Jesus just wants to love us...

“God loves us all so much. He just wants to love us.”

I had the…privilege…of being drawn into a conversation where the other person not only told me that but firmly believed it. This was the basis of this person’s faith; it was how they related all things to Scripture, to ‘church’, to their faith, to life. Jesus loves us. He wants us all to be loved. This same person told me a few days ago that Jesus is waiting for us to turn to Him in times of trouble, that when anyone is feeling lost and alone all they need to do is pray to Him and He will be there to comfort them.

That is the place where loving our neighbors comes up against the need for pointing out the truths in Scripture.

God just wants to love us. Jesus is just waiting for us to come to Him so that He can comfort them.

Really?!

Are you sure?

Because I don’t see it that way. I can’t see it that way.

Yes, He does love us. Yes, He’s there to comfort us in times of trouble. Yes, we can and should turn to Him. But who is the us that He loves? Who are the one’s He wants to comfort?

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. John 17:6-9

Those words came straight from Christ as He prayed on behalf of ‘those whom you have given me’. He wasn’t praying for the world, for everyone in the world but for those that had been given to Him.

Who, then, was he praying for? If not for the world? If not for every person through all time, who exactly was He praying for?

Paul sums it up well in Ephesians 1:3-14

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, ⁸ which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight ⁹ making known^[c] to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
¹¹ In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, ¹² so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
And again in Romans 9: 1-13

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,1 my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. 9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” 10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Was God waiting for the people to cry out to Him, to tell Him how bad their lives were, so He could save them when He was sending a flood on the whole world?

Genesis 6:5-8 tells us He wasn’t…

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Out of all the world, all the people on earth-people that were filled with great wickedness- only Noah found favor with the Lord.

Was He waiting for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to turn to Him so He could love on them and make them feel better? Genesis 18:20-32…

Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether7 according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Here there is a distinction between the righteous and the wicked (those whose sin was ‘very grave’).

24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

27 Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” 29 Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” 30 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” 31 He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” 32 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”
The distinction continues as Abraham keeps questioning…will you destroy the righteous with the wicked? In the end only one was found righteous.
So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. Genesis 19:29

God wasn’t sitting around waiting to ‘fix’ the pain of the sinful. He wasn’t waiting to love on them and tell them all was well. Is He a genie in a bottle? Is He there to be on your beck and call? Does He look at people living in their own desires, idolizing everything but Him and simply say…oh how I wish they’d just ask me to put a band aid on the hurts this world has caused them. I just want to hug and love on them and make them feel better so they can go back to doing what they want to do, so they can choose sin over me?

Is that the God of Scripture? Is it the Jesus that said…

Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.  For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. Luke 12:51-52

or

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. sI have not come to bring peace, but a sword. Matthew 10:34

Is it the God that said…

Yet I have loved Jacob ³ but Esau I have hated. Malachi 1:2-3

As this person whom I’m very close to kept telling me how Jesus is love, how he came to love us, how he only wants to love on us if we’ll let Him…as they kept saying things like that…I struggled.

We’re commanded to love others as ourselves. To be kind, gentle. As I sat there listening to that and wondering what now? I didn’t feel equipped to tackle the subject the first time it came up. And I’ll admit that I really didn’t want to. I didn’t share this person’s belief but I didn’t want to point out the errors I saw in that belief either. That first time I asked what this person thought God was doing when He sent the flood, asked if they thought He loved all those people and if so then why did He only save Noah and His family? I asked what they thought all the verses about God’s wrath were about. And as the conversation took a different turn I left it at that. I’d planted a seed…and I’d saved myself from having to get into things that I knew wouldn’t be appreciated.

But when that same subject came up again a few days ago I had no choice but to tackle it. I was put on the spot, being asked to do something that my conscience and my beliefs wouldn’t let me do. And I had to explain why I couldn’t.  Thankfully by then I felt better equipped to handle the subject. I had a better idea of how to explain my view without going too deep into things I didn’t think this other person would understand or appreciate. And I kept it simple and put the blame on myself. “I don’t see Scripture the way most do,” “I don’t believe that way.” It worked and I was able to keep love at the forefront of that discussion, I was able to help that person as they’d asked, and I was able to share a little more of what I see in Scripture and why. I watered the seed I had planted months back but this person and I walked away from the encounter still seeing things from different perspectives.