Slander is common nowadays. No one wants to be slandered, but no one is exempt from it. It is a heart-wrenching feeling to hear people bashing your name, especially when the slander comes from those whom you trust. I believe that no one can properly deal with this issue unless they get their help from God and remain at the foot of the cross. I have discovered that true Christians are imperfect, and because they are not perfect, they can never be strong without Christ.
When I think of how slander negatively impacts us, I think of how often we slander God, knowingly and even unknowingly, through our actions, words, or attitudes. For example, some people say that Jesus is a lesser God because He had a human experience, and others believe that the Holy Spirit is a much lesser God because He is represented as a dove or wind. Others even think that God the Father doesn’t really love us. They believe that it is only because of Jesus that He tolerates us, and it is possible that this false understanding stems from the concept that Jesus came into this world to reconcile us with the Father. It is almost as if to say that God, the Father, had an altercation with us, and since He was probably too upset to deal with us, Jesus decided to come and put an end to it. Yet, those people completely missed that God is love and everything He does for us is based on love. Even before the foundation of the world, Love was always here. Scripture says in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son.” So, God “loved” that’s why He gave. The sacrifice was made because love existed.
Also, God always endures our complaints and doubts about Him when we face certain situations or don’t understand the way He operates in our lives. Let’s admit it, if the price for salvation were to be a fair game, then we can honestly say that the game is unfair to God. God is not only misunderstood, doubted, or criticized by non-believers, but, if we really want to keep it real, we, the believers, do the same thing. I do not say that to judge believers or even non-believers. However, I say it to help us realize that God is the One who needs to be furious, impatient, unforgiving, unloving, and revengeful. Yet He is just the opposite.
Matthew 5:45 says that God “Causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” without benefiting anything from it Himself, and that is pure love. A love that is non-transactional.
For example, many of us can easily become prideful after a promotion or become popular if we are not careful. And sometimes we can get so puffed up, especially when others fail to acknowledge our excellence. We quickly become like Haman from the book of Esther. After king Xerxes honored and promoted him, he wanted everyone to bow to him. And because Mordecai refused, Haman convinced the king to pass a decree to kill not only Mordecai, but also all the Jews. What would we think of God if He had decided to deal with us that way? God sent His only Son, Jesus, who made the ultimate sacrifice for the atonement of our sins, and we will never know how much it cost Him. Now, how fair would it be if God were to ask every one of us to go through the same thing Jesus went through to make it right with Him? We would have to be scourged, spat on, publicly humiliated, nailed to a cross, and the whole nine yards.
Consider how huge the love of God is. He redeems, protects, loves, heals, provides, and comforts even for those who deny His existence.
I spent a big chunk of my life misunderstanding God and His love for me, then I spent another chunk trying to understand His love. I have now realized that He has always loved me, He will always love me, and I will never be able to understand His love for me. And please let me save you the headache, you will never be able to understand His love for you, either. We have to start getting good at receiving His unmerited love.
There is a prayer Jesus prayed in John 17:1-26, which I think is so profound. Jesus prayed to be glorified, then He prayed for His disciples, and then He prayed for all believers. There is a lot to consider in that chapter, and I will not be able to unpack it all. However, I couldn’t help but highlight a few things. Jesus said some remarkable things in that prayer, talking to His Father, saying, “I have revealed You to those whom You gave Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me, and they have obeyed Your Word.” Now, I wonder why Jesus would say to His Father, they were Yours; You gave them to Me. And then He went on to say, “I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are One. I am in them, and You are in Me so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.” It is fascinating to me that Jesus would allow His disciples to hear such an intimate prayer to His Father. Could it be that Jesus let His disciples hear such a prayer so they could know the heart of His mission and how intimate they can be with the Father as well? Just like “A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2: 24), God also desires that we become one with Him and resemble Him.
Jesus came to redeem us and to restore our intimate relationship with God; to become one with Him. This is such a privilege and evidence of true love.
Yes indeed, man had lost dominion over the earth. However, the loss of rulership was due to our misperception of God, which started with our first parents in the Garden of Eden. When the serpent came to deceive Eve, he not only said to her, “Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” Which was not what God had said at all. But also, the serpent said to Eve, “You will not certainly die, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” Genesis 3:1-5. In other words, Satan accused God of being a liar. And to say it more practically, it’s like the serpent said to Eve: “I know you think God has your best interest at heart, but He doesn’t. I know you think He loves you, but He doesn’t. He just wants to keep you bound from becoming like Him. This God you are trying to keep your integrity/purity for is jealous of you. He doesn’t even want the best for you.”
The serpent deceived Eve by convincing her to believe that she was deceived. Dear friends, this same trick of the enemy is what you and I still need to guard our hearts and minds against, especially during painful seasons. The enemy used the forbidden fruit to get Eve, but he uses people, places, worldly things, and circumstances to get us. It’s like the enemy is using the same exam, but different versions, like exam A, B, or C. I don’t know if some of us remember when the teacher gave the whole class the same exam, but he changed the order of the questions for your classmates. The enemy does the same thing in our lives. He uses the things in our lives to convince us to doubt God and prevent us from seeing God as the loving Father that He is.
This is also one of the reasons why most of us go through life all confused because it is upside down. He deceives us into thinking that as long as we don’t eat any forbidden fruit, we don’t need God. Meanwhile, the enemy is running rampant in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones by using the toxic people we hang out with, the toxic environment we are in, the sinful desires that we keep cherishing, and our overwhelming circumstances to make us lose our minds. We kept blaming God for it all because we think that the Kingdom of Light is the only Kingdom that exists, forgetting that Jesus came to expose the father of lies and bring us back to oneness with God. We have no record in Scripture of our first parents complaining about their relationship with God and the things He created. However, everything started to go downhill when the serpent showed up in Genesis chapter 3.
I often ask myself these questions: Why is it so hard for us to believe in God? Why is it so hard to move when He says move, to stop when He says stop? To do or not to do whatever He says to do or not to do? I mean, when a customer service representative says they will call us back, we believe them even when we know that most of them won’t call us back. So, why does God have to receive all the backlash? How deep and complex are the lies of the enemy in our heads that the truth seems to be drowned in the ocean of lies?
If backlash is what God receives for sacrificing His only begotten Son, can we call it a fair game? And if we believe that it isn’t a fair game, then what does that tell us about the Love of God? He is still with us, even at our worst, and He will never leave our side. Our parents, relatives, and close friends may forsake us, but God remains constant through thick and thin. Even when some say He is an angry God or does not exist. Yet He woke them up this morning, He fed them, protected them, and covered their homes. So, how deep is God’s love then? Is it deeper and wider than the ocean of lies? Is it deeper and wider than our sins? And since His love is so profound and beyond comprehension, what more besides the death of His only Son do we want Him to do to prove it? How much love is enough?
God is real, and God loves you. Receive His love!
SCRIPTURES
“…he was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” John 8:44
“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19
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