God’s Love is for Everyone… Even You
“All who hold to my covenant will I bring to my holy mountain… for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” says Scripture through Isiah.
“God delivered all to disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all,” wrote Paul.
“O woman, great is your faith!” Jesus declares to the Canaanite woman.
We’ve heard it time and time again in countless ways as we participate in Mass every Sunday, when we read Scripture, when we encounter the lives of the saints, or hear the witness of faith from our brothers and sisters. Salvation – life in God’s own life – is meant for all. This is the Good News. This is what Christ brought to the world and commissioned his followers to spread to all peoples.
It’s not an easy path to follow, and sometimes not an easy message to even hear, when we accept that our part in the covenant comes with certain costs to reject the ways of sin and the world. But the idea that the joys of salvation are meant for literally every one of us and that God wants every single soul to share in the everlasting joy of His love is resoundingly clear.
Two thousand years of Christ’s message in the world has shaped our thinking such that this idea has become nearly intuitive. The desire that humanity’s best outcome is one of unity and harmony is now an undercurrent in much of our thinking, even among those of us who have not yet accepted Christ.
And yet…
Somehow, deep down in many of our hearts, we can struggle with the idea that salvation and joy is actually possible for us individually. It’s so easy to let the broken parts of us prevent us from accepting that we are loveable. It can be incredibly difficult to believe – to really believe – that God loves and cares for us.
But He does. Life in Him is meant for me, for you, and for all. His Love is meant to cross all boundaries, not just the boundaries of society (peoples, nations, cultures, etc.), but the ones that we put up around ourselves.
If we would allow ourselves to be vulnerable to God’s call and take down the barricades around our hearts and let Him in, we just might be amazed at how we will be able to love others and allow ourselves to be loved by them. God’s life and love would multiply among us.
And then Jesus’ prayer to the Father at the Last Supper would be answered:
“Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.”
