What Difference Does God’s Love Make?

3 Responses to "What Difference Does God’s Love Make?"

• Comment by: Helen M.

  1 08/4/06 5:20 AM | Comment Link |

  Thanks for asking these questions, JG. I have two comments:

  1) I live relatively pragmatically these days and so, if God’s love makes no difference to me – or makes my life more complicated without also making it better – then I may as well ignore it completely, whether it’s a reality or not.

  2) Could you elaborate on what you mean by “receiving God’s gift of grace”? (I apologize if the way I extracted your questions from your original comments has made this expression harder to understand)

• Comment by: JG

  2 08/5/06 3:06 AM | Comment Link |

  Thanks Helen. It was actually comment 11 rather than 14. This was in the context of a discussion about use of the word “undeserved” when talking about God’s grace.

  “God has won us back to himself through undeserved grace.” I love the part about grace. I’m not sure why there is so much focus in Christianity on it being “undeserved.”

  At the end of comment 11 I said: “Rather than attempt to answer the question myself can I pose the question for others to answer if they want to? If there is a God, what do you think are the practical consequences of “God loving us”? What difference does it make to receive “God’s gift of grace”?

  So I think all I mean by question 2 is what do others think “God has won us back to himself through undeserved grace.”

  Rather than it being a theological question, it was intended to be more “what does it mean to you?” so the answer “it doesn’t mean anything to me” is a very valid response.

  For me, it is a gift freely available to everyone. But it is not forced on people, we are free to receive it or reject it as we please. As a parent, is it more loving to keep your child locked up at home to protect them from the dangers they might experience outside? Is it unloving to let your child cross roads on their own? Obviously not in they are too young. But at 8? 11? 15? 21? 40? Would you appreciate it if your parents stepped in every time you were about to make a mistake and prevented it from happening? Might sound attractive at first but it would soon become suffocating. In the story of the prodigal son, the father let his son go but was there waiting ready to welcome him back.

• Comment by: Helen M.

  3 08/5/06 3:53 AM | Comment Link |

  Thanks JG. Sorry about the wrong comment number!

  This is my perspective:

  Should a person have the right to refuse a gift? Absolutely

  If the Gift Giver has all knowledge and all power, and knows the gift is a good thing, why wouldn’t he move heaven and earth to show the recipient that it’s a good thing, rather than let the recipient refuse it because the recipient is not yet able to understand what is good about it?

  That’s why, on the days when I feel like contemplating the possibility of conscious post-physical-death existence for human beings, I lean towards universalism i.e. the belief that somehow, everyone will make it to heaven.

  (btw I recently participated a little in an interesting discussion of universalism on Jason Clark’s blog)

  Anyway, so it doesn’t make sense to me that God would stand by and watch a person reject a gift from him which is good, simply because life experiences or whatever have not led that person to the place where they can agree it’s a good gift.

  I said something to that effect to a friend the other day, who had read my article and essentially asked me the same thing: i.e “What about free will? Shouldn’t people have the right to say ‘no’ to God?”

  He was quite moved that I understood some people say ‘no’ because their life experiences up to that point have led them to associate nothing good with saying ‘yes’. They’re not saying ‘no’ to the gift, per se – they’re only saying ‘no’ to what they’ve been shown it means, so far, which they know is not good.

  Maybe this sounds patronizing but I don’t mean it to be that way. Perhaps the problem is that what the people who are saying ‘no’ would say ‘yes’ to, is closer to God’s real gift than what Christians think the gift is – so maybe those who are saying ‘yes’ misunderstand the gift as much as those who are saying ‘no’.

  Maybe none of us really get it; which could be one more reason it’s best if people who think they have the good news are careful not to be too certain exactly what it is.