Online Collaboration for the Message on April 16

"PAST"

A friend of mine has a fabulous one-liner: “You’ve always heard it said that God loves you and wants to give you a wonderful life, but what if I told you He just loves you?”

April 16th is Easter Sunday, which is our day to reflect on the meaning of the cross. Aside from the usual themes: how difficult is the price God paid for us, how loving is our God to go so far, how needful was our condition, etc.; I’m fascinated with the other side of “love”. I’ve titled this message "Past", because I want us to look at our track record. How successful have we been in building a life worth living by choosing what we’ve wanted in the past? Is what you WANTED still what you WANT now that you've got it?

CS Lewis writes about the difference between “love” and “niceness”, and concludes that most of us what “niceness” when we say we want “love”. Think about this when you consider the cross: if He would do all that to Himself for our benefit, what might He be willing to do to us for our own benefit?

The obviously “good” news of the cross is what sells. But what about the part of the “good” news that starts out feeling quite “bad”? What about the God that leaves some people in their wheel chairs? After all, Jesus Christ didn’t die to give you the life you wanted. He died to save you from it. Think about that – He died to save you from the life you wanted - and died to give you the life you wouldn't have known to ask for.

So this is not a God that always FEELS nice. This is a God that always IS LOVING. Sometimes love disciplines. Sometimes it spanks. Sometimes love hurts. Sometimes it hurts so much we want to shut it off. This is the God that wants to make you BETTER, not just happier. After all, ice cream makes you happy. But eat enough of it and it won't be about happiness anymore. This is the God that says, "no", sometimes, to our hearts deepest wish.

What kind of God is this? This is the God that so reveres our freedom and right to choose that He’ll actually honor that some will choose hell. I’m thinking of answering the question “What did God die to save you from?” I have some scriptures in mine, but don’t want to share them yet and ‘blind’ the process with my own thoughts.

How are you reacting to all this? What do you think? What did He die to save us from? What does love mean? What kind of God is this? What’s the other side of love, good news and the cross we celebrate on Easter? Can you think of examples for the kinds of things running through your mind? Where do we see dynamics like this at work in the world around us? How do we encounter stuff like this in life outside the church?