GodReflection: Guardrails for Living
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. – John the apostle
Life is hard. I find it far too easy to place the major portion of my focus on getting through the day. Health issues shout at me from every ache and pain and diversion.
I find I am distracted by the demands and needs of others and even more so by the demands I place upon myself.
Having seen over 25,000 sunsets I am sure the earth’s rotation increases in velocity every year. It seems as though I have less time—and I know I have less stamina—with each passing year.
I’m at a point in my trip through life where I need to bounce frequently into another guardrail placed by John on a precipitously high embankment—Remember God’s Great Love.
This guardrail is a biggie.
John’s letter recipients faced a different challenge than I face.
They had weed farmers who masqueraded within the fellowship planting the idea that Jesus wasn’t a valid example because he couldn’t have really experienced the trials, hurts, and pains of humanity if he was God.
The false farmers reasoned since humanity was evil it was impossible for Holy God to be man.
Therefore, Jesus could not possibly become human flesh if he claimed to be God sent from God. That being the case he could not be a true sacrifice for sin. So, Jesus wasn’t all that necessary, it makes more sense to skip the middleman and go directly to God.
All of the apostle John’s guardrails stand upon the validity of Jesus’ claim that he was fully God and perfect man and as such merged the two so that the HOLY might cleanse the fallen.
For that reason, the apostle reminds the WAY followers of the all sufficiency of Jesus and how believers should respond.
Perhaps my challenge is not all that different from the one faced by John’s “little children.”
Just as they needed to be reminded of the all sufficiency of Jesus Messiah, so I need to be reminded of that same total and complete adequacy.
That same Jesus Messiah came to show me God’s great love for me.
I can be redirected from going over the edge of the cliff by the guardrail that shouts: Remember God’s Great Love.
When I get hung-up on my focus directed at hurts, pains, and the distractions that come with my fallen Adamic body, why can’t it be enough to remember that I am a child of God lavished by His great love?
I want to remember the wretchedness is only temporary that tries to drown out the gift of God’s earth and of His Kingdom.
Based on God’s great love for me look where I am headed:
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:2-3
Stay tuned.
Dr. Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection on Remember God’s Great Love.
God Reflection 