One can read the commandments as enforced rules that must be obeyed, or one can read them as facilitating a relationship with God—as His commitment to engaging with us to help us see Him as not only our sovereign but also our savior, lover and friend.
What our world needs today is a picture of God’s goodness and love, a rarity in these times.
In this story, we discover an explosion of excessive and sweet joy, the kind we all search for.
For Paul, the gospel is not about being saved from an angry God but a message grounded in God’s rescuing love for the world and fully revealed in the faithfulness of Jesus. Now that’s a game changer!
The incarnation tells me that God deeply loves humanity and is drawing us—you and me—into divine fellowship.
Deep emotional closeness with an absent God is not easy to achieve. How can we forge a relationship with a distant God as we continue to wait for Him?
When I experience the beauty God’s character, I find that faith is an experience that happens to me, not something I make happen.
We tend to envision God as acting to solve all our problems, as an omnipotent being who will support us in meeting our every need. Poor God, He likewise needs us in times like these. He needs us to be faithful witnesses who support His character of love and justice in the world.
My faith is not in a God who will solve all my problems or save me to an afterlife while condemning unbelievers for eternity. I have faith in something else.
Before terms such as social justice existed, God laid down the Sabbath texts that include green ecology laws as well as commands to care for the poor, not oppress the sojourner, and treat animals equally on the Sabbath. You don’t have to accept liberal theology to validate these ideas. God wants us to be known for our acts of kindness and healing, not our individual politics.
Theological InTents 