“For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and to the Greek. For the justice of God is revealed therein, from faith unto faith, as it is written: ‘The just man liveth by faith.’”
St. Paul speaks for how Christians should all feel in light of the Gospel. It is a message of God becoming man and dying a horrific, dehumanizing, shameful death like a criminal, mocked, scourged, and crucified. The unrecognizably bloodied, beaten face of Jesus is what love looks like, a message unfathomable to the rest of the world. His salvation is dismissed as ludicrous, stupid, false, and this is the Beloved to which you have fashioned yourself. He has called you to “Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm” (Song 8:6), imprinting Him on your heart and actions, that you may magnify your discarded Love in all things. If you incur mockery because of your love, it is to be expected: “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake” (Matthew 5:11). The power of the Gospel message is the unfathomable power of Love: “for love is strong as death” (Song 8:6); the words of Jesus being able to bring about miraculous changes in the little sanctuary of your heart. His loving words are eternal life, for these are the vocal expression of the reality of love that is the Father, to whom you run as you “do as He tells you:” “With meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:21-22). This life of love is given “to every one that believeth.” O the blessing of faith! O the gift to know that you are loved, and that this love is expressed perfectly through the loving words of the Savior, whose words are spirit and life. This message of love is open to all, arriving first to the Jewish people, then spreading into the whole world. The story of salvation and the words contained in the Scriptures reveal God’s justice. This is done in three ways: First, that God always upholds His promises to those that believe. The faults throughout Israel’s history are always their own, with God delivering His aid and mercy every time He is called upon, with the utmost expression being the coming of Jesus. By extension, there is nothing in the Scriptures that is withheld from you: His every loving word can be heard as if it were being said to you personally, and nothing you do or say can keep His love from you. It is always present to you; the question is if you are present to it. This is due to the covenantal nature of God’s promise: He has entered into a marriage agreement with Israel and with you: “The bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride, and thy God shall rejoice over thee” (Isaias 62:5). He forgives and welcomes back as eagerly as a spouse, with no grudge, for His forgiveness is perfect. Secondly, God’s faithfulness is shown. A true administration of justice would be that both Israel and you would have been long forsaken by the Lord, who would have been just in discarding what had turned against Him. However, the justice of love sees what is weak and broken, looks at the hurts that have caused you to sin in the particular fashion that you did, sees the heart that is in pain and doesn’t know that Perfect Love is eager to tend to it. He is so gentle, so merciful, so understanding, and this justice of love is patient through the failures of His people, always being there to pick up the little ones who need the aid of love: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the contrite of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward” (Luke 4:18-19). If a child were to break something of their parents’ in front of them, the concern would be less about the broken object and more in helping the hurt that caused them to do so. So does your loving Father desire to bind up the wounds and love you in the places in which you need love. Third and finally, it reveals the justice of God’s might, for it shows that nothing can come between Him and a heart that is open to Him. He is a mighty one when His children call, and He will stop at nothing, even going so far as to die, to keep you in His loving arms, protected by Him on all sides: “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Sion: he shall not be moved for ever that dwelleth in Jerusalem. Mountains are round about it: so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth now and forever” (Psalm 124:1-2). The entirety of the Bible shows the awesome pursuit of your soul by God, and His justice working in all things with majesty to bring you to Himself. When you have faith in His words and that they are for you, it will become a living faith, a faith of a child of God; “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called, and should be the sons of God” (1 John 3:1). When you realize the depths to which you are loved, it transforms into a faith constantly alive, a love that never ceases, and this is what it is to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). When your entire life is ordered to God, and you see Him in everything, His words being your guide to acting and His love being the guide of your heart, then you live by faith, and are just according to God’s justice. This is what it means to love well.