I was surprised. For the
first time in my life, when darkest evil exploded into my reality, I prayed for
God to issue His judgment immediately upon the persons by means of “an eye for
an eye,” with death. The surprise to me was not the fact of evil, but my strong
desire to see the evil persons meet with God’s judgment now. God’s
response to my prayer was not agreement or sympathy with me. His response was
to listen, let me express my thoughts, and then show me what He sees.
To
see humans as God sees, we have to go back to the very beginning. John the
disciple takes us to the very start with statements about God. For was God not
there before the beginning of time? John states in his epistle, “God is love”
(1 John 4:8b [NASB]). What does that mean for us? The first and most important
thing we should understand is this: Because God is love, He created us out of
love and for love. He created us to be in relationships – with Him and with
other humans. This is the most important thing for each of us. We are created
to experience and to respond to love. Thus, the most important thing for any human
being is to receive love. When God created Adam and Eve, He breathed life into
them. This breath of life as stated by Genesis 2:7, “Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” [NASB] and explained through
Genesis 1:2 is the Spirit of God. Man came into existence because of God’s
creating hands and His life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit, which He breathed
into man and woman. Humans were created by God who is love, by love, and for
love, and with God’s life-giving breath, the Holy Spirit.
Since our being is all due to God’s
love, then our ultimate need is to receive love. Before the sixth day of
creation, God created all we would need for our persons - food, shelter, and
covering. Clothing was not necessary until Adam and Eve ate from the tree of which
God told them not to eat. After they ate from the tree, God prepared clothes
for them. As can be seen, God provided all our needs before He created humankind.
The persons of today and history who acted in evil were made just as the rest
of us were, by God’s hand, with His breath, and because of His love. People who
have chosen to do evil were loved of God and God still desires to have them
return to Him. What happened since their birth until now is the story of
trickery and deception. It is the same story the serpent told the first man and
woman: if God really loved you, He would let you do what you want. Eat of the tree
and you will be like God; you will not die (Genesis 3:1-5). The need for humans
to be liked and loved, led them to believe Satan’s trickery and deception.
Satan promises what we perceive our needs are to lure us towards him. To be
like the Father who loves us, Satan tricked Eve and Adam to disobey God and eat.
Satan tricked them into believing that if God really loved them, He would let
them know all He knows and make decisions as He makes decisions. Satan seemed
to provide for their needs, but instead led them to disobedience against God.
God had their best interests at heart, but they believed the devil. This sounds
like children from every era; if your parents really love you, they would let
you do want you want. Parents often do not allow something because it is not
best for the child. Satan twisted this by explaining to Adam and Eve then and
to people now that God does not love you since He will not let you do what you
want. Satan promises that he loves a person because he lets the person do what
he or she wants.
These lies of Satan about love are
what we find with people who do evil now. God created each of them because He
loves them. Remember, God is love. God desires to be in a loving relationship
with them. One of His loving gifts to each person is freewill. Each person has
a place within him or herself for love to live. People need to know they are
loved; it is the most basic of human needs. Satan tricks people to use their
freewill to acquire love from him. Satan promises anything the person wants if
he or she will choose to do something for him. With each action for the devil,
the devil promises just one more thing and then the person will get their
reward all the while the devil is changing the person from the inside. The devil
darkens his or her sight so that it is
harder for him or her to see the Light; God is true Light. With each act for
the devil, Satan closes off the sight of a person more so there is more
darkness and less Light. God never gives up hope that one day the person will
turn back to the true Light and true Love, His love. That is why God prepared
from the foundation of the earth a way of salvation, a way for people to return
to Him. This way is through His Son, Jesus.
God’s love is so great that He
prepared a way for us to return to Him knowing in advance that each of us would
rebel, each person would sin. His gift of freewill is a gift of love. Because
we do sin, we rebel against God, and because God cannot be in the presence of
sin and evil, God prepared a way for us to return to Him and receive love from
Him. God never gives up hope for His people. He wants to call each of us His
children. He desires to provide all our needs again. He knows everything we
need and has the power to fulfill those needs. God does not act with coercion
promising He will do something if you do something for Him, as Satan does. No,
God’s promises come to us one-sided; because He loves us, He has made a way for
us to return to the Light and to love. His promises have occurred because His Son,
Jesus, lived on earth without sin and died taking the punishment for all our
sins. Jesus’ death paid the penalty for all our sins and wiped our slates clean
so that we are pure and can be in a love relationship with God again. John in John
3:16-17 said, “God loves the world so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus, so
that whoever believes in Him (Jesus) will not die but have life forever with
Him. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that
the world would be saved through Him.” God, before the beginning of the world,
throughout the sinning of humans over the passage of time, prepared a way for
each of us to be in a love relationship with Him, the God of love. Because of
His love, He allowed His Son, Jesus, to die for all that we have done wrong so
we can be in this love relationship with Him, so that we can have our most
basic need for love met. There is nothing we have to do and there is nothing we
can do to earn this love of God. All that we do is believe Jesus is the Son of
God who comes to take away the sins of the world as John said in John 1:29 and
prophesied in Isaiah 53.
What was God doing and saying this
week as I prayed for His judgment on these evil people? He was waiting and
watching His beloved creation, humans, and desiring they turn back to Him for
their true fulfillment of love. Since God is love, then reason states that
anything contrary to God is not love. God cannot be contrary to Himself.
He is who He is. He is Yahweh, I AM. We can only have our need for love met through
God. The people who did evil this week, last week, last month, last year, and
over the last millennia were all seeking identity and love. God had been
calling out to them. Satan had been darkening their sight so they would be
tricked and deceived. Understanding this, I must change my prayer for judgment against these people by God. I must change my prayer for them by asking God to bring someone in which His Light burns brightly
into the reality of these people of whom Satan has confused and tricked to do
his evil. I must have the heart of God within me asking in His Spirit that His
Light, Truth, and Love be made manifestly evident to the people whom Satan has
deceived so they can know true love instead of false love and so they may enjoy
eternity with God in His kingdom. It is not just a situation of “them”; it
could have been us. John Bradford’s statement, “There, but for the grace of God,
go I” is applicable for each of us.
The
question remains for each of us: What prayer will you raise to God for the people
involved in heinous evil by the trickery and deception of the devil? Will you
pray for Love or judgment?
