Traditionally, church has
asked us to do two things where the unbelieving world is concerned: tell them
about God’s love and show them that love in practical ways by serving them,
accepting them as they are etc. Nothing wrong with that, you say, and I agree.
But I want to add one other
thing we need to be doing that involves God’s love – showing creation what it
is to be loved. If creation is
waiting ‘eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God’ (Romans 8:19) then it
surely it is waiting in hope of a redeemer and restorer; it is looking out for
signs of what it would look like for the Creator to come and love his creation
back into a flourishing way of life. And we are the ones that creation is
waiting for. For we are the ones who have experienced God’s love and are being transformed
by it on a daily basis as we work with it in our lives. Depending on your
theology, we have been restored or are in the process of being restored. Either
way it’s us that creation is waiting for.
Now I need to correct
something I said in the first sentence of that second paragraph – showing the world
what it is to be loved by God isn’t something we do, it merely involves being. And that has a nice appeal to it
somehow.
Any thoughts?
