Our Creator wants to restore us to a right relationship with him and all creation. So, in his goodness and mercy, he sent his Son to for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
God's hands formed and fashioned each one of us. He breathed into us the breath of life. We live because our Creator chose to give us life. He has given us a mind and soul, our ability to reason and understand. None of God's other creatures has been given that. God gave us our mind to that we would think and understand so that we could be caretakers of every living thing that moves on the earth. We are made to love God with all that he's given us, but satanic temptation and eating forbidden fruit extinguished our ability to think and understand God and everything he's given life.
We've treated our Creator as an enemy and as a consequence, we treat all creation as a problem to be solved. We've turned away from care-taking to fixing what God's created. But, our Creator is good and kind. He does not want us to exist as cruel, deformed things that once bore the image of God. Our Creator wants to restore us to a right relationship with him and all creation. He wants us to enjoy his presence as a loving Father forever. So, in his goodness and mercy, He sent his Son to for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. God sent his Son into the flesh and placed on Jesus the burden of offering his body and blood as a redeeming sacrifice for us.
God loved the world enough to provide a way so that we could never again be cut off from him or treat him as our enemy. As the psalmist writes: "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made." (Psalm 145:9)
Through faith in Jesus, which God also gives to us, all of us can enjoy the goodness and kindness of the Lord. This is the kind of understanding God desires for us.
That's why God speaks to us in Scripture and sends his preachers to announce the good news to us. Only God's Word can breathe new life into us. Only God's Word can reveal the truth to us about our Creator and all that he's created. The kind of understanding we receive through faith in Jesus reveals a God who is good and kind to us. That's also why we pray all the time that God will keep us in his Word, so we can understand our relation to God and every living thing.
Through the goodness and kindness of the Lord who formed and fashioned us, we have received his Word, Jesus Christ, given to us, sacrificed for us, so that we have true understanding.
Each day, life can appear to change like the shifting of the wind. We get sick, friends betray our trust, fear becomes the soundtrack of our life, and it seems no matter we try to build on solid ground sinks. But, no matter what the day may bring, no matter which direction life may seem to go, we understand that God is good and kind.
What's happening to us isn't because God is our enemy. Instead, God's Word enlightens us so that we can understand that people are cruel and deformed by sin. They treat God (and every living thing) as an enemy, or at the least, a problem that needs to be fixed. But, regardless of how we're treated, or which way our life goes, we hold fast to God's Word as he holds tight to us. Jesus' faithfulness strengthens us in all things, so we're confident that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of our Lord, who loves us in Christ today and always.
