“Show Some Love!”(I Jn.4:7-11a).
“Killing his own Son for our sins instead of killing Satan. I swear this story no clear at all.” I have read above a few times from social media.
Logically the story is not clear, because faith does not come by logical reasoning. From a human point of view the logical thing to do is to kill your enemy, but God chose the contrary out of love.
Firstly, God is not fighting with Satan. If he was, that would be projecting duality equating Satan with God. We are in error when we spend time idolizing Satan instead of focusing on Christ who has opened the way and given us direct access to the Father. Satan is fallen and remains fallen, but he is a necessary evil. God has exalted the Lord Jesus Christ to be the KEY that opens the door of salvation. In the same way he has lowered Satan to such despicable depths of humiliation, such that Satan, not wanting to be humiliated and disgraced alone, allure the vulnerable so that they too may be where he is.
God sacrificed his Son, but raised him and exalted him. He degraded Satan but allows him to be so as to test the freewill which he has given to us. We are given the freedom to excercise freewill to be or not to be. Freedom to choose, but knowing that “choices have consequences.”
It is this same concern that led Dora Greenwell and the rest of us to believe.
Greenwell composed this:
“I am not skilled to understand
What God has willed, what God has planned
I only know at his right hand
Stands one who is my Savior.
I take him at His word and deed
Christ died to save me: this I read
And in my heart I find a need
Of Him to be my Savior
And was there tgen no other way
For God to take? – I cannot say;
I only bless him day by day,
Who saved me through my saviour.
That He would leave His place on high
And for sinful man to die
You count it strange, so once did I
Before I knew my savior…”
My friend, God did all this because he loved us. He demonstrated love by sacrificeping what was invaluable to him – his Son. In the same way he loved us, he wants us to love 9ne another. God is love and love comes from God.
The love that is expected of us is demonstrable love. In the story of the man beaten by thieves and left for dead, the priest and the Levite passed by the helpless man but did not help him. They were probably hurrying to the temple where they would read the most important commandments(Mk.12:29-31): “Shema Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength”(Dt.6:4). And “Love your neighbour as yourself”(Lev.1918).
It’s easy to talk about love than to show love. You may not be able to show love to all around you, but you can still select one whose unfortunate situation may have been caused by you to demonstrate love. That is what David did to Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan. David restored to Mephibosheth all the land that belonged to Saul his grandfather, and “Mephibosheth ate at David’s table like one of the king’s sons”(II Sam.9:1-11).
Yes, dear friend, there is someone near you in dire need of your loving attention. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the son of God, God lives in him and he in God. Since “no one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
Bottom line therefore: Let us show love to one another not in words but in deed! That’s the way by which we may begin to understand why God chose to sacrifice his Son than to kill Satan.
Sunday prayer: Holy Spirit help me to emulate the Lord Jesus Christ in actionalbe love. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.