Jesus Loves You

 It’s probably one of those “you had to be there” stories to actually be funny but I think often of a time when Brad was a youth pastor and we were on a youth trip in Gatlinburg. We were in the middle of a busy intersection when an angry driver suddenly cut us off. I can’t remember the details exactly, but our bus driver either honked or muttered something under his breath or maybe both as they zoomed on by. One of the guys in the group who had the gift of keeping things light and humorous peered out the window of our church bus, waving slyly as they passed on by, and like a punch line delivered right on time told them, “Jesus loves you!” To which the whole bus erupted into laughter.

I still get a good laugh every time I think about it and I think God brings it to mind so often because laughter is good medicine. And God desires good things for His children. I also think He brings it to memory for the lesson in it. 

It’s easy to sit in the church bus or building or in my home or behind a facebook post and express the sentiment, “Jesus loves you.”

But to a world that is angry and in chaos what does it actually look like?

Perhaps God set the example for us beginning in Genesis. I have always found it interesting that there are 2 accounts of the creation of man there. First, God speaks humankind into existence, the Word says male and female He created them. And then in the next chapter it says God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed into him the breath of life, then out of his rib created the woman.

I think the way we approach the Word of God is so very important in our ability to hear Him speak through it. On my best days, I slow down and I pray. “God, I expect to hear you speak. I revere your word, I humble my heart, I’m ready to obey. Holy Spirit, open my eyes so that I may see.”

God could have just left it at He spoke and we were. But that’s hard to comprehend. How exactly did that happen? Who is this Being who speaks and things are? We get the idea that He is holy, other, transcendent, hard to wrap our mind around and understand from our human perspective.

But He also gave us the picture of Himself getting off the throne and getting His hands dirty to make us out of the dust. We have the advantage of knowing the ending of the story from the beginning that Adam and Eve did not. He got down into the dirt and breathed into the man’s nostrils the breath of life. But we know, this wouldn’t be the last time He would get down in the dirt for us. There would come a day when His buried body would lay there on our behalf bruised, battered, broken. Except this time when God would breathe into the Man it would bring forth a Life that would bring us to true life that we might never taste death again.

1 John 3:18 says, “ let us not love in word or in talk but in action and in truth.”

James 2:15 says, “if a brother or sister is poorly clothed or lacking in food, and one of you says to them, “ Go in peace and be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”

Jesus loves you. I think God calls us to speak that word, it’s true. But if we don’t get down in the world and get our hands dirty bringing that message forth to life, a watching world may never be able to get a picture of what that actually means fleshed out in their real life, in real time. Maybe it is more like this:

That coworker, you know THAT one smarts off one more time and instead of snapping back, you choose a soft reply. Maybe buy their lunch. Yes, Jesus loves you. Because you really have no idea what happens before or after the 8 hours a day you spend with them.

That kid rebels again pushing you past what you think you are able to handle but instead of throwing your hands up in defeat, you raise them up to God for strength to press in one more time, even as they are pulling away. Yes, Jesus loves you.

The noise around you gets so loud with political posts and opinions and messages from others meant to uplift but instead feeling like a sting in an already burning wound. Instead of adding more fuel to the fire, you choose silence. To create some space that only God can fill to keep believers in a bond of peace, despite different views on what it best looks like to represent Him today. Yes, Jesus loves you.

Lord God, 

In childlike humility, may we speak it and live it out and know it’s true. Yes Jesus loves me, and yes, He loves you.