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God Is A Friend To All Humankind!

Love this bit from Joshua Tilton's ebook, Jesus' Gospel:

The best news Jesus had to share about God’s character pertains to the Father’s attitude toward human beings: “Your Father in heaven... causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” Jesus said (Mt. 5:45). “He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked,” (Lk. 6:35). According to Jesus, the LORD is a friend to all humankind. God’s friendliness extends even to those who do not care to honour him! The goodness of God is not expressed in a way that condemns and destroys us humans. Rather, according to Jesus, the goodness of God is displayed in his friendliness toward human beings and by his acts of salvation for humankind. According to Jesus’ Gospel, the LORD God of Israel is good, not in some abstract or absolute sense that alienates us from the deity, the goodness of God is revealed in his love for each and every human being, man, woman, or child—saint or sinner, Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, deserving or not, old or not yet born, ugly or beautiful, clean or unclean—all are wholly and completely loved by the One God, Israel’s God, the Creator and Saviour of humankind. This is wonderful news!

Jesus’ understanding of the heart of God produced in Jesus a profound attitude of trust, a trust which Jesus wanted to share with his followers. Jesus wanted his disciples to know that we are safe in God’s care. Do not worry. Trust in God your father. Jesus’ attitude is joyful, confident, and relaxed:

“Look at the birds of the sky,” Jesus said, “they do not sow, or reap, or gather food into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ...Observe the flowers of the field, how they grow, they do not labour or spin. Yet I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. If God clothes the grass of the field in this way—though it is living today and tomorrow is cast into an oven—will he not do much more for you, O you of little faith?” (Mt.6:26, 28-30). 

Clearly Jesus loved and trusted Israel’s God.

We should not overlook the love and tenderness with which Jesus describes God’s care for his creatures. God’s love for plants and animals is not merely an illustration, it is real. Disregard for the delicate balance of the ecosystem in favour of business and progress and technology may be characteristic of us human beings, but it does not reflect the character of God. It is in God’s character to love and affirm the goodness and beauty of his creation. But more than that, Jesus teaches that the same God who created and who sustains the plants and animals cares for us human beings. And Jesus, who proclaimed that the rule of this God is breaking into the world, reassured his hearers that because this God is ruling as King, we need not be afraid. We can be unafraid because this God, whose character is goodness, generosity, friendliness, mercy, and love toward human beings, is in control." Jesus' Gospel, pgs 20-21 of pdf edition.

 


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Good Faith Quote From Martin Luther

Here's a good faith quote from Martin Luther:

"8. For the nature of faith is that it expects all good from God, and relies only on God. For from this faith man knows God, how he is good and gracious, that by reason of such knowledge his heart becomes so tender and merciful, that he wishes cheerfully to do to every one, as he experiences God has done to him. Therefore he breaks forth with love and serves his neighbor out of his whole heart, with his body and life, with his means and honor, with his soul and spirit, and makes him partaker of all he has, just like God did to him. Therefore he does not look after the healthy, the high, the strong, the rich, the noble, the holy persons, who do not need his care; but he looks after the sick, the weak, the poor, the despised, the sinful people, to whom he can be of benefit, and among whom he can exercise his tender heart, and do to them as God has done to him. 

9. But the nature of unbelief is that it does not expect any good from God By which unbelief the heart is blinded so that it neither feels nor knows how good and gracious God is; but as Psalm 14:2 says: he cares not for God, seeks not after him. Out of this blindness follows further that his heart becomes so hard, obdurate and unmerciful that he has no desire to do a kindness to his fellow man; yea, he would rather harm and offend everybody. For as he is insensible to the goodness of God, so he takes no pleasure in doing good to his neighbor. Consequently it follows that he does not look after the sick, poor and despised people, to whom he could and should be helpful and profitable; but he casts his eyes upward and sees only the high, rich and influential, from whom he himself may receive advantage, gain, pleasure and honor.

10. So we see now in the example of the rich man that it is impossible to love, where no faith exists, and impossible to believe, where there is no love; for both will and must be together, so that a believer loves everybody and serves everybody; but an unbeliever at heart is an enemy of everybody and wishes to be served by every person and yet he covers all such horrible, perverted sins with the little show of his hypocritical works as with a sheep’s skin; just as that large bird, the ostrich, which is so stupid that when it sticks its head into a bush, it thinks its entire body is concealed. Yea, here you see that there is nothing slinder and more unmerciful than unbelief. For here the dogs, the most irascible animals, are more merciful to poor Lazarus than this rich man, and they recognize the need of the poor man and lick his sores; while the obdurate, blinded hypocrite is so hard hearted that he does not wish him to have the crumbs that fell from his table." Pg. 11-12 of this PDF of Sermons of Martin Luther Vol. 4


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