The Center

“(Stay) right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!” Jude 1:21 (The Message)

It takes true skill to stay within the circle of someone’s love. We may continually question their motives, or doubt our own appeal. Either way, we find ourselves setting traps for the person, testing whether their care is genuine. Or we push them away, as if to prove we were never within the reach of their love.

It is not surprising that we do the same thing with God. We are tempted to believe He could never love us as fully as Scripture describes. How can He be “our Father” when we hardly ever act as His children? How can He care for us more than the sparrows when the sparrows are more apt to live out their divine destiny than we are? How can He say that we “accepted in the Beloved” when we often betray One who says He loves us so completely?

If we are not careful, we begin to set up rule after rule to prove to ourselves that we are truly worthy of God’s attention. Nothing too rigorous, but just challenging enough to suggest we’re within reach of God’s inner circle of affection. We may not admit it, but much of our religious activity, however well-meant, can fall under this category.

Or, assuming we are unlovable, we go on our way, trying to spoon up as much attention from this world as we can. And though we know it is nothing but mud and muck, we continue, thinking it is all we are worth. Sometimes we can show you our circumstances to prove it; lost jobs, devastating illnesses, or mistreatment by some who we thought represented God to us. If those things are happening to me, we surmise, then it only proves my fears that I am worth barely a glance from God, let alone be an object of His love.

But Jude commands us, after a short letter warning the church about dangerous false teachers, to “stay right in the center of God’s love.” God put you there when He first saw you through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. All justice was fulfilled, all judgment was sated. Yes, we were unworthy. No, there are no rungs to climb to gain His acceptance.

Once, finally, for all creation, the cross announces the Father’s complete satisfaction. The rebellion of sin was squashed, not by armies of wrath, not by violence and shedding of the enemies’ blood, but by the blood of the One who was offended by our own misdeeds. A new way to battle was exemplified; a battle that does not takes arms against a foe, but lovingly speaks truth and love from a position of suffering.

Yes, for us, the offenders, Jesus suffered. He did not come to make sure the right political party got elected in Jerusalem that year. He relinquished every weapon, save one: the cup that He would drink, the cup of suffering on behalf of those who did not deserve it at all.

And so, remembering Christ, the full extent of His agony on the cross, how can we ever doubt God’s passion for us? This is not some ascetic heady love from afar, it is in the dirt, wrestling with man at his worst, God-among-us love. This is grip-us-by-the-soul love that hopes against hope that we, the eternal screw-ups called humanity, will actually get it. This is the “cry in the Garden until sweat drops like blood” sort of love that does not let go of its beloved.

How can we dare leave such a place? How can we consider anything to be more precious? How can we think that even my most valiant effort at fasting, mastering worship, evangelism or prayer would ever suffice to entice God to love me more? How could I doubt my own worth to Him who fought the demons in the garden and slew on the cross for my own soul?

Be patient then; be determined then, to let nothing cause you to wander from His love. Stay fast and close to the Father’s heart. Weep if you have to when the doubts fly like vultures at your faith. Scream and kick when the pain or the questions or the bleakness of life darkness the light of His love. But do it from within the grasp of His love.

His mercy is making all things new, and though it is not yet fulfilled, He will return. We will see Him as He is, and, never, through all eternity, will an iota of an ounce of doubt venture into our hearts about the glorious love of God for His own!