matter what else is wrong, no matter what stumbles you’ve made, no matter what mistakes you made, no matter what sins you have committed, you are still my beloved child. You are still a kid of the king.” And I believe that God brought you here tonight just to make sure you heard that. Listen. Don’t miss this. God is infinite love and His infinite love is focused on loving you.
When we look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we see that He constantly took flak from the religious people of His day for making this kind of statement that God loves you and that God has a plan and a purpose for your life, and even if you’re not perfect and even if you are messing up, God still is interested in you. God still loves you and He wants better for you. He wants to bless you. Jesus took tons of flack for that because Jesus spent a lot of His time hanging out with and loving the outcasts of society. Jesus spent time with the lepers and the prostitutes and the tax collectors and the sinners. And He loved them. He loved them in spite of their sin, in spite of their mistakes, in spite of their wandering off the path. He cared about them and He loved them.
He tried to bring them back into a direction that was more positive and beneficial for their life. He knew His daddy loved them and so He loved them too. He calls us as His followers to join Him in that kind of love, to love others the way we have been loved, and are loved, by God. That is the mission of love we are called to. We are to love as we are loved. We are to forgive others as we are forgiven. We are to serve others as we are being served by Christ. We are to heal others as we are being healed. Jesus revealed, in an exceptionally human life, what it is to live a divine life, to live a compassionate life, to live a life that’s full of love, an omnibenevolent love. Just like God’s omnipotence and His omniscience, God wants to share His omnibenevolence with you as well. He wants to help you love the way He loves, allowing you to use His love when you have trouble loving others on your own. We are supposed to follow His example. I want to challenge you to really focus on what it means to radically love other people in our world and what it is that God’s calling us to do to live out His love in our lives.
Back in 1944, there was a Life magazine issue and they had a photo essay of a fox hunt that went down in Holmes County, Ohio – about an hour from where I grew up. The foxes living in the woods at that time mostly ate mice and crickets. But every once in a while they would come in and get into the chickens of the farms or they would go after the wild quail that was out in the field. And this greatly upset the men of Holmes County because they wanted to go out and hunt the quail. They wanted to be able to kill the quail themselves. And so they were angry at these foxes for doing it. So they gathered six hundred men and women and their children and they got together in a big giant circle that started off five miles wide.
And then they began to collapse the circle, walking towards each other. And as they did, they each carried a stick or a club of some time. And they beat the ground and they yelled and they hollered and they made lots of noise. The goal was to scare the foxes up out of their dens, up into the circle so that they could more easily attack these foxes. And every once in a while a fox would stop and turn and snarl at his attackers and they would beat it to death with this club. Once in a while, the foxes would be, you know, scared, and they would try to come up with a submissive attitude with their tail down and they would try to lick the hand of the person attacking them, turn over on their backs and show their bellies the way dogs do. But they still got beat to death with this club. And so the circle got smaller and smaller. And sometimes there would be a dying fox or a wounded fox and some of the other foxes would stay behind to stay with their wounded or dying, you know, other foxes.
And then the people collapsing the circle would get to where this fox was waiting with another wounded fox, and they would beat both of them to death. And eventually, the circle got all the way down to where it was, just a few yards wide. Most of the people were on the outside, but it had really collapsed down. And they had the last handful of foxes that just kind of went into the center of the circle and they laid down and waited because they didn’t know what else to do. But the people that were coming with the clubs knew what to do. And so they came in and the men and the women or they taught their children how to do it. They just came and they beat these foxes over the head with these sticks and clubs until they killed all of them. That’s a true story that really happened. And there are photos to back it up.
And today we hear a story like that and we just we cringe at the cruelty of that. I could show you similarly horrific factory farming images of the same level of cruelty to pigs and chickens and turkeys and cows. If I showed you those images you would be sickened. And yet in our world today, in our treatment of other humans we kind of have factory farms and fox hunts of our own all the time. We even do that in the Church of Jesus Christ. We have fox hunts like that all the time. People we disagree with. People we disapprove of. We’re not sure how to handle those situations. We’re not sure how to address it. And so sometimes churches just circle around and beat those people to death or at least beat them until they leave and the church says, “you know, we’re not dealing with you anymore.” And so here’s a question we want to think about today, in the world that we live in with hurting and broken people, the outcasts of society, where are you in that circle?
And then ask yourself this question, where would Jesus be in that circle? Who would He be involved with? Would He be beating them or would He be loving them? Where are you in that circle? And when we focus on Jesus and how He loves the sinners of the world, including you and me, and how He loves the outcasts of society, and we focus on His love, all of a sudden our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcasts weep. In the Lord’s Prayer, we’re taught to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done” and what makes His kingdom come is heartfelt compassion, a way of tenderness that knows no restrictions, no labels, no excuses, no compartmentalizing, no sectarian divisions to say, you know what, you are a human being and therefore you are a person of infinite worth to God. And God has a plan and a purpose and a direction for your life.
And He loves you just the way you are, not as you should be, because none of us are as we should be. However, listen to this. Don’t miss this please. Listen to this. This is so powerful. It is true that God loves you just the way you are. But it’s also true that He loves you so much, He doesn’t want to leave you there, where He found you. He wants to call you forward to a better way of living. He has a better plan and purpose for your life, a life without sin. That needs to be our motivation of how we reach out to the outcasts of society and to the people we look at and say, oh, they’re sinning, they’re sinning, OK, that’s true. They’re sinning. Will you, like God, the omnibenevolent One, love them enough to help them find a better way of life. Love them too much to leave them there. That’s what Jesus does.
Jesus, the human face of God, invites us to a deep reflection on the nature of true love and true compassion and the radical lifestyle and true discipleship of a child of God, because God is love. That’s what the Bible says. In 1 John 4:7-12 John writes
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. ~ 1 John 4:7-12
God is love, not love is God, but God is love. Jesus is God and if Jesus ceased loving, He would cease to be God. Our omni God is an omni lover. And so how does this omni good and omni love for us play out in our life? What does it look like? One of the most frequent scriptural references to our relationship with Christ is the metaphor of a shepherd who cares for his sheep. Jesus, the Bible says, is our Good Shepherd. He’s the perfect shepherd. He’s the omni shepherd. Because when we think about who sheep are, sheep are notoriously stubborn and notoriously stupid creatures. They’re completely lost without their shepherd. They wander off frequently, often into dangerous circumstances. They’re virtually helpless to defend themselves against attack, and they require constant care and constant attention.
In Luke 15:3-7 Jesus uses this really engaging metaphor. He tells a parable to illustrate a profound truth.
3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. ~ Luke 15:3-7
Jesus gives us this illustration of a shepherd who is caring for a flock of sheep and then he notices one is missing. And what does he do? Does he say, oh, well, 99 percent of them are still here. That’s close enough. I’m going to bed?
No, he goes out, in the middle of the night, to look for the one that is lost. Why? Because lost sheep matter to shepherds and lost people matter to God. And so there’s an amazing word picture for us, isn’t there? Not only does Jesus, the Good Shepherd, still today, constantly, go out looking for those who are lost, for those who don’t know Him, for those who are off the course of where God really intended them to go with their life … not only does He go out looking for them, when He finds them, He puts them on his shoulders and brings them back, carries them back and there’s rejoicing and there’s a party and there’s a celebration because what was lost has been found. What was considered dead is really still alive. There’s this amazing celebration that takes place. In the SAME WAY, there is a celebration in heaven, and subsequently, in me, every time I see somebody give their life to Christ.
When I hear people talk about where they’ve been and how lost they were and how misdirected and misguided their life was, and then they had this amazing encounter with God, with Jesus, and they finally understood God wasn’t out to get them, God wasn’t out to destroy them, God loves them. When I see someone finally get that, the love that God has for them, just like the grinch, my heart grows three sizes that day. I LOVE it when people realize that our OMNIGOD is a loving parent who corrects us and guides us and gives us rules and says, “Don’t do that because I don’t want you to get hurt and don’t go in that direction because it’s bad for you. I love you and I’m trying to take care of you. I’m trying to protect you. Trust me.” When I see people finally get that, that our OMNIGOD OMNI LOVES them, and it changes their life and changes their perspective, that makes me celebrate just like the angels and heaven that Jesus describes in that parable.
If we are followers of Jesus, we are called to be those agents of God’s love. We’re called to be people who show God’s love and forgiveness and care to the world. We are careful about who we trust in life, aren’t we? And rightly so, because trust includes risk. And risk is a scary thing. It’s potentially damaging to us. To trust the wrong person can be devastating and only in a relationship of the deepest kind of intimacy can we really trust another person. Can we really allow another person to know us as we truly are to really disclose our deepest, darkest secrets to another person? That’s scary stuff. That’s risky stuff, because they may come back to harm us with that information. Who can we truly be ourselves with? And so we ask ourselves these questions. Maybe when we’re faced with a situation of do I, get involved with a friendship with this person?
Do I trust them? What if they learn that sometimes I can be harsh or vindictive or selfish? What if they learn that not only do I dabble in religion, I dabble in pornography, too? What if they learn that I’ve betrayed a trust in my past? What if they learn that I’ve smudged the character of a friend and so I can’t admit it, that I’ve done wrong? If I’ve done that, if I admit that I’ve made this huge mistake, maybe they won’t love me. And so, I mean, who could love a person like that anyway? Who could I fully trust to still love me, even if they know all of the bad things about me? And the answer is Jesus, the great physician, the good shepherd. He came on a mission of forgiveness and peace and love and reconciliation without exception to tell us, to let us know, that we are loved by a God who is an omnibenevolent God. And He already knows everything about you. He knew you were going to get lost on your way to His purpose and plan before he ever created you. And He created you anyway. And he loved you anyway.
He knew every mistake you would ever make. He knew every misstep that you would ever make. And He still knows every mistake and every misstep you’re GOING to make in the future. And still, He chooses to love you anyway. Not because He doesn’t love you for who you should be, because, again, none of us are who we should be. He loves you for who you are right now, right where you’re at. But He loves you too much to leave you there. He wants to take you further to where He really has some great plans for your life. He’s a good shepherd who seeks out His lost sheep. You can relate to that a little bit.
I mean, all of us in one form or another, we know what it means to be lost. When I was a kid, I remember getting lost in a grocery. I went with my mom and we were together and we were going up and down the aisles. And I just all of a sudden I looked around and she was gone. I had no idea where she was, didn’t know where I lost her or didn’t know when I’d gotten lost. And I panicked. I freaked out. I was running up and down the aisles, every aisle yelling, “MOM! MOM! MOM!” running up and down every aisle of the grocery, never pausing long enough to see if she was actually in the aisle. I mean, I was just in an absolute panic. And then my mom found me and, OH, what a relief that was. Oh, thank goodness. My mom found me. My mom found me. I’ve been lost at different points in my life. And it’s so exciting and so wonderful to be found after you’ve been lost for a while. It’s such a relief. Right. You can relate to that. Maybe you’ve gotten lost in the mall or in a grocery store, maybe on a long road trip. You got lost. You took a wrong turn and didn’t know if you were going to be found again.
Maybe you’re lost in your career right now. Maybe your vocational hopes and dreams got lost in your junior year of college. Maybe you’re lost inside a dead marriage right now. You know how it feels to be utterly lost and alone without any real sense of hope. We all know that feeling. And there’s this amazing opportunity, though, when we find ourselves lost, it’s the opportunity to be found. And how amazing that feels when you’re lost and then you’re found by somebody. Oh, my goodness. And so if you feel lost today spiritually, lost in direction in your life, you can be found today by the Good Shepherd.
Jesus Christ, the omnigood omniGod. Wherever your wayward heart has led you, no matter how far off the path you have stumbled, you can be found. It’s not hopeless. Right now, right this very moment, there’s a God who has left everything. Just to go find you. Right where you are, wherever you are right now. And he has found you tonight! You can feel it, can’t you? You know, it’s true in your heart right now. You can hear God’s voice calling to you, speaking to you, can’t you? If you pause for a moment, you can hear the voice of God telling you how happy he is to find you. If we could really just put God’s voice on the loudspeakers tonight, I bet He would say something like this. “Oh, I’m so glad I found you. I’m so happy to see you. I was so worried about you. I love you so much. Please don’t ever wander off like that again. I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to you!” That’s the voice of a dad, right? That’s the voice of a mom. When you find someone who you care about, who’s lost and then you find them, “Oh, I’m so glad I found you! I was so worried about you! Please don’t ever do that again. I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to you.” That’s the voice of a parent. That’s the voice of a shepherd.
That’s the voice of our omnibenevolent God. And you hear that voice today, don’t you? You hear that in your spirit and in your heart. Jesus said in John 10:27 My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. ~ John 10:27And so here’s the last question, here’s how we wrap things up tonight. How will you respond today to the voice of the Good Shepherd? How will you respond today to the voice of omnibenevolent Jesus? Because that’s really all that remains for you to decide.
Tonight, will you shut Him out, will you ignore Him or will you embrace Him and fall into His arms weeping with gratitude and love and relief that you were lost? But now. Thank God, H e found me. Will you continue to keep Him at arm’s length, not too far away, but not too close, and try to sort of continue to live the life of a church in the life of a person who’s sort of spiritual and sort of religious.
We say “Ok. I want to believe in God but I don’t want to be a fanatic. I mean, believing in God is one thing, but you don’t want to take it too far, right? It doesn’t mean it has to be the biggest thing in your life where everything’s about your relationship with God.” If that’s where you are in your faith. If you’ve got God tucked nicely into a controllable box that you can manage, you’re missing out on everything He has planned for you because He wants to be involved in every minute of your life. He wants to love you, guide you, direct you. And so here’s the big question. Here’s what it all comes down to. Are you ready to be loved by our omnibenevolent God today? Because that’s what He wants to do. He wants to love you, are you ready to be loved by God?
~~~~~ LET’S PRAY ~~~~~