God desires peace between us

I once new a gal, decades ago, who had gotten divorced. She said that initially the divorce was painful for her because she thought she was displeasing God. After the divorce was finalized and a few years had passed, she came to a new way of seeing. “Teresa, God hates divorce because divorce is so painful for his children. He knows how heart wrenching it is for the two of us to pull apart the life we had joined together.”

I love that. Sin matters. Not because we are competing for God’s job in the holiness department but because, as we will see tomorrow in a very special way, God loves his children and cares about their suffering. It has nothing to do with winning, and everything to do with running the race well.

1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! Hebrews 12:1-3 MSG

I think we work so hard to compete for attention, affection and significance that we forget that we already have God’s full attention (he is after all the running father). In tomorrow’s post, we will consider who ELSE the triune God is.