At church this morning, my pastor's sermon was about attitude. He
referred to the Philippians 2 passage about letting the same mind be in
us that was also in Christ Jesus, and he described the mind that was in
Christ Jesus: loving towards everyone. The pastor said that Jesus'
message of love for all is controversial because a number of people
would like to think that God dislikes the same people whom they
dislike. According to the pastor, the way to get the right attitude is
to focus on Christ. Yet, the pastor also stated that there are mean people who know the Bible backward and forward.
I
don't have problems with the message that Christ loves everyone. But I
do struggle to bring that realization into my own life by myself loving
everyone. And my pastor's right: just knowing what's in the Bible is
not enough. That doesn't necessarily change a person. Reading and even
remembering are not the same as truly absorbing. I do believe that I
need to remind myself continually of God's love for me and everyone
else, replacing my bitter thoughts with reminders of God's love.
Some
would say that I need to depend on God to change me. Why is it hard
for me to depend on God to change me? Because, if God were to change
me, I'd expect perfection. I'd expect for God to make me more of an
extrovert, or to enable me to interact well with people I do not like,
and who do not like me. When that perfection does not come, however, I
feel that God has let me down, and I wonder how reliable he is. Maybe
there are other ways to conceptualize dependence on God, however.
Another
thought: I'm reading the Book of Judges right now. Actually, my posts
on Judges will appear months from now, for I write ahead. But I have a
thought to share right now. The latest story that I am reading in
Judges is about the strife between Abimelech and the lords of Shechem in
Judges 9, which was incited by God as punishment for their sin of
killing the sons of Gideon (except for Abimelech). While I was reading
this story, I had a question: Did God love Abimelech and the lords of
Shechem? It doesn't seem that God did. God was not giving Abimelech a
chance to repent, I don't think. And Jotham's reprimand to the lords of
Shechem seemed to be more of a curse on them than a plea for them to
repent.
I think that, in the Book of Judges, God has a
fair-minded respect for the dignity of human beings, which provides God
with a moral sense, if you will. (People may question this by pointing
to Judges' treatment of foreigners and women, but I guess that my point
is that God in Judges in not amoral.) Yet, God in Judges does not
appear to love gross sinners. The exception to this, however,
would be the entire nation of Israel, which God continues to forgive and
to rescue. But I doubt that we can get the notion that God loves
everybody from the Book of Judges. Such a theme is arguably in certain
other parts of the Hebrew Bible, such as some of the Psalms and Second
Isaiah, and it also appears to be in the New Testament, such as Paul and
the Gospels, at least when the Gospels are not as Israel-centric (or
such is my impression, and there are others who may feel differently).
In a big-picture sense, in terms of the Bible, God does love everyone.
But the trees are sometimes (or maybe more often than sometimes)
different from the forest.
Anyway, those are my ramblings for today.