With Streams of  Living Water”

Faith Matters


Come November and I think of bonfire night; February and (thanks to St Valentine) I think of love! Most people who have ideas about God will feel on safe ground when they tell us that God is a God of love. This is certainly true but it is not the whole truth. God is also the God of light, justice, truth and holiness but because these make us feel a little uncomfortable, we want to focus on God being loving and kindly.


Does God love everyone equally and in the same way? If your immediate response is to say ‘of course’, then is his love for, let’s say, Nobel peace prize winner Mother Teresa on a par with that of Adolf Hitler?


Jesus explains to us in what sense God’s love for people is general and impartial. He says that God sends his rain onto the farmland of both the just and the unjust, and he makes his sun shine on evil and good people alike. So God’s love and kindness reveal his general disposition towards men and women even though they may be his enemies.


During the course of our lives, we each experience pain and suffering, losses and griefs. The hymn Amazing Grace recognises that we pass through many ‘dangers, toils and snares’. Yet there are endless, hidden tribulations that, due to the grace and love of God, will never touch us. If we are willing, we can view these unseen providential deliverances as expressions of God’s love and kindness to each of us even though we have to admit that we don’t deserve them.


But there is more, much more. God has a particular love for a group of people which he calls ‘his own’. Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd of these - God’s own people. He says he knows his own sheep by name and that these sheep recognise his voice, so giving them assurance that they belong to God in a definite way. This group of men and women are given a sense of God’s love and kindness in a way that isn’t common to the experience of everyone. You can know this love of God also. Look up the gospel of John chapter 3 verse 16.


Stephen Richards

www.solidrocknews.co.uk




Faith Matters January 2025