I like the way the apostle Paul wrote about this some two millennia ago: ‘I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angles or rules, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.’
I like to think that Paul’s ‘nothing’ really means nothing. Not a thing. No adaptors, connectors, or transactions are needed. We are all IN God, right now.
And that can change everything.
Believing…really believing…that nothing separates us from God’s love is the truest faith I’ve ever come to. Trusting that when God promises love, that God means to do just that…love me…is a faith move in a direction distinctly away from a credit and debit transactional system of a relationship with God. The system that most churches espouse as legitimate. God keeping score. God waiting for ME to fix stuff that I have no idea how to fix even if I even know it’s wrong. God holding out on his people. God keeping her people…her so loved creation…at arms length.
That system is broken in that it breaks people’s hearts.
But believing that in God I live and move and have my being…that I am IN God…that God is the force of the universe in which I dwell…Now that is something I can get behind. I don’t need to be an accountant, or a shopkeeper, or a scorekeeper to be in that relationship.
Thank you God! Thank you.
That indeed changes everything!