Believe in God's Power of Love

     When I think about “all people are loved by God and are in need of a Savior,” I think of the rich young ruler, found in Luke 18: 18-23, Matt. 19:16–22 and Mark 10:17–22. The man (who by the way is never called “young”) was seeking eternal life. Even though he had lived an outwardly moral life and had been blessed with great riches, he felt like he was missing something.

    “What more do I lack?” he asked Jesus. The point today is not Jesus’ answer but rather that Jesus
1) loved the man who rejected His call to eternal life and
2) that the man was the man who was responsible for rejecting Jesus’ call.

     When the man walked away from Jesus, the Bible records an interesting comment about Christ. Mark and Matthew both say that Jesus loved the man who was rejecting His call. God loves us but He doesn’t love because of us. He loves because He is love.

     People often have a hard time thinking about a loving God and a literal “Gehenna” (the Biblical word for hell). Because it is hard to reconcile those two truths, some people either disbelieve in hell or disbelieve that God really loves all of humanity. And yet both are absolutely true. But just because God loves everyone, that does not mean that everyone will be saved.

     An illustration of God’s love can be seen in the power company sending electricity to your house. Just because the power is available, not every switch is turned on in your house. The access is available, but your receptivity to that power is not turned on.

    God’s love for all of humanity supplies the power of salvation, which was empowered by the perfect life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God’s grace is the light switch which turns on that power. It is our faith (which even that comes from God) that actually activates the switch to turn on the power to light up our eternal life.

     God’s power of love is not wasted or squandered simply because some people choose not to turn on the light. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

    Don’t blame the power company if your lights are not on because the problem is not the power source. Don’t blame the electrician if your lights are not on if you have not turned on the switch. And it’s not the owner’s manual’s fault if you don’t have the faith to believe it when it says, “turn switch up for on.”

    “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” found in Romans 10:13, means God has generated the loving power, the gracious supply and the trusted mechanism for you to walk in the Light, and even supplied the faith through His instructions in His Word for you to believe you can walk in the Light. But you have to turn on the switch.