Ephesians 4:6– One God and Father of all, who [is] above all, and through all, and in you all. NIV

Just days after Father’s day on June 19, Antwon Rose Jr, an unarmed 17 year old was fatally killed by a police officer in Philadelphia who is now facing criminal homicide.  In the Bronx, Leasandro ”Junior” Guzman-Feliz, a 15 yr old member of the NYPD Explorer Program was fatally stabbed to death on June 20 in a case of mistaken identity.  How can such evil live in people I often wonder.  Scriptures like Ephesians 4:6  make me struggle with believing God is in all people. ALL people, really?  Even the ungodly?  How could God be in the member of a murderous gang or lethal police officers when the innocent are slaughtered?  It is hard to suppose that God loves them as much as he loves the Juniors or any one of us today.  But He does.  He genuinely does.

In reading the news articles about both of these young teens, no mention of their fathers was found.  Yet I am confident that they both had a Father.  The same Father who is in heaven and who truly loves them.  Though I, like no one can else can exactly explain why this happened.  God is not the blame for the consequences of this fallen world.  Just know a Risen and Just God is above us all.  He does not sleep or slumber or make a mistake.  Praise God His will though heart wrenchingly challenging for us at times Be done.  Death since the Garden of Eden is not God’s will- only eternal life.  But it is Satan’s.

Looking at my son about the same ages as these two young men, I try to understand and figure out God’s love.  Even my own son has hurt me, being human subject to err and sin, but truth is I still love him.  I cannot help it. I think I will always love him and perhaps risk my life for him.  At least I believe so.  When he and my husband talk together, watching basketball one minute then arguing on whose turn it is to do the dishes the next.  It makes me realize that God is staying in it all the way for the relationship with us. Most likely he cannot help it.  He’s so full of love.

He is our Father.  He just Loves, Loves, Loves us.  Since the beginning of time with Adam and Eve he’s longed to be among us and have a relationship with us.  Longed through sending us the prophets and sending out the disciples.  Even though we do wrong. He loves us so much that his eternal plan was ultimately to maintain that Father/Child relationship with us. Costing him the sacrifice of his own Father/Son relationship with Jesus. So you can literally say He loved us to death.

One thing though, Jesus was perfect and we are not.  He was infallible in every faculty -yet took on our plentiful deliberate and in deliberate wrongs.  Taking on your sin, mine and every one of those gang or police members- Jesus is God Jr.  Our response can be one of two things Thank you or No thank you.  If we seek a relationship with him we say Yes and live a new life, with a new mind and new behaviors. If we say No, we walk away from the greatest love we could ever know in this life.

Concern: Sister, are you in a Father/daughter relationship with God?

Encouragement: 2 Cor 6:18 “And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

Act:  Godliness means to be “Godlike” or “Christlike”.  Having an active devotion to God.  With God as the center of your life, to please Him will become your nature. Fear him, revere him and love Him. Allow God to be the wheel within your wheel-will bring you value for all things. 1 Tim 4:8 “godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come”.