“O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land…”
Psalm 63
The first and great commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. If anyone cannot do this of their own free will, they may find all else is vanity. The Spirit does not ask a person to love God for naught. Love is not some nebulous titillation of the senses. It is a reciprocal action between two like beings.
God is love and the source of it. The human heart has a natural enmity toward God. Thus it is impossible for us to initiate a loving relationship with the divine. Fortunately, God does not expect us to do so. We are called upon to love God because He first loved us.
This love was manifested in His offering of Himself to abolish the enmity between us and to extend the opportunity to be adopted into the eternal, divine life. The price has been paid for peace with God. Many do not experience it because accepting God’s offer comes with terms and conditions. You can’t just sign in without accepting God’s terms because the terms are what constitutes love for God.
That is, you agree to love God and your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will find that ever after only these two things truly satisfy your soul. Many an unhappy “Christian” is walking around out there because they never realized what they agreed to nor did they choose to let those things be their guide.
I hope it is clear from this little discussion that a person does not have to accept God’s terms to be loved by God. God still loves everyone, even those who curse and reject Him. Furthermore, it is not God’s will that any should miss out on a loving relationship with Him. The will to avoid a relationship with God originates in the human heart that refuses His love and is satisfied with their world. God (and by extension, the Church) is a handy scapegoat for many looking for a place to lay the blame for their misery.
We are made for more than our current experience in a world bound by physical conditions. We are made to share the life of God in the expanse of all that has been created. That this is not for everyone is obvious. Some are happy with themselves as they are, and so they shall ever be.
If you find the present world does not satisfy the deepest longings of your soul, you are not alone. C.S. Lewis wrote, “If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world.”
In the words of the old, now largely discarded, hymn, “I love to tell the story, because I know ‘tis true, it satisfies my longing, as nothing else can do.”
Maranatha
