Greetings in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:30)
Loving God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength is a really tall order. As a human being, breading on earth, loving God, who is invisible, is simply impossible with our own might and strength. This is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is, in turn, a very gift from God. Unless God pours the Holy Spirit in us, we are not able to dearly love God with all our heart and mind. As a living creature, moment by moment, our highest priority is automatically given to our own self’s wellbeing (or at minimum self-survival.) However, the Holy Spirit intervenes our nature, and make ourselves to be holy (i.e., being separated from our natural being), and truly and dearly love our God, who is invisible in our physical eyes. Thus, we praise God who pours the Holy Spirit in our heart so that we know who our God is, and love Him more than anything on earth. Amazingly, for we, believers, this is so natural. Why? We, believers, are God’s children, and our God is our true and eternal Father. Without God, we don’t exist as His people at all. Period. This truth separates us from many people who live on earth without knowing God as their true and eternal Father.
Our Heavenly God is also a loving God, who dearly cares for His children. Then is there a proof? Yes. Sure it is. Jesus Christ, who died on cross to saved us from our eternal death from our own sins. Praise God, Our True and Ever-Loving Father!
By the way, whenever I share our Lord, Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins with many of my friends, who do not believe God, they ask: God is omnipotent. Then why does God have to sacrifice His own son Jesus Christ? Why not just forgiving all sinners by simply declaring all of your sins are forgiveness? Yes, it is a really good question. This is an age old question too. Essentially the same question was made by those who were at the scene when Jesus was crucified. Among them, there were priests, teachers of religious law, elders, who supposedly knew who Jesus was and especially the truth that God was planning to do.
The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way. (Matthew 27:41-44)
What a temptation to Jesus! Jesus was in a real agony as a true human suffering and dying on cross. What was told by them was also a very challenge directed to God. If God was omnipotent, God should have saved Jesus to prove Himself as God that they wanted to have. However, God did not do what people asked. The people even shouted, “Let Jesus come down from the cross right now, and we will believe.” God did not answer to them. God proceed His salvation plan. In fact, it was the silent proof of the love of Our God. Then why was God silent to the people shouting and demanding a miracle so that they could believe?
First, a true faith does not come for a miracle that people wants to see, but it is directly from God as a gift, which is freely given according to His own will, neither by a request nor a demand by any human beings. God is alone sovereign. Yes, many people including me once think if they see a truly amazing miracle from God, they will surely believe God. However, in reality, such a faith fades quickly. As time goes by, their memory fades, and the faith induced by such a miracle also fades together and slowly disappears from our heart and memory. Bible always has an example that we question about, and give us a teaching about the truth. Jesus once fed 5000 people with five loaves of breed and two fish, and the 5000 people (not including women and children) saw and experienced the miracle. Surely, at the scene, all of them truly believed Jesus. However, not long time later, Jesus was caught and being crucified, how many of them were at the scene where Jesus was crucified? Then what was the object of their faith – Jesus or the miracle?
One more example from the Old Testament. Israelites crossed the red sea by the omnipotent power of God. If God did save them by letting them cross the red sea, they all were perished by the swords of Egyptian army. This miracle was not just having one good meal after being hungry, but it was a lifetime once-for-all miracle because whether it was a matter of life and death. We all think nobody will forget such a lifesaving miracle throughout one’s life. I hope this is true. Let’s see what happened to the Israelites as recorded in Bible.
Just after they crossed the red sea safely, they were in a joy. The joy must have been greater than anything that they experienced or even imagined. All of them believed God as their protector, and they loved God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Why? They got a second chance. If not, they were completely abolished from the faith of the earth. They truly believed God like a baby who completely trusted its parents.
Here is a question: How long did their faith in God stay with them? Please remember that their faith was directly caused by the miracle that gave an unforgettable memory in their lifetime. The answer is “three days.” Three days? Yes, only three days. Three days after they crossed the red sea, they arrived at a place where there was no water. Then they started complaining about the lack of water. What? Complaining to God? Yes, they did complain to God for not having water to drink. Of course, they were really thirsty in the wilderness. The almighty God could do anything, such as parting the red sea. Rather than trusting God, they demanded God to fill their desire. Their thirstiness was greater than their faith in God, who loved them and took care of them in the situation when they were sandwiched between the Red Sea and the Egyptian Army chasing and trying to kill them. Their faith was already faded as the situation was changed to their uncomfortableness. The memory and the excitement of the miracle of parting the Red Sea did not last long, and neither their faith. A miracle cannot give a true faith to us.
Second, God is faithful. This means that God does not change under any circumstances. God tells in Bible “For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23a).” Unfortunately, nobody is sinless. Just look into ourselves? Are we spotless without any sins? Yes, Bible tells about this truth: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. (Romans 8:23) Then what will happen to us? We all die due to our sins according to God’s own Word. God also loves those who believes. So God wants to save those believer. Sure, God can say one day that I will save all of you sinners from death. Then what happens? In reality, God contracts Himself. In Bible, God said– “If you sin, you will die.” Then God suddenly say, “No you will not die although you have sinned.” In other words, God tells one thing, and He does the other that contracts what He already said. We believe God because He has not changed and He will not change forever by being always faithful to His Word.
Then is there a way to save us without contracting what God already said ‘’If you sin, you will die?” Here is what God did God brought a sacrifice (i.e., sheading of blood – death) of a sinless man. Why a sinless man? Can a sinful man save another sinful man by dying for another sinful man? No. His death is just for his own sin, not for others. God needs a sinless man. Is there a sinless man on earth? None. Except one without sin at all, who is Jesus Christ. Therefore, although Jesus was God’s only begotten son, God had to scarified Jesus to fulfill His righteous word – “for the wage of sin is death” and His love toward us – who are full of sins and destined to death. God paid our sins by sacrificing Jesus Christ, and in His Love we are saved. Then what can we say? His love toward us is greater than His only begotten son, Jesus. This is the greatest proof of His love toward us, who are full of sins. Before this love, the power of death was completely destroyed at the foot of the cross.
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (Romans 8:31-38a)