April 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Do you know that many Christians live every day not quite sure that God still loves them? They worry that God might reject them, or worse yet, that he already has. Maybe you have the same fear.

Why do you suppose believing Christians would worry about such a thing?

The answer is simply that they are honest with themselves. They know they are sinners. They’re acutely aware of their failures, their shortcomings, their lapses – their sins. And they’ve been taught that God’s love, and even their salvation, depends on how well they obey God.

So they are constantly telling God how sorry they are and begging forgiveness, hoping that if they somehow work up deep enough feelings of sorrow that maybe God will forgive them and not turn his back on them.

It reminds me of the Shakespeare play, Hamlet. In the story, Prince Hamlet has learned that his uncle Claudius killed Hamlet’s father and married his mother in order to usurp the throne. So Hamlet plots to kill his uncle/stepfather in revenge. The perfect opportunity presents itself, but the king is praying, so Hamlet delays. If I kill him during his confession, Hamlet reasons, he’ll go to heaven. If I wait and kill him after he sins again but before he confesses, then he’ll go to hell.

Many Christians share Hamlet’s ideas about God and human sin.

When they were coming to faith, they were told that unless and until they repent and believe, they are utterly separated from God and the blood of Jesus Christ does not and cannot apply to them. Believing this error then led them to believe another error – that any time they fall back into sin, God withdraws his grace and the blood of Christ no longer covers them. That’s why, if they are honest with themselves about their sinfulness, they worry throughout their Christian lives about whether God has rejected them.

None of that is good news. But the gospel is good news.

The gospel does not tell us that we are separated from God and that we must do something in order for God to extend his grace to us. The gospel tells us that in Jesus Christ, God the Father reconciled all things, including you and me, including all humans, with himself (Col. 1:19-20).

There is no barrier, no separation, between humans and God, because Jesus tore it down, and in his own being he drew humanity into the Father’s love (1 John 2:1; John 12:32). The only barrier is an imaginary one (Col. 1:21), erected by us humans out of our own selfishness, fear and independence.

The gospel is not about us doing something or believing something to get God to change our status from unloved to loved.

God’s love doesn’t depend on anything we do or don’t do. The gospel is a declaration of what is already true – a declaration of the Father’s unrelenting love for all humanity made manifest in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. God loved you before you ever repented of anything or believed anything and nothing you or anyone else ever does will change that (Rom. 5:8; 8:31-39).

The gospel is about a relationship, a relationship with God made real by God’s own action in Christ on our behalf. It is not about a set of demands, nor is it about a simple intellectual acceptance of a set of religious or Bible facts. Jesus Christ not only stood in for us at the judgment seat of God; he drew us into himself and made us, with him and in him, by the Spirit, God’s own beloved children.

It is none other than Jesus our Redeemer, who took all our sins on himself, who also works in us by the Spirit to “will and to do his good pleasure” (Eph. 2:8-10). We can devote ourselves wholeheartedly to following him, knowing that he has already forgiven us when we fall short.

Think of it! God is not some “far-away-up-there-out-there-watching-us-sky-deity,” but the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whom you and everyone else live and move and have their being (Acts 17:28). He loves you, no matter who you are or what you’ve done, so much, that in Christ, the Son of God, who came in human flesh – and comes in our human flesh by the Spirit – took away your alienation, your fears, your sins, healing them through his atoning grace. He removed every barrier between you and him.

You are, in Christ, free from everything that ever kept you from experiencing firsthand the joy and rest that comes from being in his intimate fellowship, friendship, and perfect, loving Fatherhood. What wonderful news God has given us to share with others!

In Jesus’ love,

Joseph Tkach

President, Worldwide Church of God

P.S. Thank you so much for your important part in our collective work of living and sharing the gospel! Your prayers and faithful giving are vital in helping make possible the various means God has given us to spread his good news.