Writings: God's Love Is What Matters

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

Lord, You are more precious than silver;
Lord, You are more costly than gold;
Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds;
And nothing I desire compares with You. (Lynn DeShazo)

I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. It was on my Walk to Emmaus in 1997. I wasn’t much into contemporary music, so I didn’t know that this song had been around for a while. It was new to me. I was struck at how powerful these words were. How they pierced through all the clutter and junk of my life. How they convicted me in the realization that, sadly, even though I wanted to believe them, in reality that last line hadn't really been true.

We can easily become overcome with living: going to work, doing our chores, getting our homework done, planning our lessons for the next day; paying our bills, our taxes, our dues; doing the yard work, the house work, the paperwork; taking care of business … every day … yes, you know, it’s easy to get roped onto the treadmill of life. It’s one of the reasons why this Pandemic time of "Shelter-In-Place" has actually had a positive impact on some people. As difficult as this time has been, it’s also caused us to pause and reconsider what’s most important.

Is it the THINGS in our lives, or is it the PEOPLE of our lives? Is it the stuff we do, the stuff we have, the stuff we make and consume? Or is it the people we know and love and care for that matter? You see, for God WE matter. We matter GREATLY to God. We matter more than anything else, actually.

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. (1 Peter 1:18-19)

A ransom was the price that was paid to buy back from captivity something that you valued greatly. You paid a ransom to get it back. We know of this from things like “ransom notes." A loved one is kidnapped and the kidnappers write a note demanding money in return for them. Well, in this case, we have stolen ourselves away from God, we have kidnapped ourselves away from the life that God had for us: a life of faith and hope and love, a life founded upon trusting in God and God’s will for us. We stole ourselves away. We exiled ourselves from God by our own self-will, by our own arrogance, by thinking that we knew better than God; we wanted to have that knowledge of good and evil for ourselves rather than trusting in God. And so we did it. We added to God’s word. We ate of the tree, and found out that we were naked … without excuse. Utterly and total exposed. And, yet, in the midst of our nakedness, in the midst of our failure, in the midst of our unwillingness to trust God, into the middle of this incredible mess comes the love of God. God’s love, which is beyond any measure of value that we could possibly have.

We don't really value ourselves … our true selves. We value the wrong things: how we look, what we wear, the car we drive, the house we live in, the things we have accumulated, the toys we’ve acquired. ALL OF WHICH is worthless in the end. Those who die with the most toys … still die. And we don't even get to take those toys with us when we go!

No, God doesn’t value any of that stuff. God doesn't care about all that junk. God doesn’t value any of that. Jesus wouldn’t have given himself as a ransom for all that worthless garbage. God’s love is more costly, more valuable, more abundant and fantastic than anything we can possibly imagine! And God values us, God values you so much, even as you are, just as you are, warts and all, faults and failings, mistakes and fumbles … God values you so much that God gave Godself in Jesus of Nazareth as a ransom for you.

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. (1 Peter 1:18-19)

We’re covered in plenty of blemishes, but Christ is without fault, flaw, or blemish. God’s love was and is perfect, and God gives it all to you. Right now. This is what grace is. We don’t deserve it. We can’t earn it. We can never fully comprehend it. But we know it is true. And Jesus brings its truth to us in ways that are beyond our comprehension. In self-giving ways that value us more than him.

He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. 21 Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. (1 Peter 1:20-21)

It’s strange for a Methodist to talk this way, but before the universe came to be, before God said “let there be light” in a BIG BANG of brilliant genius, before anything was, God determined that you were worth loving and worth giving it all for, as a Ransom, through Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. For your sake, and if only for you, Jesus came. And, through Christ Jesus we have come to trust in God, to depend upon God, to do that which we failed to do before, listen to God and not the voice of the talking snake. And because Jesus was raised from the dead, our faith and hope is set upon God. As incredible as all of this is, it doesn’t even come close to touching upon the true depth of God’s amazing love for you.

And, so, in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic, when it sometimes feels like life is going into the toilet, when the pension plan and the 401k looks like it’s getting flushed, when work gone and when it appears that all is lost, it’s not … for the one thing that is more important that any of that stuff — God’s love — is eternal. God’s love never ends. God’s love never leaves us or forsakes us. And that's what’s most important.

© 2020, Dr. Gregory S. Neal
All Rights Reserved