'God Loves Even You'

Spirituality Column #88
July 15, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN) newspaper
Current iIn Westfield (IN) newspaper

‘God Loves Even You’
By Bob Walters
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

In the gently rolling western Indiana farmland near Shades State Park one perfect, sunny day earlier this summer, a tidy country church had these words on its welcome sign:

“God loves even you.”

In the spirit of backhanded compliments like “Hey, your face is clearing up,” I considered the sign and burst out laughing. A question popped into my head:

Do you suppose God has a marketing department?

The obvious answer is: Yes He does. It’s called the Church.

With thousands of Christian “denominations” worldwide, it isn’t surprising that the “marketing” of the Christian message splits off in many directions.

“God loves even you” tells me this church fearlessly proclaims the Gospel truth that each of us is a sinner, and that no matter the hideousness of our individual squalor, Jesus Christ is the only avenue to a loving, personal and eternal relationship with God.

No serious, thinking Christian will deny our sin problem or our guilt, but I wonder if God’s marketing focus is better stated in the famous John 3:16 …

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Then there’s the oft-overlooked John 3:17:

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Notice that sin is not mentioned. Condemnation is negated. Love and salvation compose the cornerstone of this passage, and of Christianity.

I suppose we each figure that in our sinfulness we are condemned … and well, OK, we are. That’s our guilt. But churches that market God’s product of love and salvation with a tagline hook focused on sin and guilt – and there are plenty of them – too often focus our Christian walk on our own sin, and therefore on our own works, and therefore on ourselves.

The danger is that if we focus only on our sin, we miss the more important and central point of God’s overwhelming love.

Simply knowing I’m a sinner will not put me in a church pew, or see me through tough times.

Knowing God loves me, will.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) once read that two things have to be present for humor to exist: truth and surprise. It was assuredly his own arrogance that made him laugh at the sign.