What is the first song you remember
learning as a child. For many children
today it is a TV jingle for a fast food restaurant or some cartoon. For generations of Americans and also for children
around the world, however, it used to be “Jesus Loves Me”. Today in our country where less than 50% of
people regularly attend church and even less attend Sunday school, this is a
song few know about a Savior who loves them.
It is a song about His nature and character that few are told of. But Love is the Name of God that we must
never leave out of our conversations with others. God is LOVE.
The lost mangle this name with confused
theologies or lying philosophies. If God
is love, the confused theology states, then anything goes. God is a doting grandfather who is short sighted
or completely and willfully oblivious to any wrong thing done by his beloved
children. Since He is loving He will
accept all things without a word of judgment.
This theology confuses God’s love with the evil doctrine of
license. We can live as we please since
God is love. All manner of perversity is
now allowed in places called churches because God’s love doesn’t care if people
practice that sin or not.
Lying philosophies also challenge the
children of our day about God’s love.
The first point is a philosophical question. If God is love why do bad things happen? A loving God would not let wars rage, people
suffer from incurable illnesses, or children die. Therefore, God is not love and if He is not
what He says He is then He isn’t at all.
This teaching wants God on man’s terms the same as false theology. A question to ask these amateur philosophers
is, “If God got rid of all evil, would He also have to get rid of you? At what point would God have to end the
practice of sin?”
In reality God has done more than
eliminate evil. He has forgiven those
who practice evil if they will come to His Son as Savior. Christ has died to save us from the penalty
of sin and the guilt of sin’s practice.
Instead of killing all sinners, God offered them all forgiveness. That is love that even the philosophers can’t
get around. The God who made us
sacrificed His only begotten Son so that we vile sinners might have eternal
life. Jesus Christ agreed to this and
gave up His life willingly for us. Jesus
loves me.
“Jesus loves me, this I know; for the
Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him
belong, they are weak, but He is strong.
Jesus loves me, He who died; heaven’s gates to open wide. He will take away my sin; let His little
child come in. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.” Anna Warner wrote this hymn and taught it to
the cadets at West Point military academy.
Many of those young men were sure that Jesus loved them before they
faced the daily threat of death in the Civil War.
The
Friday Benediction
Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop
you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in
the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be
enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend. Amen
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