Bethany Bullet - July 31, 2012

If you could ask God anything what would it be?  What ONE thing would you love to grasp, to understand, or to know above all others? 

Why does He allow tragedies?  If that is what you’d like to grasp you would be in good company.  After all, even the prophets pondered, “Why do the evil flourish and the righteous perish?” Maybe you’d simply ask why He doesn’t just visibly and publicly manifest Himself and put an end to all questions?  The desire to grasp that; like the desire to have Him show or prove Himself is common. 

In art, it is the main character in The Grey; looking up to heaven and pleading, “Show yourself, do something, prove it, and I’ll believe in You.” 

In life, it was the people surrounding Christ. While Christ was living on Earth they were demanding He, “Tell them plainly.” When surrounding Christ while He hung dying, “Just come down so that they might believe.”  It is also you and me, surrounded by turmoil and troubles crying out “Why, when and how come?”  To grasp why, God doesn’t just visibly and publicly manifest – His presence is common among man. 

Perhaps what is more important in determining what we would ask…is finding out what God would have us grasp.  Above all things God would have us know how much He loves us! 

Here in Ephesians Chapter 3 we learn just that; rather than understanding…

• Why God does or doesn’t do this or that? 
• Why folks see Him here but not there? 

The most important thing to grasp, to understand, and to know is how vast God’s love for us is!

Martin Luther once said, “If all the world had remained free from sin except me, God would have done it the same way.” 

Think about what that means - grasp its reality. 

• Had Adam and Eve never considered that the fruit was pleasing to the eye, let alone tasty to the lips;
• Had Cain never slew brother;
• Had Noah’s neighbors been as godly and righteous as he;
• Had no nation ever enslaved its fellow man, or bowed down to images carved by hand, or strayed from the divine command;
• Had everyone from the beginning of history clear until the birth of me remained free from sin (and I and I alone feel), God in Christ Jesus would still have come down to suffer and die and redeem this single child of His. 

God’s love is global, He so loved the world. God’s love is eternal, it never ends. Yet God’s love is also deeply personal and individual. He loves me and He loves you enough, that had ‘all the’ world except us been worthy of paradise He would have done it the same way. 

There are many things we would certainly love to grasp, but God’s desire is that we grasp this one and so His apostle’s prayer, a prayer that God Himself inspired, “I pray that you may grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”  Ephesians 3:17-18

-Pastor Kevin Kritzer