It’s a good thing that God doesn’t require perfect people in order to communicate His perfect love.
If that were the case, we would have no hope for learning and living out God’s plan for our lives here and in eternity.
Sometimes, the messages of God’s gracious love and His desire for relationship are communicated in the most surprising of ways.
I’m not going to explain the bizarre context for statement below but if you’ll read 2 Samuel 13-14, you’ll understand more fully why the verse below is so significant in its conveyance of how deeply God loves sinful people even though He hates their sins.
“All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, He devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from Him.” (2 Samuel 14:14)
What a delicious display of Old Testament gospel!
Now what will shock you is that it came at the end of a false story concocted by somebody from a community of psychics — for the purpose of bringing a murderer back into fellowship with King David…. a murderer who ended up staging a revolt and running David out of town and off the throne.
Like I said, this was a big, messy story that Jerry Springer would have loved.
But in the midst of it all, God still revealed His heart and commitment to rescuing souls, even through a greatly flawed vessel such as the woman from Tekoa.
Thank God.
We all know that we find ourselves at times in really big messes that might or might not be of our doing.
We can be caught up in “Drama Central” at home or work or school or church or in the hospital.
We can find even ourselves shocked at the chaotic, carnal and costly circumstances being dumped on our heads or, at the very least, at our feet.
But if we’ll look closely or listen carefully, somewhere in the fog we’ll be reminded of God’s promise to never leave us or forsake us.
We’ll find affirmations/illustrations/explanations of the 2 Peter 3:9 truth that God’s preference is for everybody to find salvation.
Sometimes, the messages will come to us from people more messed up than we.
Sometimes, God will reveal spiritual truth to us or spiritual changes we need to make and the one talking to us won’t even pick up on what God is saying through him or her.
Remember that God is sovereign and can choose to speak through people who don’t live for Him.
Remember that Caiaphas – who hated Jesus – said it is better that one man die for the people rather than all die because of one man (John 18:14).
Listen closely to all the people in your life. God just might be telling you something important from the most surprising of sources.
As always, I love you
Martin
