Passionate Love

One of the amazing things about my faith is that God loves everyone. This is one of the foundational beliefs of my faith. There are plenty of things about my faith that i don't like. I don't believe what i believe because i like it, i believe it because i earnestly searched for truth and believe that i have found just that. Anyways, this is one part of my faith that i do like.

God loves everyone. I know it's kind of a simple Sunday school type fact about God, but i don't think it's something we really think about. If we do think about it, we probably don't do it in the right light. God loves us individually and passionately. That's not too hard to swallow. He loves everyone that way. Also not that hard to swallow. Now think about this: He loves Hitler and Osama Bin Laiden as passionately as he loves you or i.

That one always takes a little more time to swallow. Surely the horrors that these men have inflicted on the world would cause God to love them less right? Nope, to God sin is sin. He knows the inner workings of these men, loves them, and wants them to love him back just as much as you or i. We like to separate ourselves from these kind of people. We think that we are generally good people, trying to do our best, while these people are monsters.

But God doesn't see it that way. To him we are all people he loves. People he wants to see accept him, follow him, love him. People who mess up, sin, and plenty of times choose to turn our backs on him.

There is another side to this. Sin. We also like to think our sins are minor sins, while sins of people like this are major sins, evil sins, unforgivable sins. I think we do this so we don't feel so bad about the sin in our lives. Surely our sins aren't as bad as these other people, people who murder without so much as a thought?

There is a song about John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer, on the new Sufjan Stevens album. It's a haunting song tracing the actions of a man who killed 27 people. But at the end of the song is where the real truth lies:

"And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid "

We all have those things. The things we have done that we try and hide from other, hide from God. We like to think that these things aren't so bad. But in the end sin is sin. Even if we have not killed anyone like John Wayne Gacy.

Anyways, i just thought these were some interesting thoughts. The end result of this all is not to make us all think that we are horrible people beyond redemption.... far from it. But realizing that all sin separates us from God, makes me realize how much i *need* redemption, and how blessed i am to have it.

Maybe tomorrow i'll go back to blathering about music and posting tracklists of mix cds...