As a parent I love being with my children, spending time
with them and getting to know each of them more intimately. I hate it when I
feel them pull away from me or doubt my love for them. It brings me great joy as
a parent to simply be with them and know we are at peace with one another.
But a parent’s joy is bigger. It is bigger than a child
being reconciled with his parent. It is about a parent’s children being
reconciled one to another as well. These things cannot be divorced.
If my children are at odds with each other the pain it
causes me as a parent is sometimes unbearable. It hurts me just as deeply as
when I think they are mad at me personally. I want nothing more than for them
to be at peace with each other. There is nothing more beautiful than when our
children know that they are loved and love each other. When they no longer feel
a need to compare themselves to each other or fight for their position in the
family. When they love each other and care for each other so deeply that they
don’t make you choose between them. When they stop pointing fingers at each
other to make themselves look better than their siblings. When I get to see
them realize how uniquely each of them are made and them appreciate the
differences in each other as much as I do.
Yes, the gospel is bigger. The gospel is bigger than a
child being reconciled to the Father. It is about a Father’s children being
reconciled one to another. These things cannot be divorced.
When will we stop making the gospel about ourselves and
start seeing it from a loving Father’s perspective? The gospel is not just for
me and I cannot be fully reconciled to the Father without reconciliation to my
brothers. We need to stop pointing fingers at each other and realize that He
died for all of humanity. Stop the labels, stop the hate, stop the comparison,
stop pointing fingers and open our minds to the fact that a Father’s love is the
same for all of His children. The gospel is made complete by our not only being
reconciled one to the Father but also one to another.
“Therefore remember
that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what
is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that
you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of
Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far
off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he
himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in
his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of
commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new
man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both
to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he
came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those
who were near. For through him we both have access in one
Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but
you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household
of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ
Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in
whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple
in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a
dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Ephesians 2:11-22
