Monday, October 29, 2012

But God...

(First, if you are visiting here for the first time today, I have a little giveaway from Saturday's post, so check that out if you are interested.  Also, I'll be back to sewing/quilting/crafty stuff tomorrow, but I'm setting aside Mondays to share a little from the Bible.  If you want to read it, great!  If you are just wanting to check out another sewing blog, come back tomorrow and I'll be talking about something new I'm learning.  Anyway, Welcome!)


 I think one of my favorite phrases to read in the Bible is "But God..."

And I think one of my favorite "But God" verses is Romans 5:8

"But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Ok, here's the part of the blog where I admit that I read and saw "The Hunger Games".  While there are a number of things that are not okay about the book/movie, there was a scene that caused me to stop and consider a different scenario.  If you haven't read or seen, don't worry, I'm not spoiling anything.  So the scene is that Katniss has a sister she loves and there is to be a kind of lottery drawing in her district for a young girl and a young boy to be chosen to basically go get killed by their peers.  Statistically, the odds are low for Katniss's sister to be chosen, but she is.  Her name is called and Katniss is in shock, but responds quickly, volunteering to take her sister's place.  It is an act of self sacrifice and love because she knows that she is most likely going to her death.

That's the scenario in the book.  I made up a new scenario in my mind.  It goes like this:  Katniss knows a girl in her neighborhood.  This girl has mocked, teased, mistreated, and spread lies about Katniss on a regular basis.  She is her enemy.  Now it's time for the lottery.  All are gathered.  The name of Katniss's enemy is called.  How does she respond?  I wonder how I would respond.  How would you respond?  If I'm keeping with the character of Katniss in the book, she probably would breathe a sigh of relief and sadly, I probably would too.  This is the way people love.  We love those who love us.  We love good people.  We love people who say nice things.

But God...

This is not how God loves.  His love is so different from ours.  He volunteered to die for his enemies even as they hated Him. I'm going to give you the rest of this section of Scripture.

"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.  And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation."

I'm so thankful that God doesn't love like I do.

6 comments:

  1. oh man...love your last line. that's the truth! and i've read and seen the hunger games, too. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree -- the last line is really a stumper! Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. this is so great1 i have a blog scheduled to post soon regarding "But God" moments in the Bible as well. stay tuned for that:

    http://onceforalldelivered.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, Emily. That's really a great post and a great passage from the Bible. Thanks for sharing it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://onceforalldelivered.blogspot.com/2012/11/i-like-big-buts-because-god-cannot-lie.html

    did you see my big BUT blog?

    ReplyDelete

Oh, hey, here's where you can leave a comment. It will make me feel happy.