FNL.

Tonight is Friday. Fridays mean Friday Night Life. It's a weekly ministry that the teachers at the BSC are a part of (music, games, English lessons)-- and tonight we were discussing emphatic stress (which is really irrelevant to this post, but now you know!). The goal of each English lesson is to link the lesson to a topic that can be used for spiritual conversations. I won't bore you with everything that got us to this point, but at the end the question was, who loves you the most?

We broke our big circle into small groups of 3-5. Each person shared with their group who loved them the most and why. When it was my turn, I shared that while my family loves me very much, and has sacrificed a lot for me, that God loves me more than even they do. God loved me enough to allow His Son to die, so that I could have a relationship with Him.

One of the men (I will refer to him as J), asked if I really did feel that God loved me. I said yes; I do know and feel His love for me. Then he said something that struck me. He said, "I cannot say Buddha loves me."

Among many other differences between Christianity and Buddhism, this one really is glaring. Buddha did not die for anyone. He did not love the world. He did not desire a relationship with us. Buddhists pray to Buddha in hope that he will listen or answer, but they have no assurance. They are offered no relationship.

I am so thankful to have a Father who loves demonstratively and who is "...not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). He is a God who is known and can be known and he is a God who desires his creation to know Him.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

-Romans 5:6-8