The Lion and The Lamb

From Christmas songs to pulpits, everywhere you turn you hear of God being all-loving but is that the entire story? Read this post to find out.

When someone is being confronted with their sin, you can almost guarantee that they will shout that God is all-loving. We are bombarded with pictures, videos, and Sunday morning sermons about God's love but I want to challenge you with a couple of questions. Is God only a God of love? And if so, what constitutes love? We have this notion that love is accepting everyone and everything. If I attempt to challenge your perspective on a topic, I may be looked at as unloving or confrontational. This is because I am going against what you want, more importantly, I am making your flesh uncomfortable and that is not seen as love in the world that we live in.

"Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division." ~ Luke 12:51 (NKJV)

Let's dig a little deeper. Matthew 10:34 tells us that Jesus did not come to bring peace on earth but a sword. As we can reference above, Luke presented similar information about our Lord, stating that He came to bring division rather than peace. Why is this not spoken about in the messages that we hear from the pulpit? Maybe because this is not the God that the majority of the world knows or serves so it's easier to keep this Savior hidden.

Ever since I can remember I have believed that God is love. To me, that simply meant that He loves everyone, which He does, but there is so much more to this than meets the eye. We can all agree that it is loving to consider someone else's feelings when pondering how you say things but what if I told you it is also loving to tell someone they are flat out wrong about a subject or to call them a liar, cheater, or point out some other sin in their life? You may have a problem with the latter portion of that last sentence because we do not typically look at having our feelings hurt as being love yet the word of God tells us that faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6). This is what the bible tells us that Jesus came to do. He did not come to spare our feelings, to make us happy, or to ensure that everything went the way we want it to. The Jesus of the bible came to bring a sword and to bring division. To the carnal mind, these words may suggest a contradiction because the bible also says that God is love in 1 John 4:8. However, as we grow to understand what real love is, we will be able to clearly see the wisdom in the scriptures from earlier.

When the bible refers to Jesus bringing division it simply means that there is no unity that can realistically be had with someone whose beliefs do not align with the word of God. If we are able to walk hand-in-hand with someone whose beliefs are contrary to what we know God has spoken, then we are either lukewarm or the truth is not in us. In that case, we are not the followers of Christ that we claim to be. I am always finding myself reminding my children and others that I come in contact with that Jesus is the lion and the lamb. He is not one or the other only, He is both. He is not only gentle and loving but He is also the valiant Warrior who fights for us. He is not only the One who holds our tears and covers our fears but He is also the One who corrects and chastises those He loves. He is the faithful friend that deals with the things that we want to deny and the One who gave His life so that we could live. This is the message of the kingdom of heaven.

If we were to continue journeying through the bible, we would see that there are many descriptions of love that many of us are not quick to accept as such. I simply want to challenge your perspective and cause you to analyze why you believe what you do about our risen Savior. I hope this causes you to dive headfirst into the holy bible for yourself and to get to know the true and living God in all of His glory. Who knows, you might see that He is a really cool dude.