Bible
Study: Romans 8, 31 to 39. And Luke 13, 31 to 35.
Most often,
we Christians find it difficult to consider ourselves as being in a
love-relationship with God. We dare not call ourselves “lovers” of God even
though that is what we are. This is because the word “love” has become so
bastardized by modern usage such that when you mention the word “love”, so many
unholy things begin to float in people’s minds. More still, only very people
actually get to know what it feels like to be loved given that much of what we
humans refer to as “love” these days are nothing short of business-relationships
whereby once you stop giving to the other party, you automatically stop
getting.
If we
really want to know what love truly means, there is only place we can discover
it. It is on the CROSS OF CALVARY. The fact that even though we were still
sinners and enemies of God, God in the person of Jesus Christ went all the way
to die on our behalf and even forgave those who nailed him to the cross is the
one reference point we can quote for a sound definition of love.
Today St.
Paul expatiates on the depth of that great love that God has for us. He says “Nothing
can separate us from the love of God, not even tribulation, distress,
persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or the sword.” In fact, not even death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be
able to separate us from the Love of God. This shows us that God’s love for us
is totally unconditional.
Contrary
to what we think, God does not stop loving us when we commit sin rather his
heart bleeds for us at what we do to ourselves. It is not as if he punishes us
for sins or sends us calamity out of annoyance or revenge, rather the things we
suffer come to us directly by the very act of the sins themselves. Sin is like
a poisonous snake, if you carry it, it will harm you whether or not the owner
of the snake is your friend.
Again,
when things become difficult in life, when we seem not to be getting answers to
our prayers, God does not stop loving us. It makes a lot of sense to assume
that when we experience tough times, it is because God has turned his back on
us. Even the Bible speaks of how the Israelites were thrown into captivity because
they went after false gods. We tend to understand their suffering as a
consequence of the reduction of God’s love for them but St. Paul is saying to
us today that even in the midst of the greatest imaginable pain or trouble we
may be experiencing in life, God’s love remains perfectly constant. He continues
to love us when our eyes are filled with tears and with the same velocity as he
loves us when we are bobbling in joy.
More still,
as St. Paul says, not even our very death can make God stop loving us. Does
this mean that God loves those who are in hell? The surprising answer is “Yes.”
God still loves them but because they have always rejected that love while they
were here on earth, they continue to reject the love even when they are no
longer alive. It is their rejection of love that keeps them in hell
permanently. That is to say, each time we reject God’s love by refusing to keep
his commandments, we are already experiencing hell right here on earth, the
short-lived pleasure, the seemingly glory of ill-gotten wealth, the conscience
bites when we tell a lie, etc. are all sign posts of what hell is like. The sadness
that sin creates in us as a result of having rejected God’s rule over us is a
sound recipe of hell’s special delicacy.
And so,
when we have to suffer for the sake of God, we should never assume that God has
stopped loving us. A lady once told me how she was angry with God for refusing to
keep his own side of the bargain. Having kept herself from impurity for the
sake of God, she still lost her job and her mother died because she could not
raise money for the hospital treatment. She asked me, “how else can God show
that he does not hate me?” St. Paul responds to this question by saying: “… in
all these things, we are more than conquerors.”
God so
loves us that he can even decide to take away all our earthly and material
comforts so that we have nothing else to love on earth other than him alone. He
may decide to empty our pockets, he may take our friends away from us, he may
even make us suffer shame and public disgrace all because he wants our heart to
love nothing else. Unlike human love, God does not prove his love to us by
buying us flowers, sweets or some material things which are there today and tomorrow
are no more. God proves his loves to us at times by taking away these things
from us so that our longing for heaven grows ever deeper. This is why Jesus was
not scared of Herod in today’s Gospel passage. He did not have to run because he
knew he would face Herod someday and eventually depart from this world.
No matter
what life throws at us, God continues to love us. Let us each day enjoy that
love by loving God back as true lovers do refraining with all our might from
ever doing anything contrary to that love.
Let us Pray:
Lord
Jesus, I love you, all I have is yours, yours I am and yours I want to be. Do with
me whatever you will. Amen.
Good morning.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you.
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