Many new Christians do not rest in the love of Christ. They barely begin to know that they are loved by Him as much as they are. What accounts for the lack of joy among new believers today? Perhaps the answer is this: they cannot yet receive God’s love in the fullness he intends. Many young believers cannot honestly say that they live experientially knowing what Brennan Manning once called "the relentless tenderness" of Jesus Christ.

The reason these Christians have so much trouble resting in the love of God is because many are trying to earn it. Nothing short circuits the ability of a human being to enjoy divine love like the constant effort, whether conscious or not, to be worthy of it. Such individuals try to be perfect because they think they must be to merit the love of God and their fellows. But perfect love, the kind that is from above, is given to the imperfect and the undeserving. The world is deeply flawed but God still loved it enough to go through the unimaginable condescension that was the Incarnation. In Christ His love embraced us despite who we were and still embraces us despite who we remain this side of heaven.

Evangelical Christianity affirms this most profound of theological truths in principle but our churches could do a better job of consistently reminding the spiritually lovelorn of its reality. People who are in great emotional pain are becoming omnipresent in every church in America. As the surrounding society continues to degenerate more and more children are growing up in homes that do not deserve the name. As these children of the late Twentieth Century grow into the adults of the Twenty-first they will carry with them the afflictions that are the marks of divorce, abuse and neglect. Many will come to Christ but as walking wounded, men and women who often will not be fully able to take in the love of their new Saviour.

Like every generation these seekers have to reckon with the sin that is their own. However, at the same time, they desperately need to be consistently and compassionately reminded of how much they are loved by their Creator. Otherwise they will continue in patterns of resistance, patterns that are the natural outgrowth of where they have come from. Futile attempts to earn the love of God and others are largely the fruit of the above-mentioned divorce, abuse and neglect. When personal sin’s contribution to the problem has been dealt with through conversion, but an inability to know love remains, the needful thing is healing. The Church must more fully preach (and, more importantly ,embody) the love of Christ if such healing is to happen.

One way the Body of Christ can do this is to create circles of loving care for new believers who come from broken or badly flawed families. Such circles would consist of seasoned Christians who have come to know the love of Jesus, in its fullness, in their own lives. We have come a long way towards embracing the concept of small groups in an effort to recreate the kind of community that was the hallmark of the early Church. These "circles of care" could be an organic outgrowth of the small groups model tailored to provide a kind of spiritual I.C.U. for wounded souls. In a mutually beneficial way more mature believers will also be blessed in allowing themselves to be "Jesus with skin on" to the hurting in our congregations.

This is a straightforward way to reckon with the distinct needs of the newest generations of believers in our churches. We cannot let those who struggle with knowing the love of their Lord struggle alone.