Social Engineering

God utters whole truths not partial ones. Whole eternal truths produce something wonderful.

Partial truths create a vacuum. In that vacuum words become tools to meet needs. Advertising creates a need by painting a partial picture. Dating profiles are designed to create attraction and hopefully form relationships. The personalized email or letter with your name on it targets the individual in a subtle way by saying, 'See we know your name.'

Some folks can create a whole fictional past relationship with a stranger just by looking at a name tag and making general statements to convince this person they have never met before that they grew up together in the same town and went to the same school. With each interaction they gather more small facts and clues to build on. No one has a perfect memory. Social engineering uses partial truths to extract real facts and access something valuable... it could be money, sex, power or loyalty... any thing valuable can be socially engineered out of a person or group if they are unsuspecting or otherwise vulnerable.

We even socially engineer ourselves if we think that somehow by doing so our needs and wants will be met.

God doesn't socially engineer people. We have nothing to offer Him of value that He does not already possess. God deals in truth... whole truth. The Gospel is a whole truth and it has a purpose but that purpose is real connection.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16 ESV

It is so simple and real that people who have been made wary and jaded by all the manipulation all around them just can not believe the simplicity of this all important truth.

"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" - 1 John 3:15-17 ESV

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God." - 1 John 4:7 ESV

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." - John 13:35 ESV

Love validates the truth. The truth will still true in a vacuum and people will still be accountable to it regardless. It is not about behavior or pleasing God. The only behavior God has ever been perfectly pleased with is the behavior of His Son.

Love becomes linked to evangelism. Our prayer becomes, 'Make me a soul winner God. Fill me with love and compassion that makes a difference and full targeted truth.'

Grace shows us that doing is an accidental byproduct of being loved and persuaded in a true connection to God. God's Grace is a whole truth that imparts in a never ending flow. It only takes things that will block the flow. It gives and gives and gives.

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