Friday, 23 January, 2004

We are now in a devotional journey focused around portions of Carl E. Braaten’s book “Justification.”



The free grace of God is a “spontaneous” and “unmotivated” love. God loves human beings because of (God’s) own inclination to do so. There are no love-worthy qualities within us that drive God to love us. God loves the unlovable. God even loves the ungodly, the enemies of religion and morality, the publicans and sinners of every age. God’s love is also “indifferent to value.” It shows no partiality to the righteous and the godly. “(God) makes (God’s) sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).



When we reside within the reality of this love of God, and we do…peace reigns. Not only does peace reign, the many “issues” that are created to tear one from another or to tear this group from that group become foolish. Within the Reign of God’s mercy and love, our limits and our way of seeing that which is all around us have no power. Unfortunately, by looking around us at our “culture wars” you can see how far we can be from the Reign of God that is continuously open to us. It is somewhat odd to me that religion in our country has become aligned with what I would say is mere morality. That is fine if the secular culture wants to weigh everyone on a meter that will judge one’s morality, but as people who claim to be aliens to this place and residents within the Reign of God, we do not settle for surface judgments…we count on the love of God to pull us without exception into a loving expression of God’s Reign for all. Jesus did not listen to the cultural or religious voices of his day when he stepped into the house of sinner and tax collectors and took part in their company and their hospitality and their humanity.



Connection: We must be residents of the New Age of God’s love. It is a daily leap into such a place and time and being. We will be tempted at every moment to follow other ways…for they seem to offer answers, control, and assurances of safety. Rather than fall for those stories, the Holy Spirit works to turn our hearts to this spontaneous and unmotivated love of God…always…always for us.



We pause, O God, to give you thanks and to praise you for the beginning of this day and all the days you will be with us…that is, forever and ever. Amen.