Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones.

Well, here’s another late one at the end of a pretty full day. The composition was basically done this morning surrounding a good deal of discussion between us—even on our walk/jog. But then time got away from us, and I haven’t had time to get back to this computer till now. Part of the interference was a 45-minute old man nap following lunch.

Have a good night that makes you all pumped and prepared to have a good week.

Love, Dad/Ray.

If the Biblical record tells me anything, it tells me in no uncertain terms, up one side and down the other, that the only reliable way to make my life work right is to pursue and maintain A SUPREME LOVE FOR JESUS CHRIST—one and the same with A HEART AFTER GOD.

While making my coffee this morning my thoughts wandered into an area that seemed to produce an “aha moment.” My mind has already established a firm dogmatic belief that mindless matter could never NEVER have produced the vast array of life forms that we behold on planet earth—no matter how many billions of years smart guys try to throw at it. In my view, the chances of dirt, radiation, gases, and water combining to think it all up is way below zero—absurd to the millionth power. So based on that premise another question took shape in my mind—a “what if” question: What if it did happen that way?—and life did spring into life by a kind of spontaneous combustion (big bang) or simply time plus chance—what now are the chances that accidental life could have accidentally invented LOVE? Suddenly I saw it more clearly—my little “aha moment.” In the same way that LIFE is a God thing, LOVE is a God thing. Indeed, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because GOD IS LOVE” (1 John 4:8)—not like love, or a form of love, or offers love— GOD IS LOVE!! So any form of life is a display of the supernatural Spirit of God—and any form love also displays the Spirit of God. Mindless matter cannot live. And mindless matter cannot love.

As is the case with any gift of God—be it food, drugs, intelligence, sex, language, freedom, or love—it can be misused or perverted. So the Bible warns, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15-16).

Today’s reading shows Jesus just prior to His ascension, demonstrating supernatural power over everything in general and fish in particular, treating the disciples to a seaside men’s breakfast, and graciously reinstating fumbling Peter following his recent deplorable triple denial. Is it any surprise that the main concern of Jesus in that encounter is LOVE?—the importance of loving Jesus as well as channeling that love to other “sheep/lambs” that Jesus loves. Jesus clearly wants Peter, and the rest of us, to get it. So do we? I’m trying to. I think I’m seeing more clearly than ever how it works—that loving and forgiving others (It’s quite appropriate to include forgiveness here, you know.) is a divinely empowered action that channels God to others who need God as much as we do. And that’s a lot!