Pt Six – Our Destiny to Love

Fresh Manna 2009© by Pastor Tim Burt

Have you ever heard anyone say something to the effect, “If I was God, I would have done things so completely different from how He did it!” Basically that person reduces God to their level and exposes the ignorance of their understanding of God.

What we will all one day fully understand is that God’s plan for all mankind is perfect. We will learn that in order for God to create mankind that was not His robot, He had to create us with the gift of freedom and a free will motivated by love. That meant He had to create mankind fallible, knowing that in giving us free will, we’d have the freedom to make wrong choices and the choice live without being motivated by love.

That is not a simple plan and it’s a plan that only God could comprehend and manage. Intelligent Design studied shows the complexity and beauty of all things created. Man could not begin to scratch the surface of God’s intelligent, creative, and majestic design that we see in the human body the earth, the stars, and in all things created by Him. The omnipotence of God’s greatness in all we can see and study, tells the sincerely honest man, God is worthy of our trust.

That brings us to living and life. God had a plan that is perfect with rules and regulations that He laid out in the Old Testament. Go and read them all. If everyone would have followed His rules perfectly, the world would make sense and run decently and in order. But, the very free will that God gave us presented us with the freedom to make wrong choices. You and I have both made more than our share of them. When we did, someone got hurt. Wrong choices hurt people. Thus, the world we live in is full of hurt.

When a person receives Jesus into His heart as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within that person. They now have the Spirit of God helping them learn God’s ways; helping them to make right choices. Because of this, in the New Testament, we move from an overwhelming list of rules instead to guidelines and instructions to learn to walk after the Spirit and put on the fruit of the Spirit. We are taught to walk in love and to live by faith. We are taught to control our thoughts and bridle our tongue. The list of rules goes away and is replaced with letting our hearts be guided by being absolutely honest, rightly motivated, and living by trust and faith in God.

This becomes more manageable to learn but we are still incapable of doing it without God’s help. The person that thinks they follow every rule and does everything perfectly is blinded by their own pride. The honest person realizes the struggle it is to walk and live from a pure heart of love. That person is ever aware of the shortcomings and dependency upon the Lord. That person is often asking God to forgive and help them, but they aren’t the perfectionist. They are much more merciful and patient. And they are more likely to succeed at growing in and giving love.

Our destiny is wrapped up in loving people with the love of God. Jesus taught His disciples, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:35 (NLT)

No, God did not make a mistake when He created the world. Nor did He create the pain that we feel in this world. If he just sweeps the pain and injustice away, then we get swept away. Then He sweeps the free will and the opportunity for those that don’t know Him, to discover Him AND His perfect plan of love.

We are far from perfect and none of us get everything right. But Jesus made us spotless before God. He’s equipped us with His Spirit to teach us right choices from a heart of love, and to influence and bless the lives around us with that love.

It is a perfect plan that for now seems very imperfect. Do you want to know what makes it seem more perfect? You and I walking out our destiny to love others with His love!

James 2:8 (NIV) If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.

In His love,
Pastor Tim