God Loves the Nations
From my earliest childhood, I have been interested in the world, and for my 8th birthday, I wanted just one thing, a globe. I memorized that globe. Later, I moved to China. I was enthralled to see that God’s hear agreed with mine. God loves the nations. Why, because he made each one.
These famous quotes drives us on.
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
I passionately memorized this passage at age 18 in high school 40 years ago. Who could ever forget such a mission and such a heart from God?
And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
God Loves the Nations and Each Person Within
God loves the billionaires and the people passing through the Darien Gap seeking a better life.
He loves the extended families of the traditional cultures and the LGBT people of the post modern era. (I still have not yet seen the Jesus Revolution, but hope to this summer.) Jesus opens his arms wide for all on the cross. His whole heart says come just as you are. God longs to heal all our longing hearts and make us all that he intended us to be.
I love the Statue of Liberty poem of Emma Lazarus The New Colossus that brought my ancestors in poverty to the US.
…Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me…
Is this not God’s call to all of the above including ourselves? He longs for all of us. His heart cries out. Can we feel his heart? For us? and the Nations?
Where I live, a class culture and lots of Darwinistic thinking swirls around saying that some are better than others. That is not God’s heart who said
But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
Can I say who God loves more of all the above I mention? I do not dare. God turns all on its head and even wants to turn us on our head.
God help us see others as God sees them. They are different and God made them that way or at least loves them where they are.
