[ saving the kosmos ]

   This post is going to disturb you. Maybe even disgust you.

   I'm just sayin'.. you have fair warning.

   A long, long, long time ago, God created the world.

   Right. Pause.

   I'm sure all of us have heard the verse John 3.16, right?

   "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

   La dee da. Right. Pause again.

   The Greek word used in this verse for world is "kosmos", actually meaning the entire universe, not just our little planet earth and the few random planets that happen to move around out there somewhere. No, no, it's the whole shabam. It's the entirety of the space that stretches on for some unknown distance. [And for the record, I think space is actually legitmately endless. I think it's the perfect representation of just how great God is.] It's the hugeness and it's the microscopic that is the kosmos. The smallest pieces of matter that continue to become smaller and smaller with each new discovery.

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   [That in itself is pretty amazing to me, but anyway. And for those of you interested in aliens and all that jazz, shoot, maybe even they're saved by grace. I'll leave that one open for discussion..]

  But even without knowing all this Greek background, we can still read it as Jesus coming to the world to die for everyone so we have the opportunity to accept this and then spend the rest of eternity with Him.

   .. so where did we lose this?

   At what point did we actually become so selfish and bigheaded to think that only the "pure" and "righteous" can be Christian?

   I'm not sure if maybe people think that if we hoard all the God for ourselves that it will somehow make us more holy, or maybe we're just trying to protect God from all the evil He seemingly cannot handle. Since Jesus dying was clearly not enough to handle that or anything.

   Perhaps we've forgotten that Jesus didn't come to save the so-called righteous. Remember? Jesus said himself that he came to call the sinners. Not the ones who have it figured out. [Or think they do anyway..]

   Obviously no one has come right out and said this, of course. I have yet to hear of someone building a theology on this, that only certain people can be saved.

   But it lingers in the minds.

   Uncomfortable yet?

   How about this:

   Jesus came to save even the rapist, the child molester, the murderer.

 
   The kosmos.

   It's disgusting isn't it. In our human minds, we want the same evil done to them that they inflicted on others, or worse, because that's what makes sense to us. So the fact that Jesus wants to reach out and love them just as much as anyone else who's lived a fairly good life is repulsive.

   I think it has creeped into our minds that they are just beyond redemption. God's grace and Jesus' death just isn't enough to cover them. They couldn't possibly be redeemed and brought back to who they were created to be.

   They don't stand the same chance we do.

   Well, uncomfortable or not, the fact and truth still stands that Jesus did in fact come to save them as well.

   You know, often times I think Jesus would definitely have preferred their company to the Pharisees'. That's just me. Depending on the state of their hearts, perhaps they would have been in a far better place than the Pharisees' hearts.

   Who knows.

   I also think that we create a sort of hierarchy with our sins. And somehow all those things mentioned above are made a lot more serious than lying or coveting our neighbor's things, or wanting your friends husband/wife. Hold up a second, lying and spewing out curses to someone is killing yourself and that person in an entirely different way, but is also incredibly powerful, considering that we hold life and death upon our tongues. [I mean, even honoring your father and mother is before murder. Let that one sink in.]

   But aside this, it's imperative that we do not water down the cost and the power of what Jesus actually conquered. And that we realize the fact that we actually do not understand the power of His love. The more I discover God, the more I realize I actually don't understand Him at all. [Ironic, really.]

   The power of Jesus' death and resurrection is beyond something we will be able to understand, and that's the beauty of it.

   If we were able to understand it fully and make sense of it, then it wouldn't be as great, as awesome. We would not be able to stand in awe of Him in the same way. Because it would make sense.

   The fact that it doesn't make sense to me, makes sense to me. Bend your mind around that.

   So don't underestimate what God can actually do with someone's life. And don't underestimate the value of someone's life, regardless of what they've done.

  Because He came to save the kosmos.