What is God's greatest concern?

I've come to a place in my faith where I am craving the rawness of God and who He is. I do not want fluff and I do not want other people's perceptions of who He is or what He wants. I want the truth. Who is God and what is His greatest concern?

Before delving into this, I think we should ponder another question: Does God in fact want to be known? If He didn't, there would be no point to discussing the prior. This could be a whole other blog post in itself, so for the sake of time and space, let's go ahead and say "yes", He does want us to know Him. I think the greatest support to that claim is Jesus, who undoubtedly walked this earth and claimed to be the Son of God. In John 14, Philip, one of His disciples, says to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." I believe that He was craving what I have recently craved, and desperately wanted to see and know God. Jesus replies, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." He goes on to explain that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. In other words, whoever Jesus is, whatever Jesus's concern is, is the Father's as well. So, since He was sent by God into this world, I will dare to conclude that God does in fact want to be known by people.

Let's go back to the very beginning, now that we know God does want us to know Him. Who is God and what is His greatest concern? Is He an angry, distant God who created and then abandoned when humans started screwing up? Is He up in Heaven looking down upon creation, waiting to punish or bless depending on human action? Is He too big, majestic or invisible to even make a difference in people's lives here on Earth?

I'll tell you what I think, and how I believe God has been leading me in the past few months.

God's greatest concern is people. They are His heart. I would say that God is none of the above descriptions. The simple fact that He sent His One and Only Son to live among mankind and then saved them from their sins and then sent His Holy Spirit to live in them means that He is anything but absent or lackadaisical. He is completely committed to the people that He created. In 1 John 16, it says, "God is love." Take a moment to let that settle into your spirit. It does not say that God loves, it says that He is love. I am going to use the common sense that the Good Lord gave me and suppose that because God is love, He created out of a place of love. We often feel like we fall in and out of love with people, or that we love them more or better some days. I believe that is deeply rooted in our brokenness and inability to love perfectly on our own. But God is perfect. He is love.

I think it is good of us to also remember that God has choices just as we do; He is a God who acts. He spoke creation into being; He knitted us together in our mother's womb; He sent  His Son and Holy Spirit so that we could be with Him now and forever, if we so choose. That was and is His good pleasure. And I don't think the God of the universe would do anything unless it was His will to do so. This also makes me think that God considers us pretty amazing and important. I do not and will not believe that the God who is love created something that He does not love and is not highly committed to.

I want to now look at Jesus, since He said that He and the Father are one, and looking at His life and actions is a great indicator to what God is like. Let's look at Matthew 15:29-31:

Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

It's clear that God wants to heal His people. It would be neat to know just how many people Jesus healed while He walked this earth. As John says in the last verse of his gospel, "If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written". By looking at the gospels, Jesus used most of His time on Earth to pray, teach and heal His people, both physically and spiritually. That is what God decided to do while He was on this earth, because that is who He is. He is love. And I believe that above all things, He loves and is concerned with the people He created.

To close, here is one of the most powerful prayers that Paul, a great follower of Christ, prays in the Bible for the Church in Ephesians. He says, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

May we grasp His love as well. May we realize that He is love, and that we are His greatest concern. And may that love set us free!