“For this is how so LOVED God the world: That the Son, the only begotten, He gave so that everyone believing in him, should not perish but have life eternal”. (John 3:16)
This morning’s reflection flows out this morning’s reading and from a conversation I had with a person at the Waffle House about “this world is not my home” and what he called his “yo-yo” struggle between turning towards God and turning towards the world.
This morning’s reflection contains diagrams and is a little more structured than most of my reflections. However, I wanted to make what I was saying more understandable.
Most people have this paradigm and diagram of their life as it relates to God and the World. Allot of churches teaches this diagram as do many contemporary worship songs and books. People feel they are caught in the middle between the two pulls of God and the world. Their diagram looks like this:
God <-----------Them -------------> World
God <------------Them: At times they feel they move in the direction of God and God is moving close to them. They attend a spiritual weekend or retreat, participate in an amazing prayer or worship gathering, or something else they feel moves them closer to God and in the opposite direction of the world.
Them --------------> World: Then they feel they slip back into the world and its daily life, struggles, and temptations. As the world pulls them towards it, they feel they are being pulled away from God. Moving towards the world they feel necessitates them moving away from God.
God <---------> Them <----------> World: Because of this diagram that many people have embraced of their life, they live in this constant struggle and strain of the tug-of-war of being pulled into God and being pulled towards the world. Moving towards God requires moving away from the world.
However this diagram is not correct. Nor is it Biblical. The whole movement of God as John 3:16 states and the salvation plan of God in the incarnation of Jesus, his becoming human, and his death and resurrection reveals is God moving into the world.
So let me show you what I believe is the correct diagram:
------------> God ------------> :The previous diagram focuses on us. First, let’s take ourselves out of the center and move God into the center were he belongs.
-------------> God -----------> World: Second: the mission of God, the movement of God, and the movement of the church is into the world, not away from it. God did not come into the world to set up sanctuaries set apart from the world, place his light hid under a basket separate from the world, but he came to set up mangers, and shine his light in the world.
Us-------------> God --------------> World: We are to move in the direction of God who is moving into the world. The mission of the church is to join in the Missio Deo, (the mission of God( which is to reach every nation, tribe and tongue, (Rev. 5:9) with the Gospel and make disciples of all nations (Matt 28:19). “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:8), So Loved God The world.. (John 3:16)
We are called through the means of grace of prayer, searching the Scriptures, fasting, and sharing in the Lord’s Supper to move more intimately into God to more fully join in his mission of moving more intimately into the world. If you attend a church service on Sundays, you are moving towards God. If when you leave you isolate yourself from the world, you are moving against God.
The same John who wrote John 3:16 also wrote 1John 3:16. He writes:
“We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians” And he goes on to say in verse 17, “But whoever has the worldʼs possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person?” Again, John’s focus is the sharing of our love we received from Jesus with those in the world. I can’t help but wonder, What if it was 1John 3:16, “We have come to know love by this: that Jesus laid down his life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians” and not John 3:16 that was the most well-known, memorized and recited verse by Christians around the world. How would Christians live and evangelize differently?
My family, Read the Gospels and look at the examples of Jesus’ life. Read Philippians 2:5-7. Then pray and reflect over what diagram controls your life. During this season of Lent where we fast and pray to more intimately encounter Jesus, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you how you can more fully join in with Jesus and this movement of God. I ask that you please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
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