THE LOVE OF GOD, SO GREAT AND SO UNCONDITIONAL
By Dr. Bev

Recently, while a friend and I were talking about the care our pets, we began pondering the resemblances between how we care daily for our pets and how our Heavenly Father cares faithfully for us with His unconditional love.

We talked about the need to clean up the yard after his pet Hurley, and the kitty box of my Leo, and how that process must be akin to our Heavenly Father’s experience in taking care of us. I never think of scolding Leo because I love him. I fully understand the limitations of his animal-ness. So it is with God and us. He (God) knows we can’t avoid making our messes.

Now I consider how much more intimately the Lord knows about us than we do our pets. In Psalm 139 He reminds us that He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs! He knows we are going to need to eliminate every day (Romans 7:18-25). He knows He is going to clean up after us continually! What tremendous unconditional love He has for us. What a reminder of why Jesus came to die for us. We can’t make it through one single hour, much less one day, without needing the Savior. It is His death that makes us completely acceptable to our Heavenly Father, under the shed blood of Jesus Christ at the cross.

I see then that my making messes are an unavoidable part of my human condition. If I embrace the true meaning of falling short of God’s perfection, then I come face-to-face with the keen awareness that I can’t possibly make it through a day without making my messes!! Any time I catch myself believing “I was pretty good today, I actually don’t think I committed a sin.” I am on a very slippery slope because the Scriptures say, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (I John 1:8). I recall Jesus talking to the Pharisees (oh no, not me too!), reminding them that the true meaning of the Old Testament Law was that they could never fulfill the whole law as described in Matthew 5:17-37. And neither can we! This passage shows us that killing and being very angry with someone require the same judgment!

So if you have a pet, or step in a pet’s mess, remember the animal is doing what is natural. We are not animals, but we are human and we do, and will continue to do, what comes natural for us as human beings.

Another dimension of this topic emerged while chatting with my brother, Bob, about our pet kittens. He pointed out that we train them in regard to their messes. That is perhaps the meaning of God’s discipline. Our Father is training us to make fewer messes in our personal lives so that we might more clearly reflect His character to the world around us.

God has defined what He wants to see in our lives: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23). He loves us enough to willingly clean up the messes, but too much to leave us in our human condition. He longs to instill more and more of His strong, transforming presence in our lives every day. But He can only do this marvelous work when we open ourselves up to Him daily and invite Him into every facet of our lives (I John 1:9). Ask God to clean up your messes and begin transforming you at the very core of who you are.

By DrBev