Something God Made

"He doesn't see the black marks on the canvas but all the white He's washed clean."

WE’VE TRAINED OURSELVES to see all the black marks on what is an otherwise clean canvas. We listen for the mistakes, the wrong notes. Stare at the sky and mark down the clouds but not the stars. The lawn is half-brown, not partly green. The flower lacking a few petals, not that it blossomed successfully. Transfer this to people and they’re too fat, too old, too illiterate. We don’t see how hard she works to provide for her children but only her weight. We don’t consider the battles he stood in in the jungles of Vietnam, simply that he’s old fashioned and out-of-date. We don’t accept he can build the most amazing things with his hands, nevermind, he can’t read well.

We watch the news and suck in the deaths, the adultery, the government failure, then read the Word of God and instead of thanking God for His goodness to us, we’re crying out why. We don’t see salvation, that we’re all saved through Jesus Christ and washed clean in His blood, but instead look for denominations and doctrines that we disagree with. I’m just as guilty. Or I was. Then I woke up surrounded by the love of God for people, and I don’t see the same. There is a reason Jesus loved the tax collector perched in a tree, the woman caught in adultery, the Roman centurion. Judas.

Did you know Jesus loved Judas? Loves. He loves him still. The ounce of love we’re piddling with is only a few grains of sand when there’s more sand on this earth than we can humanly number. We need to change our perspective. See those few grains as precious. See God has big-huge-big. And look for the good in people, in us, instead.

"To the church (assembly) of God which is in Corinth, to those consecrated and purified and made holy in Christ Jesus, [who are] selected and called to be saints (God’s people), together with all those who in any place call upon and give honor to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:" (1 Corinthians 1:2 AMPC)

One morning the Holy Spirit dropped a name in my ear. No one I’d ever heard of. I looked him up on YouTube and discovered he was not of like doctrine. I didn’t let that deter me. God never says anything haphazardly. We should consider this when we’re listening to people in the pulpit. The first sermon I clicked on, though the audio was bad, the minister in question explained one of Jesus’ parables, and I knew why I’d needed to hear it. So I clicked on another and first breath, the same man who’d blessed me, dismissed another truth from the Word as being out-of-date. Do you know what I didn’t do? Toss out what he’d said that helped me.

We’re too ready to be offended. We almost find it our Christian duty. How stupid this is. The Pharisees were offended by Jesus and in the end, put Him to death. That was the plan of God. At the same time, that was the plan of God. The High Priest Caiaphas prophesied that one man needed to die for the people. Those are the words of the Scripture. He prophesied truth, yet He hated Jesus. Which shoe is one what foot?

“And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased,” (Matthew 21:15)

There is a verse in Psalm 119 that reaches right into me, and I’ve made it my prayer. I love reading the psalms, but in places, you have to turn them into New Covenant confessions. Psalm 119 has several examples where what the psalmist was crying out has already been fulfilled by Jesus. We are no longer servants, for instance, but children. Well, in verse 165 it says, “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.” We can read this, “Great peace have they which love thy Word: and nothing shall offend them.” We are no longer under Old Covenant law but under grace. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.

What a great confession this is, and here’s the thing, the more I’ve taken it to heart, the more I believe in it, the more it is true in my life. What if NOTHING offended us? What if, even when someone said something totally wrong, and they were totally sincere, or perhaps, they were being hateful, but what if we felt such compassion, so much of the love of God, that we weren’t offended? I think of our children in this. There is nothing that can ever make me not love my daughter. It isn’t possible. God looks at us that way. He knows our every thought before we have it, all our words we’ve said or will say, yet when He looks at us, He doesn’t see the black marks on the canvas but all the white He’s washed clean.

A minister tells an inappropriate joke in the pulpit, can we hear the rest and toss that part away? Do we pray for them to have greater revelation and do it with God’s love overwhelming us? That should be our response. God does not bring condemnation on anyone, and here’s the depth of this that I’ve discovered in me personally. He would rather forgive the error and correct me when I’m ready to hear it than to condemn me for it and send me backward in my faith. Much of what God doesn’t say is because He loves us too much to say it. He knows when and how and IF to say it. The one who says it when it shouldn’t be said is the devil. Often, the devil in us.

Our spiritual life is a continuous journey of spiritual growth. We mature from infants to toddlers to young adults, to grownups in our knowledge of Him, in our relationship with Him, yet remain surrendered to Him and childlike in our responses. We learn to love one another, and we choose to not take offense, and if we’ll do that and be consistent at it, there will come a day like I had recently where all I could think about the minister preaching the sermon was how much God loved him. How much I loved him. It didn’t matter what he said, right or wrong, but all I saw at that moment were the roses. I forgot about the thorns entirely.

Jesus said the greater the responsibility, the more of a servant you are. The more God asks of you in your calling, the more you are here to wash people’s feet. Not part their hair. We must remember He died for us so that we could love each other. God who had everything God is became a man to suffer in our place. The love of God that sent Him demands that, for you, I’m willing to do the same. We must die to opinion, to offense, to gossip, and instead pick up His cross, the one shaped like heaven which spills goodness everywhere He travels in us and look for the gold in everyone like He did when He chose Saul, become Paul.

Take up Psalm 119:165 with me and make these your words. “Great peace do I have, for I love your Word, and nothing shall offend me.” Then watch as God’s love swallows up all folded pages where you’ve bookmarked what other people have done wrong, and even greater, watch them blossom in front of you into something lovely. Something God made.

“And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” (Luke 7:23)

Image by BRRT from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com