Drama

If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us (1 John 4:12).

Christianity is like a TV soap opera.

A soap opera is all about relationships. It features a large cast of characters interconnected in a variety of ways—blood relations, friendships, business dealings, and, of course, romance. Each episode shows how people forge relationships with each other, ruin relationships by selfish behavior, and search desperately for a way to repair what they have broken.

Christianity tells a similar story. Christianity is all about relationships—our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. Christians are interconnected in a variety of ways—through blood relationships, through friendships, through business dealings, and through romance. Yet all of these relationships are in constant turmoil. Relatives argue and fight. Friends poison their relationship by taking advantage of each other. Business associates stab each other in the back in a quest for profit or promotion. Lovers split up rather than make compromises to preserve the relationship. The emotional fallout is terrible—feelings of hatred, of worthlessness, of loneliness, and a crippling fear of ever trusting again. And the question then becomes: how to patch things up?

All these relationship problems are rooted in our failed relationship with God. The Almighty made humanity to be His companions, friends forever, sharing paradise together. But we want to be in control of our relationships, insisting on having our way even if it is at the expense of others. God our Maker does not tolerate our substituting such arrogance for real love; and since we refuse to embrace God’s love in the purity of His design, there is no way that we can show true love to each other.

But God offers a solution. He wants us back as His beloved companions, so He sent Jesus as the ultimate expression of what true love is. In the love of Jesus, there is forgiveness and the healing of old hurts. In the love of Jesus, there is commitment to long term relationships. In the love of Jesus, there is a willingness to sacrifice gladly for the sake of others. In Jesus we not only see what relationships can be, we can start experiencing the relationships with God and each other that should be.