Yes, Jesus Loves Me
Good Morning Friends,
Yesterday, at church, our pastor told a story about Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th Century. You might have read the Barmen Declaration which he wrote as a way of standing up to Hitler in World War II. Barth in his work Church Dogmatics wrote six million words about the institution of the church. He wrote about the Doctrine of the Word of God, the Doctrine of God, the Doctrine of Creation, the Doctrine of Reconciliation and had planned to write about the Doctrine of Redemption but either decided not to finish it or never got around to it.
When asked if he could sum up this massive work…his life’s work in one sentence he responded, “Yes, I can. In the words of a song I learned at my mother’s knee: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” So today we look at this idea of redemption in the joy and knowledge that in addition to loving you that Yes, Jesus Love Me.
Scripture:Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5(NRSV)
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13 (NIV)
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
Ephesians 1:7 (ESV)
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 (ESV)
[The Rich and the Kingdom of God] Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Matthew 19:16 (NIV)
Message: All the technics and formulas and tangents for Christian worship fall short…. They are Dogma and if we are to be one in Christ then eventually we do need to lay that down. When Jesus was asked by the lawyer what he had to do to attain eternal life, the answer came up that he had to give everything away….to die a pauper…but perhaps a pauper that had lots of friends because he had chosen to follow the Friend of friends. Here we discover that forgiveness may be the first step on the road to redemption. But giving up control to Jesus stands with it. Foreven the Bible is subordinate to the revelation of the love in Jesus Christ. And here we are not in control for mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people. You see, God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. This is something we have yet to fully achieve. In fact it is something we cannot achieve at all. The end of human sin is not something we can do anything about…not one thing. This is a divine act. And the amazing love is that Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness, to liberate us from all the ravages of the Fall. But this we have not yet experienced in its fullness. Just as the Old Testament people of God, though already redeemed from their exiles, they were, as we, waiting for the promise of a fuller redemption. We cannot extricate ourselves from the problem. Oh we can be redeemed from a variety of grave social situations such as debt, captivity, slavery, exile and execution. But it is a moral bondage from which Christ has ransomed us. But the forgiveness of sins does not complete our redemption. There is more…much more than we can even imagine. Maybe that is why Karl Barth never finished the writing on Redemption. It is something only Jesus can do.
Pray we draw closer to God. Pray that redemption through our friendship with Jesus, improves us. Pray we realize that it is not about being bad or good but that it is about being loved. Pray until the day of Redemption that we grow in the love for one another even as we sharpen each other in the friendship of our faith. Pray and that we believe in the end of our dogma. Pray we have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit as the first-fruits of redemption. Pray we conceive of a time when all prayer ends because humans have been redeemed and are one with God. Pray that we experience a new heaven and a new earth. Pray that Jesus improves us to a degree we cannot yet imagine. Pray we see the glory of God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 