Monday, September 18, 2017

A Gracious, Caring, Loving God

In today's first reading, 1 Tim 2: 1-8, St. Paul reminds us that there is only one God and one mediator between God and us, that is, Jesus Christ who "gave himself as a ransom for all."  Think of the men and women  for whom we hoped our government would have paid a ransom so they could have been freed from ISIS or any other terrorist group or governments who were inhumanely cruel!  Now think of our fate in having disobeyed our Creator God, choosing our will over God's will, and thus heading for eternal damnation, to being in the company of the Father of Lies, Satan himself, for an eternity of hell!

No way would God allow his sons and daughters to come to that fate. No, He loves His creation unconditionally and would pay any ransom to save us. He did that in Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son! "God," Saint Paul reminds us in 1 Tim 2: 1-8, "wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth." EVERYONE: you and me, every one of our family members, our relatives, our co-workers, our bosses, those we love, those we hate, those whose behaviors we abhor, whose behaviors are repulsive to us, whose behaviors seem motivated by ugliness, evil, prejudice, envy, greed and malignant narcissism.

God "wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth," that is, their truth of needing a God, of needing a Savior.

WOW! What a God--a God of compassion and of kindness, a God of love and forgiveness, a God of mercy!  May I and you, in turn, be loving, caring, merciful and forgiving of ourselves and of others--all others!

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