God's Unconditional Love

I ran across an old friend, my letter to him after our conversation:

Dear....., I just want to take a moment to clarify a point or two regarding our conversation. The first being pastor Re... I hope you understood my comment about him in context of our conversation, that I don’t believe he is diminished because of his views on the necessity of doctrine for unity. My view, simply put, is that our unity cannot be on opinion; as God, whose love is unconditional, will not reject us from His family any more than you might reject one of your children for having a different view of, say, the Trinity, or the resurrection. You would love him equal to your other kids; perhaps pray more for him, but I doubt you’d condemn him to hell. And why wouldn’t you? Because the Holy Spirit in you rejects this idea. Again, why? Because the thought is irrational, unloving and (therefore) not of the Spirit. Now, let us say I am correct in this; Still God does not reject pastor R.. He loves him regardless.

When we met, you said, "beliefs are important." Absolutely! But how are they important? Do they hurt God if we believe something untrue? Of course not, He doesn’t care at all for Himself; He only cares if it has consequences. And these are: if these beliefs separate us from each other (as in pastor R's beliefs) or if those beliefs quench God’s Spirit. For, it is the absence of love which makes us unlike Him, and our fellowship is broken from Him. Love is the source of true unity, and unity is, as it were, the conduit of His Spirit. It is by love everything that good can happen in life and relationships. This is why it fulfills all the Law. If we have viewpoints, opinions, doctrine, yet do not have love, as Paul says, ‘we are just making percussive noise, and we accomplish nothing’ (1Cor.13).

Unfortunately, pastor Re.. did great damage because of his divisiveness, but my past has similar actions as well, but now I know better, and am trying to heal the issues I’ve caused. Thank God He is merciful and longsuffering, and gave me the chance to change the way I interact with those who differ from me.

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Since my readers were not with us during the conversation, so they may see more of the context, I should add: When I speak of pastor R's divisiveness, I am speaking of his aggressive rejection and calling out those he disagreed with. Apart from this issue he was a wonderful man, full of love for God; his opinion carried a lot of weight in our Evangelical community. Besides genuinely being a good man, he had a long life of Bible study he could draw from, and was a faithful worker in the churches. However, this should give us all pause..."to whom much is given, much is required". I see this as the main motive for Paul correcting his elder, The Apostle Peter, recorded in the book of Galatians (ch2). Yes, I was a victim of pastor R's 'righteous indignation'; and at the time I was hurt by him. However, God gave me the grace to see there was more to pastor R than what he attempted to do to me personally. As it turned out he and I were on good terms when he died. No, he did not change his opinions to mine. I can only account for our reconciliation because he saw I wasn't actually a danger to the Church; and since I did not fight him, he was merely exhausting himself with shadow boxing.