John 3:16
This verse is so popular. It's such a good summarization of the Christian faith.
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What hit me recently was the phrasing of the first 5 words of this verse: "God so loved the world."
I know that Christians can get really caught up in trying to separate ourselves from the world and completely detach. We try to exist in a place but simultaneously not look or touch anything around us that we don't label "safe."
It isn't nearly as bad in all cases as it is in others. I've caught myself occasionally slipping into a mindset that attempts to discard the world as worthless, but some people carry a condemning perspective that tints the way they see everything in our world.
I can certainly concede that the world is a fallen place and far from what it should be. Even still, I think it is a nasty pitfall to get caught in when you fail to see anything that comes of the world as anything other than useless or, lacking merit or, (in a worst case scenario) evil.
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I just love how John phrased that verse.
God so loved the world that he sent his son to die for it. Period.
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I can't imagine anything better than being able to look at things in the world and people in the world and see the intrinsic beauty that God sees as a product of him, the Creator. When God looks at drug-dealers and adulterers, porn-stars and murderers, thieves and liars, all he sees are his children that he loves with all his heart. Albeit, children that are lost and children he is longing to come back to him, but these are people that God is absolutely crazy about.
How soon when we deal with those people do we run out of mercy and grace? How soon do we shower them with our judgement? Way too soon.
I can't imagine anything better than getting to a place where when we see those people we see them through God's eyes and not our own. I can't imagine anything better than looking at the world and the numerous things in it that we are so ready to condemn and ridicule, and instead see the awesome characteristic that God sees in them.
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I don't think we are supposed to burn records and ban books. I don't think we are supposed to shut ourselves off and turn away from the things the world creates. I think we are supposed to reach our hands out and polish things so they shine like they were meant to. I think we should see things in the same light Jesus would see them. I think we should look at people through the same lens Jesus did. And then love them.
Peace.
when i think of how you can negatively view the world, i think of lyrics to a song from sweeney todd...todd is a very bitter man, and this is how he describes the world:
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and the vermin of the world inhabit it
and its morals aren't worth what a pin can spit
and it goes by the name of London."
There's a lot of suffering in the world, and a lot of complacency as well...It's our job as Christians to rid the world of suffering and shake people from their complacency...
We must always remember that God charges *us* with caring for the world until Christ's return.