Zip!
I can vividly recall a class in Organic Chemistry that required regurgitating page upon page of one chemical synthesis or another. There was thought involved, it wasn't just memorization but it was voluminous. The not so funny thing is that with one simple mistake, the professor would take his red marker an write "Zip" across the entire page. No partial credit - the patient either lived or died as he would say. The uncurved average was about a 27 ( out of 100 ). I am not a big fan of tests.
How is it then that I am here thinking of this passage and proposing some kind of test? This will not be curved and undoubtedly, everyone will fail. That however is not the point. No one will die but hopefully we will have a richer understanding of the depth of God's love. God's love for each one of us is so deep that we can't really grasp the full extent of it. Be that as it may, Jesus came to us as a fully human man and was willing to experience everything that we do and then submit to the Crucifixion for you.
Here's the test. Ready? Think of the most unlikely, unsaved person you can think of. Think of someone in the news or some other rapscallion or evil seed but preferably someone that you really know. Think of someone that you would consider, perhaps everyone would consider, despicable. Think of someone who feels that they are the saved and think that you are the evil seed. The religiously arrogant, the hypocrite. You get the idea? I have my choice set. Got yours?
Christ died for that person. Christ would do it again too if he hadn't already. God knows everything and God would still live and die for us, love and suffer for us but especially for that person. How do you feel about that?
It is easy to love the loved. It is easy to be nice to the nice. I'd give some great leeway to those who have made huge mistakes because their heart seems in the right spot or they show that they are trying. I am sure that God understands that. I am not talking about that. God loves those that seem incorrigible, unrepentant and unworthy.
What credit do we get for loving the lovable? Yes, God died for everyone but know that it was also, perhaps especially, for those that seem not worthy. Jesus' life bears strong, fervent and committed witness to associating with, loving and forgiving those that were the worst of society. The sinners, the un-chosen. The outcasts.
Who are the lepers of today to you? Who are the unrepentant sinners? What is there that God so loved every human, even them, that he was willing to submit to the cross?
How did you do on your test today?
Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
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