Encouragement

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Larry Lilly's Letter Thursday August 18, 2005

A song that I heard in the long ago has a phrase that when recalled still moves my heart with wonder:

"Does Jesus care?"

The song then presents a number of searing pains we humans suffer and gives the answer, yes, yes He cares.

This is important and a great strengthener of faith for believers.

Most people have an almost indefinable concept of God and the famous writer, Herman Melville, gave expression to this troubling concept when he wrote:

"The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch."

Most would disagree with Melville's Oriental Universalism, but this statement is on target. Too often preachers and academics present God as the grand universal BRAIN who simply does not care about His creation. The suffering of the human race is given as the reason for a 'brainy' God verses one who cares.

A surface study or one that plumbs the depths of the scripture dispenses the concept of a uncaring God. The master verse of all Christians is John 3:16 which shouts and whispers the care of God from the rooftops to the aching heart of our fallen race.

Look at this verse again:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

The loving care of God for His creation and for His New Creation, the redeemed, is demonstrated through the accounts of Gods actions all through the Bible.

To be sure, God is omniscient, all knowing like the most complex brain you could NEVER imagine, yet unlike many human intellectuals, God has not lost the capacity to feel, to act. When God chose to love us pathetic humans and to give the ultimate token of such love in Christ at Calvary, He removed once for all the question, 'Does God care,' from any thinking mind.

I do not pretend to have all the answers for the pain we suffer as we struggle along the path we call life, but I do know, beyond question that, yes, He cares. Like the brain comparison, the compassion of God is revealed in the passion of Christ on the cross.

I do not know what you are facing today, but face it with confidence in His care.

Larry Lilly Copyright 2005 Use with credit.

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