First things first

After all of the violence and unrest in recent weeks, I’ve heard religious comments in the media. You know the sort, ‘we must all work together to secure the peace in the world for which we all long. We need to live out the content of our prayers by loving our neighbour as ourselves.’ It’s not wrong but I guess a lot of us don’t believe it is the answer that will cut it.

I think we need to start from a different place. Rather than just focusing on peace with one another, first we need peace with God. Jesus was once asked ‘Which is the greatest commandment?’. He replied, ‘To love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength’. In short, devotion to God. What does devotion to God look like? Certainly not acts of terrorism. It is said that one becomes like the thing one worships and, as God cares about people, so will his devotees. In other words, love for our neighbour - actually the second commandment - is borne out of the first commandment which is about our love for God.

The problem is, such full-on love for God is not in our nature because, whether we realise it or not, we are not at peace with God until we agree to his surrender terms. There are any number of ways I could illustrate these surrender terms. Try this one: God wants people like you and me for his own, as a King might pursue a woman in order to have her for his betrothed. He will want to love her, care for her, be a blessing to her, have her by his side and ultimately make her his Queen. Of course it would be expected that the betrothed woman relinquishes whatever would hinder or spoil that engagement and she would need to be prepared to work in preparation for her role as Queen in the royal palace. Her life would no longer be her own in a way that it had been hitherto. If, however, up until that time, she had lived in poverty, perhaps shunned by other men or even used by them, then the summons ‘The King wants you for his own so that he might love you’, would be good news. Sweet surrender into his welcoming arms would seem to be the obvious response.

In a similar way, many have seen the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross as God’s welcoming embrace. When we personally experience this love, it awakens love for God in us. This peace with God not only gives us love for him, but also releases us to love others in a new way. Isn’t this what a hurting world needs?