Prior Love

We need to believe in God’s love for us, just as we need to believe in his existence. We need to believe he first loved us.

Suppose there was a young woman, Alicia, looking for romance, who caught the attention of a young man, James, also looking for love. James was handsome, wealthy, kind, and successful. Alicia was invisible to most men, but something about her appealed to him. So, he asked her to go to dinner with him and took her to a pricey restaurant.

They had a pleasant time, but inexplicably by the end of the evening Alicia decided she had no interest in James. He, on the other hand, was infatuated with her.

He was a man who was nothing if not persistent and confident, so he decided to woo her until love blossomed in her tepid heart. He sent her bouquets of flowers and boxes of candy. He asked her to go to movies and dinners, and occasionally she would accept just because she had nothing better to do. He sent her notes praising her beauty and personality, to which she never responded. He wrote her poetry and songs. For a full year he pursued her.

Then, one day the light turned on in Alicia’s heart. She realized what a wonderful man James was, what patience and humility he had shown to her, and how sincere was his affection. Suddenly the intensity of his romantic interest in her was met by her intense interest in him. And the relationship blossomed.

But soon something painful also surfaced in Alicia’s heart. She now loved James so much that she began to fear losing him. She had been cool and indifferent for so long that now she worried James would remember her rejection and hold it against her. If a night passed without a call from James, or if he was anything less than enthusiastic and affectionate when they were together, she would be overcome with fear that his love had waned.

As a result, she began doing everything she could think of to earn and deserve his love. She cooked extraordinary meals for him. She was encouraging, cheerful, and careful never to be in a bad mood around him. But the harder she tried to please, the more she feared losing him.

Who loved first?

This little story illustrates what can happen in our relationship with God. We can doubt his love for us even though he has demonstrated his love in countless ways, and even though his love for us preceded our love for him. We can be tortured by insecurity.

But 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” God’s love was prior. He loved us first, long before we had any interest in him, long before the world was even created. Ephesians 1:4–5 says, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.”

If you could not earn God’s prior love when you were rejecting him, then you cannot earn his prior love after you have accepted him. He loved you first; you rejected him. He kept loving you first; eventually you accepted him. He won’t stop loving you.

Faith in God’s love

1 John 4:16–19 says: “¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.”

God’s prior love is the basis for our love for him. The only reason you love God now and want him now is that he loved you first and continues to love you. You need to believe this. “We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us” (v. 16). This is an act of faith just as believing that Jesus is the Son of God is an act of faith, just as believing in the resurrection of Jesus is an act of faith. Believing that God loves you is an act of faith. You must choose to reject unbelief about God’s love.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We may feel we need to earn God’s love. We may feel insecure in his love.

God’s way: He loves us first, before we do anything to deserve his love.

Life principle: We need to believe in God’s love for us, just as we need to believe in his existence. We must not give way to fear and unbelief about God’s prior love.

May 6, 2019April 25, 2019

My May Letter to You

Hi, here are some happenings and memories of the last few months.

I took this fun photo at Morton Arboretum recently, where an artist has created several giant statues like this.

Nancy and I took a day for an outing to one of our favorite restaurants, the Grande Luxe Cafe, and the Planetarium.

Can you imagine being sealed into this tiny Apollo spacecraft for days and never leaving your seat?

News:

At our church we recently had a wonderful experience with prayer for seven weeks. Several people had critical needs related to work and visas, and so the Lord led us to fast and pray on seven Sundays for the moving of mountains in our lives. We invited people to fast from lunch, or breakfast and lunch, and then after our Sunday morning worship service we went to one of our homes and prayed for a couple of hours together. Then we ate together. God answered a number of our prayers, and our relationship with him was deepened. It was a powerful and life-changing experience.
I have several months more writing to do on the theme of God’s love. Thinking long about God’s love has changed my life, and I hope yours as well.
I’m still writing my book on holiness. This is a labor of love. I revel in the subject of God’s holiness, and I love sharing with others about it, partly because it is so little understood or cherished in our world today. God’s holiness has become lost knowledge.
The ministry of this blog has grown to 91 readers who have signed up to receive my weekly email, which is free. If you have not signed up, I invite you to join and belong if you enjoy reading my writing, if you think others could benefit from it, if you want to foster the knowledge of God in as many others as possible, if you want to support this writing ministry and message. One benefit of your signing up, for example, is that it may please God to publish the content of this blog not only online but in the traditional world of book publishing, and book publishers are much more willing to publish a writer who has a “built-in” readership (measured by the number of email subscribers). You can sign up in the upper-right column of my site, craigbrianlarson.com. Thanks, and welcome to the Knowing God village!

My favorite three posts since my last letter:

My most important, challenging post since my last letter:

God’s Jealous Love

Books I’ve been reading:

Intercessory Prayer, by Dutch Sheets
Future Grace, by John Piper
Hearing God, by Dallas Willard
The Secret of Guidance, by F. B. Meyer
Love Beyond Reason, by John Ortberg

Favorite new website and mobile app: I have known about the free BlueLetterBible.org site for years, but recently I started using it as my main Bible-study resource. Surprisingly, I now prefer it in most ways over my PC’s $350 Bible-study application.

The most interesting mobile app I’ve recently come across is “Read Scripture.” I haven’t used it a lot yet, but what I’ve read has impressed me.

Questions: How can I make this site more valuable to you? How can we have more community and interaction among readers? What are your questions about God and his ways? Please send me an email with your feedback:

Prayer request: I am seeking a publisher for a manuscript I’ve written on the subject of divine testing.

Knowing God: What do you most want to know more about? What are you most curious about? Over time, that is what you will gain understanding in. Curiosity leads to knowledge, for it leads to motivated reading, to conversation and connection over our shared interest, to love of what we study, to the ability to see what others overlook, to further meditation.

God wants us to be curious about him. He wants us to think about him, to meditate on him, to talk with others about him, to ask questions and sing songs and report what we have learned about him. He wants us to have a sense of wonder about him similar to the wonder that scientists and explorers have in their field of study. Not so that we can control or master God, but so that we can know and praise him and relate to him as closely and deeply as possible.

God is deeper and more profound than the greatest questions and theories in mathematics or physics, for he created mathematics and the material world and understands every aspect of it completely.

God is more beautiful and pleasing than a collection of the world’s most beautiful music. He created music. He created Mozart, or whoever writes the music you regard as most wonderful. God could write and play a million songs more beautiful and delightful than any you have ever heard, and the next day write a million more, and the next day a million more. Just for starters. But all these beautiful songs are simply an expression of his own beauty, the music of his own heart and mind, of who he is.

God is more loving than the kindest, most sacrificial person you know. He doesn’t just do love; he is love. Love is his nature, his being, his constitution, for love gives. God upholds all things and gives existence to all things as a continuous expression of his will. He is love, for all things are from him, through him, and to him. He gives and gives and gives as who and what he is.

Therefore, for good reason the Lord says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:23–24 ESV).

For good reason he commands, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). He knows this brings the good life, the very best life, the ultimate and most satisfying life.

There you have it, my reason for being, my reason for writing, and the purpose of this blog. May you grow in the knowledge of God today. And thereby, may you have the good life.

April 29, 2019April 27, 2020

Sacrificial Love

What is the greatest sign of God’s love?

Imagine you are invited to a birthday party for your niece. As the day nears, you begin thinking about what to buy for a present. You love your brother and his daughter dearly, and you want to get as nice a gift as possible. So you think about your budget. You have allocated, let’s say, $1,000 for the year for gifts, including birthdays, Christmas, weddings, anniversaries, and surprises. Accounting for what you have already spent on gifts for the year and the spending you know is still to come, you figure that you should spend $100 on your niece’s gift.

That’s an expensive gift, but on this occasion it just doesn’t feel generous enough. You want to give more, but to do so you will need to cut spending elsewhere. So you look over your budget and see that you have allocated $100 for eating out and entertainment. Hmmm. Taking $50 from that category is relatively painless. So you buy your beloved niece a generous gift costing $150.

Suppose, however, that you didn’t have an easy category in your budget to reduce. Suppose that the only way to get more money for the gift was to reduce your grocery budget for the month, and your grocery budget was already tight. Taking $50 from groceries will require your having no desserts and little meat, as well as buying generic brands instead of the name brands you enjoy. And suppose your heart overflows with love for your brother and niece, and you decide not only to do that but to go further and spend $300 on your niece’s gift, and as a consequence you are willing to eat as little as possible for one month. That is not merely a gift, not merely a generous gift, but a sacrificial gift.

The sacrificial love of Jesus

In his great love, God is a giver, a generous giver, but he is far more than a generous giver. He is a sacrificial giver. In his great love, he gives to the point of great loss and staggering cost.

2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

Before being conceived in the womb of Mary, the Son of God was rich in heaven. He was worshiped by angels and saints, enjoying the love and presence of his glorious Father, in the perfect comfort of one who is a spiritual being living in the spiritual paradise of heaven, executing his Father’s will in heaven and earth. His glory was infinite and perfect.

Yet, at his Father’s loving command, the Son of God chose to become poor. He left that beautiful place to become a man, to take on weak human flesh, and through that body to become susceptible to fatigue, pain, agony, limitation, and worst of all the abuse of evil men. When he gave himself up to the Roman soldiers, to beatings, to scourging, to the cross, to bearing our sins, to the wrath of God, he made the greatest of all sacrifices. He loved us not just generously, but sacrificially.

The sacrificial love of the Father

The sacrificial love of the Son of God is matched only by the sacrificial love of the Father. John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” If God gave us something material like more possessions, that doesn’t really cost him anything, for he can create more of whatever he gives. But giving his Son to suffer and die for people who reject God, that is costly.

One thing I can hardly bare to see is the parents of a soldier receiving his or her remains in a casket as a casualty of war. That is a parent’s greatest sacrifice for their country. And that was the Father’s sacrifice for you.

God the Father’s love is not merely a giving love, or a generous love, but a sacrificial love.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We prefer to give out of abundance, to give comfortably, not out of poverty.

God’s way: God loves in a way that is willing to suffer significant loss for the sake of another’s gain.

Life principle: God’s sacrifice for us rightly motivates our sacrifice for him.

April 22, 2019April 27, 2020

Comforting Love

How does God comfort us?

Because God loves you, he comforts you.

Over the last seven Sundays our church had a fasting-and-prayer meeting that followed the morning worship service. We fasted breakfast and lunch, or just lunch, prayed for about two hours, then broke the fast by eating a wonderful meal together. Each Sunday as I ate that food after fasting, I was struck by how wonderful it tasted and what a blessing it is to eat good food. I found myself numerous times saying, “This tastes so good,” and others were saying the same thing.

There was a reason for this. The food at our prayer meetings is always great, but it is especially satisfying after fasting. Fasting brings on the distress of hunger. The hungrier we are, the better food tastes and the more comforting it is not only to the body but to the soul. You probably have heard the phrase “comfort food.” Comfort food is the tasty, filling food you long to eat when your soul is hurting. Comfort is a very good thing.

The Comfort God

The Bible says the Lord is the “God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4). God’s comfort is a very good thing, a very loving thing. God’s comfort is a good because life in this world is marked by affliction, pain, hardship, and grief. Bad things happen to us and the people we love. Loved ones move away. Family members die. Jobs come and go, as do the difficulties and challenges of our work, and sometimes the excessive hours. The human body suffers disease and weakness. Financial setbacks befall us. Satan and evil wage war with the saints. Life is hard, the world is often punishing, and our soul feels it.

Therefore we need comfort. At the end of a long, toiling day, our body needs to crawl into bed, pull up the covers, and sleep. At the end of a long week, we need a day of Sabbath. When the skin on your hands is dry and chapped, you long to rub in cream. When you shiver in the cold, you long for a blanket or a thick, downy jacket. When you walk a long distance on hot day, you thirst for a tall glass of water. When you endure a long season of troubles, you crave hearing good news. Comfort is good, and we need it, even if it’s just a slowly sipped cup of coffee.

The God of all comfort

Because God loves you, he delights to comfort you. He is the “God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions” (2 Cor. 1:3–4). God is like Barzillai and his two friends, who came to King David’s aid in his time of need. David’s son Absalom had betrayed him, gathering a following, turning the hearts of Israel against David, and finally gathering an army to kill David and his loyalists. David and his people hurriedly fled Jerusalem and headed into the wilderness with next to nothing. As quickly as they could, they walked for miles through the arid terrain fearing Absalom’s immediate assault.

Faint and downhearted, they needed to camp, and as they did they encountered the God of all comfort, in the faces of three men. “When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, ‘The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.’” (2 Samuel 17:27–29)

Shobi, Machir, and Barzillai were wealthy men whose households God had enriched and whose hearts God had moved to help David and his people in their hour of affliction. They were there when David needed them because God in his love had put them there. They were the hands and feet and food and water of the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction.

How to find ultimate comfort

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1 ESV)

“I, I am he who comforts you” (Isaiah 51:12 ESV).

After a season of persecution against the church, “the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” (Acts 9:31 ESV)

God comforts us because he loves us as a mother loves her child. “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13 ESV).

How does God comfort us? For starters, he provides the worldly comforts we need. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17, ESV). But our Father goes beyond that to provide the greatest, enduring comfort that any soul can experience: He gives his presence. He imparts the knowledge of God. He speaks his promises. Apart from these, there is no true and lasting comfort, and with his presence, his promises, and his revelation of who he is, our soul finds true peace. Dispelling fear, sadness, and despair, God’s Word and Spirit are the best comfort food.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Fallen people try to find comfort primarily in created things rather than in the Creator.

God’s way: We find comfort primarily in knowing God and his love, and secondarily in the comforts he mercifully provides.

Life principle: Only when we find soul comfort in God can we be fully comforted by the consolations he provides from this world.

April 15, 2019July 15, 2021

Rebuking Love

One of the greatest gifts God gives a person is his loving rebuke.

This week I saw on national news the story of a young woman who was murdered because she got in the wrong car. She had requested a ride-share from Uber. A car pulled up and stopped where she was waiting, and she assumed it was her ride, without confirming the license plate or the driver’s name. She got in the car and disappeared. All this was recorded on a nearby security video. Days later the police found her body.

Imagine if a friend had been waiting with her at the curb when that wrong car had pulled up. Imagine if that friend realized before the car door opened that this was not the right car or driver, but she said nothing because she didn’t want to tell her friend she was wrong or offend her by telling her what to do. Take it a step farther and imagine that she actually knew that the driver was a murderer whose mug shot she had seen on the news.

Such a scenario is ridiculous to imagine because what friend would be that uncaring? Sincere love always seeks the good of another, and that means not only telling them the truths they may not want to hear but even rebuking them sharply when necessary.

Rebuking love

This is the kind of love God continually gives people. It is one of his most gracious gifts to sinners. Psalm 25:8 says, “Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.” It is so important and necessary that he mercifully speaks warnings in abundance. He tells you the truth, including the hard truths you may not want to hear. He warns you. “Don’t get in that car! It’s the wrong car!” In love, he rebukes you.

Jesus said, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline” (Revelation 3:19). Jesus rebukes people. Webster’s defines rebuke as, “To criticize or reprove sharply; reprimand.” Whom does Jesus rebuke? According to this Scripture, he rebukes those he loves.

He rebukes you with 100 percent accuracy. He knows all things—all potential harm, all who would do you evil, all your weaknesses and sins. He knows the future. He knows what is right and wrong, wise or foolish. He knows Satan and his deceptions. He knows the world and its seductive pleasures.

When the Lord must offend

In the Gospels you see Jesus continually saying things that will offend somebody, if not everybody. Jesus was not trying to win a popularity contest by his words; he was trying to save people. When Peter tried to keep him from going to Jerusalem and the cross, Jesus “rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man’” (Mark 8:33).

When his disciples worried about where their next meal would come from, Jesus said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?” (Matthew 16:8).

When a crowd sought him following in boats when he withdrew from them, Jesus told them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life” (John 6:26–27).

In love, Jesus said the uncomfortable things people needed to hear.

When God must harshly offend

In fact, the context of Revelation 3:19—“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline”—is Jesus’s delivering one of the harshest rebukes found in the New Testament: his warning to the church in Laodicea:

“¹⁵ I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! ¹⁶ So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! ¹⁷ Because you say, ‘I am rich and have acquired great wealth, and need nothing,’ but do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, ¹⁸ take my advice and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness will not be exposed, and buy eye salve to put on your eyes so you can see! ¹⁹ All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!” (NET)

Imagine Jesus appearing to you in a vision and instead of speaking comforting words like “I will never leave you or forsake you” he said, “I feel like vomiting you out of my mouth”! Would you feel loved? Would you feel cherished? But soul-saving love is precisely what Jesus was giving the Laodiceans. That is what he said: “Those whom I love I rebuke.”

Fellowship can follow rebuke

Indeed, Jesus followed up his loving words of rebuke to the Laodiceans with loving words of invitation and promise to the very same church:

“²⁰ Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me. ²¹ I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²² The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:15–22, NET)

Jesus said I want to fellowship with you. I want to make you a conqueror.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We misunderstand correction as rejection. We don’t want to hear about our faults or be told we must change. We may suppose that because grace covers all our sins then God must love us unconditionally and not rebuke us. We may suppose that because God is gracious, our “performance” doesn’t matter. We may suppose that talking about sin is just negative and unhelpful.

God’s way: For our good, Jesus tells us everything we need to hear, including the truth about our faults, including everything we need to know about God and his will. But the severity of his correction is determined by the degree of the sinner’s pride, stubbornness, unbelief, or honesty and willingness to repent. Do you have a hard heart or a broken heart?

Life principle: We must not misinterpret correction as rejection or hatred. If all you want to hear from God or his spokesmen are positive words of comfort and blessing, you are making a serious mistake. If you close your ears to the hard truths, you may soon be getting in the wrong car.

I invite you to read my weekly posts about
knowing God and his ways better.
—Craig Brian Larson

April 8, 2019April 1, 2019

Liberating Love

True freedom is all about love.

You and I long to be free. The yearning for freedom is what brings people to America. It’s why we love weekends. It’s why people want to be wealthy or retired. The love of freedom is why we want to be healthy and strong. It’s why we dislike domineering people, leaders, and organizations, or restrictive clothing, weather, or schedules. Freedom is paradise.

The longing to be free is why our fallen nature resists God. Our fallen nature sees him as the ultimate restriction.

Wrong

But that is not true.

Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

He also said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31–32)

In fact, the Bible overflows with the theme of freedom. It is the freedom Book, the freedom story—of God in love liberating people from slavery in Egypt, from bondage in Babylon, from the debilitating oppression of disease, from the burden of the Law of Moses, from captivity to Satan and sin and deceptions.

“The LORD sets the prisoners free” (Psalm 146:7).

Where God is most present, people are actually most free: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Freedom is our destiny; it is for what God in love designed us:

“You were called to freedom, brothers” (Galatians 5:13).

“For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1).

“The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

God actually commands us to live in freedom: “Live as people who are free” (1 Peter 2:16).

So, why is the Lord and the freedom he intends for us misunderstood?

The impossible dream of absolute freedom

Our love of freedom gets twisted when we long not for freedom, but for absolute freedom. We lose touch with reality when we long to do anything we want, any time we want, as much as we want, without regard to its effect on our bodies, our emotions, our family and friends, our possessions and financial situation, other people, our world and its environment, and the One who created and sustains us and everything around us. No one, for example, is free to eat chocolate all day, every day, without dire consequences.

So, the problem with absolute freedom is reality. We are inextricably connected to a much bigger reality than freedom of choice and the short-sighted pursuit of happiness, or the self-indulgent focus on me, myself, and I. Absolute freedom is absolute selfishness, unfettered narcissism.

And therefore it is harmful to others and death to self, sooner or later.

Unbridled freedom is slavery

Consider the professional athlete who under the influence of friends begins using cocaine. Before cocaine he was an all-star in his first year in the league. After cocaine he soon lost his starting position, sat on the bench watching others play his position, and eventually was cut from the team. For a new revenue stream, he turned to gambling and selling drugs. Before long, his money ran out, his decent friends were gone, and he ended up in jail.

This story is so common as to be a cliché, but it is a cliché because it is a law. The myth of absolute freedom is actually the worst form of slavery, for it is bondage to what harms and destroys us. The apostle Peter, warning against libertine false teachers, writes: “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19).

True freedom

From this, God in his great love and wisdom offers to set us free. He frees us to be able to think, feel, and do what brings life to ourselves and others. The paradox is that God does this by calling us to live in complete submission to his authority and obedience to his commands. Again, this sounds like the ultimate restriction, but it turns out to be the ultimate freedom, because God commands only what is good, life-giving, and freeing.

God loves us and exercises his rule over us in a way that liberates us to be fully alive rather than oppressing and exploiting us. God does not make us puppets or robots; he gave us free will. God is free, and he created us in his image to be free within the bounds of his rule and within the bounds of what is good for us, others, and the world. God gives us the freedom to do what is good, righteous, perfect, pure, just, loving. Thus, he gives us the freedom to be like God.

True freedom is the ability to be disciplined, to control our thoughts, feelings, desires, words, and actions. True freedom is the ability to live with people in a way that enhances our relationships with them. True freedom is the ability to live in a way that enhances our relationship with the God who gives us life and every good thing in life.

Therefore true freedom is the ability to love. God, in love, sets us free to love him with all our being and to love our neighbors as ourselves. True freedom is about love, and true love is about freedom.

The Year of Jubilee

One of the greatest examples of the loving, freedom-giving heart of God is the Year of Jubilee. When he created the nation of Israel and its laws, he knew that over time some of the people would fall into poverty and lose their economic freedom by selling their land and services to others. So, he instituted the law that every fifty years there would be a year of jubilee in which land would revert back to its owners and slaves would be set free.

Leviticus 25:9–10 says, “On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.”

The heart of the Lord is to set people free.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Our fallen nature wants to use freedom as a cover up for evil.

God’s way: Jesus said God sent him “to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18).

Life principle: We experience perfect freedom when we surrender ourselves to God and live in love.

April 1, 2019April 4, 2019

Adopting Love

Though you are God’s adopted child, do you act like a spiritual orphan?

Imagine yourself being an orphan, nine-years-old, living on the streets of some third-world country. You never knew your father, and your mother died when you were six. No one wanted you, and you had nowhere to go but the streets. You beg. You eat from garbage cans. You steal.

But on one astonishing day, when you reach your beggarly hand to a well-dressed businessman, he smiles, gives you $5, and says, “I want to do more than this for you. I’ve seen you in the streets many times as I go to work, and I’ve begun to like you. I want to help you. In fact, I want to adopt you as my son.”

That very hour he takes you home to his estate. He orders his staff to clean you up, get you some clothes, and feed you well. He assigns you a room where three other adopted children stay. And he tells his assistant to begin the paperwork for legal adoption. A short time later it’s official. The wealthy man is your father; you are his son; you have a new name.

You quickly discover that he is a good man. He is a kind and gentle and hugs you often. Regularly, again and again because he has adopted other orphan children and knows how much they need to hear it, he tells you, “I truly love you. I will provide well for you. You have nothing to fear as long as you are in my house. You are safe. You are secure. And I will train you to be a good, strong, and mature person. I will give you the very best education. Always remember that I truly love you.”

You are God’s adopted child

Through your faith in Jesus Christ, this is what your heavenly Father has done for you. To know how much God loves you, it is vital that you know he is your Father, but more specifically, you need to remember he is your adopted Father. Adopting love is purely voluntary love. An adopted child is chosen. An adopted child is wanted, unlike some birth children who feel unwanted. An adopted child has a father who wants a relationship, wants to be together, wants to provide and protect and train—a father who dearly wants to be a father and dearly yearns to have a son or daughter.

1 John 3:1 says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”

Ephesians 1:5 says, “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.”

When God’s adopted child feels like an orphan

Imagine once again that you are this adopted child. You find something unexpected happening in your heart. Despite all that your new father has done and promised, you often find yourself afraid. For no reason, you distrust your father. You hoard food in your dresser. You disobey your father’s orders. You complain about the food served in the house and refuse to do your school work. When your father disciplines you, you lay in bed at night and think about running away from home to live once again on the streets.

An orphan spirit can linger in an adopted child. This is what happened to the people of Israel, whom God called his son, when he delivered them from Egypt. They had felt like orphaned street children in Egypt, and even after God set them free and pledged his love and care, they continued to feel and act like orphans. They did not trust their heavenly Father, nor did they obey him. They grumbled and complained and talked of returning to Egypt. They refused to enter the Promised Land. They never get over their orphan spirit.

God’s adopted child receives many assurances

Christians can have an orphan spirit. Our Father, in adopting love, reassures us again and again in Scripture of his commitment to love, provide for, protect, train and educate us.

Paul writes, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Peter urges you to cast “all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

God says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8).

Jesus said, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:29).

The Lord repeats these promises again and again and again because he knows that orphans need to hear it. God’s children fall easily into an orphan spirit: afraid, insecure, distrustful of their Father, complaining about their circumstances, disobedient and suspicious toward his good commands.

Our adopted Father, who chose to love us, keeps reassuring us: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Paul writes: “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

You are no longer an orphan. A good, kind, and faithful God has voluntarily adopted you. He wants to be a Father, and he wants you as his son or daughter forever. He wants this father-child relationship. He delights to provide for, protect, and train you. He is absolutely trustworthy. You can rely on him always to work for your highest good and his highest purposes.

March 25, 2019April 13, 2020

Burden-bearing Love

How does God bear your burdens?

Are you carrying any burdens today? Are you feeling weighed down, even crushed, by a need or problem, by a responsibility or worry? What would you give to have someone strong and loving enough to come alongside and help share your load!

That is precisely the nature of God’s love. In his love, he bears your burdens.

Psalm 68:19 says, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens” (NIV).

God showed his burden-bearing love to the Israelites

When the Israelites were oppressed as slaves in Egypt, the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush and said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:7–10, ESV).

Their burden was mud baked into bricks. Someone had to tread straw into mud, carry that mud in a basket, press that mud into molds, carry the molded mud into an oven, carry finished bricks to the job site, and cement the mud bricks into place. All under a hot Egyptian sun and cruel, whip-bearing Egyptian taskmasters. God saw their burden, and he cared enough to help.

There is a kind of friend or lover who will enjoy a relationship with you, seek your company, like your personality, be glad to see you, hang out with you, laugh with you, high-five with you—but when you have a heavy load, he or she will not be found. God is not that kind of friend, not that kind of love. When you have mud and bricks to carry under a blazing sun, he will help. His love is a burden-bearing love. He is willing to share crushing loads with you daily.

Bearing burdens and the meaning of love

True love and burden-bearing go together. The apostle Paul taught this on the human level, saying, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). What is the law of Christ? It is of course the law of love. Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), and “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34). So, Jesus commanded his followers to love one another, and Paul said that we fulfill that law by bearing one another’s burdens. You could even say that bearing others’ burdens is at the heart of what it means to love truly.

10 ways God bears your burdens

So, how does God in reality bear your burdens? How does he make a difference? How does he lighten your load? In every way. In response to your prayers and trust, the Lord

removes loads he does not want you to carry. (see Matthew 8:14–17)
gives strength to carry the loads you must carry. (see Isaiah 41:10)
imparts wisdom for how to solve problems and work successfully. (see James 1:5)
grants supernatural peace. (see Philippians 4:6–7)
sends people to help with your burden. (see Galatians 6:2; 2 Corinthians 7:6)
provides for your every need. (see Philippians 4:19)
manifests his presence so that you are not alone with your load, giving sympathy, compassion, affection, emotional support. (see Hebrews 13:5–6).
cleanses of the sins that make your way hard. When your sin is what brings your burdens, he helps you repent of it. (see Luke 15:13–16; 1 Corinthians 6:11)
delivers from Satanic oppression. (see Luke 13:11–13)
gives purpose, so that you carry your load for him. He removes the sense of meaningless toil. You can bear any load when you have a sense of its lasting purpose. (see Romans 8:28; Philippians 2:13)

God really does bear our burdens in a way that changes everything, turning us from weakness to strength, from despair to confidence. When we learn to turn to God to help us with our burdens, we find that we can say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Our way and God’s way

Our way: As the Israelites showed in the desert, fallen people do not want to have to rely on God and trust him day by day.

God’s way: The Lord wants to help us with our burdens, if we will only let him.

Life principle: God bears our burdens as we follow his instructions. God cannot bear the burdens of those who are self-reliant, disobedient, and unbelieving.

March 18, 2019April 27, 2020

The Seeming Contradiction in Exodus 34:7

What does it mean when God says he will by no means clear the guilty?

In my previous post on the encouraging topic of God’s forgiveness, we read one verse that is both important and puzzling:

Exodus 34:6–7 says, “The LORD passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (ESV).

On the one hand, God emphasizes that it is his nature to forgive. And then he immediately follows that by saying he “will by no means clear the guilty.” Hmmm…which is it? Does God forgive, or does he refuse to clear the guilty? This verse has puzzled me for a long time, and I’ve prayed for understanding. I believe God has at long last given me the interpretation.

I will explain the verse with a paraphrase. God is saying: I forgive the iniquity and transgression and sin of those who come to me in faith and repentance. But, toward those who refuse to repent and continue stubbornly in their sin, I will be perfectly just and will by no means clear them of guilt. In fact my justice is so thorough that I will visit the iniquity of stubborn, unrepentant sinners not only on them but also on their descendants who walk in the ways of their sinful fathers and likewise stubbornly disobey me.

Scripture interprets Scripture

What leads me to that interpretation?

First, one important principle of properly interpreting the Bible is that Scripture interprets Scripture. In other words, the best commentary on any one Scripture is the rest of the Scriptures. The Bible is unified truth that is ultimately from one author—God himself—and he does not contradict himself. His revelation of his will unfolds and develops over time as a story, and within the context of that story he does not contradict himself (that is, God dealt differently with people at different points in the story of redemption).

The principle that Scripture interprets Scripture is a corollary to the other crucial principle of interpreting the Bible, which is that we must read Scripture in context. We interpret a verse within the context of its biblical book, such as in this case Exodus; then within the wider context of all that the human author of the book has written in the Bible, such as in this case all the writings of Moses; then within the context of the Old or New Testament story of redemption, such as in this case the Old Testament; then within the context of the entire Bible, with the New Testament being God’s final revelation of his will and ways.

Two groups: the forgiven and the guilty

So, what does the rest of the Bible teach about forgiveness? As we have already seen, verse 7 itself unmistakably teaches that God forgives sinners and emphasizes that by saying he forgives “iniquity and transgression and sin.” That is, he forgives everything that needs forgiving!

And God repeatedly promises forgiveness of sins under the Old Covenant to those who fulfill its obligations by confessing their sins and offering blood sacrifices at the tabernacle/temple, as taught by Moses in the Book of Leviticus. David writes in Psalm 103:2–3, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity.”

And then of course the New Testament promises forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. At the Last Supper, Jesus offered the cup to the disciples and said, “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).

From beginning to end in the Bible, God forgives the sins of those who confess and repent and put their faith in the shed blood offered in sacrifice, the blood of animals prior to the revelation of Jesus, and then the blood of Jesus after his sacrifice on the cross.

So, when Exodus 34:7 says, “he will by no means clear the guilty,” it cannot possibly mean that he forgives sinners but doesn’t “clear” them. Rather, it must mean that “the guilty” are a different group of people who have not been forgiven of “iniquity and transgression and sin.” They are “guilty” because they have not done what is necessary to be forgiven.

Not clearing the guilty

This interpretation agrees with how the word/phrase “clear the guilty” (these three words translate the one Hebrew word naqah) is used in another Old Testament passage. Nahum 1:3 says, “The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (ESV).

The Old Testament Book of Nahum is a prophecy against the Assyrian capital of Ninevah. God had used the wicked nation of Assyria to punish his people Judah for their long-term disobedience. Assyria had conquered Judah and taken its people into exile. But soon God would deal with idolatrous Assyria differently than those in Judah who remained faithful to him. God would forgive those in Judah who returned to him in repentance, but he would by no means clear the guilty nation of Assyria, for they followed idols and cruelly oppressed other nations.

This contrast between how God would deal with Judah versus how he would deal with Assyria illustrates the meaning of Exodus 34:7—“forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Fallen people presume that God will overlook their sins, and they will escape judgment. They do not think God will really condemn people for even one sin.

God’s way: God is perfectly just. He punishes all sin. We have the choice of whether our sins are punished by the death of Jesus on the Cross or by our eternal condemnation. Those who do not have their guilt removed through the blood of Jesus Christ will not be cleared by God of condemnation.

Life principle: God will be perfectly just with you and your sins. He will either condemn you for your sins or punish Jesus for your sins. Your choice. Repent and follow Jesus and receive forgiveness; or reject Christ, die in your sins, and stand at the Judgment someday to give account for every wrong you have ever committed.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

March 11, 2019March 2, 2019

Forgiving Love

Under what conditions will God forgive your wrongs?

Have you ever had a relationship with someone you care about end because the person was not willing to forgive a wrong? It’s painful. You want the relationship. You reach out and apologize and ask forgiveness, but the person holds on to the grudge, and the relationship dies.

Just think; it could have been that way with God. He could have said, “Sorry, you’ve sinned against me. You’ve ignored me. You’ve disobeyed my commands. I’ve had it with you. I will never forgive you.” And when Judgment Day comes, as it surely will, you could stand before him guilty. He would hold you accountable for every way that you have fallen short of loving him and other people, and you would be condemned forever.

But thankfully, that is not the way it is with God. If we meet his conditions, he is willing to forgive. Psalm 86:5 says, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.”

The prophet Micah asks, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance?” (Micah 7:18) The answer to Micah’s question is, there is no other God who forgives like the Lord. J. K. Grider writes in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology: “No book of religion except the Bible teaches that God completely forgives sin.”

Obstacles to complete forgiveness

That’s why the Bible is good news, why it is gospel. We need complete, not partial, forgiveness. When one person in a relationship wrongs the other, it can harm the relationship in many ways:

1. Emotions: The person who is wronged can feel ongoing resentment, anger, and bitterness.

2. Punishment: The person who is wronged will often want to retaliate, to exact vengeance.

3. Recompense: The person who is wronged may have a legitimate claim that the wrongdoer should make things right by correcting the harm done. If the resident of a college dorm, for example, broke or stole something from a roommate, the offender obviously ought to pay it back.

4. Favor: The person who is wronged not only needs to let go of negative emotions, but also to return to positive feelings of favor and enjoyment of the relationship.

5. Remembrance: People who are wronged need to let go of the desire to remember the wrong. If it comes to mind, they must choose to turn away from the memory. They must refuse to talk about it ever again or to use it against the other as a weapon in arguments.

With all these potential obstacles, it is no wonder that broken relationships do not mend easily. All these factors come into play when we want to mend our relationship with God.

Desperately needed forgiveness

The forgiveness that God offers to us through faith in Jesus Christ extends to all these obstacles and more. For, there is more to fix between God and us than a broken relationship. There is also the matter of divine justice. God, as creator and sustainer of every living thing, and as the owner of the universe, is the righteous judge of every person. He will hold court someday and dispense to every person what they deserve for how they have lived on his earth, based on whether they have followed or ignored his righteous commands. As is obvious by looking into our own souls and looking at the lives of all around us, no one has fully kept these commands (Romans 3:23). Because God’s standard is perfect justice, every person deserves to be condemned (Revelation 20:11–15).

But, because God is love, he has made a way to forgive us. He wants to restore the relationship. He does not want to condemn us. And so, he sent his Son Jesus Christ to the earth to become a man, to live a perfectly righteous life and then to die as a substitute for our sins, thus making a way for us to receive his forgiveness.

“In him [that is, in Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). God made a way to forgive us because he loves us (John 3:16).

Complete forgiveness in Christ

When God—in love—forgives you because of your faith in Jesus Christ, he solves each of the five problems noted above that come with broken relationships and laws:

1. Emotions

Romans 5:1, 8–10 says: “¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. … ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

2. Punishment

Romans 8:1, 31–34 says: “¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…. ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

3. Recompense

Colossians 2:13–14 says: “¹³ And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

4. Favor

Romans 8:31–32 says: “³¹ If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

5. Remembrance

In Isaiah 43:25 God says: “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

Psalm 103:12 says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”

Hebrews 10:14 says: “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”

Ready to forgive, or reluctant?

One sweet truth about God’s forgiveness is that he is not reluctant to forgive. He does not forgive us grudgingly. When we meet his conditions, it is his nature to forgive gladly.

In the verse that I turn to again and again because it is God’s self-definition, we read: “ ⁶ The LORD passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, ⁷ keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:6–7).

(I’ll talk about the last half of verse 7 in my next post, for it seems to cancel the first half of verse 7 and much of what I’ve written in this post.)

Jesus perfectly portrays God’s readiness to forgive in his portrayal of the gracious father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

“¹⁷ But when [the prodigal son] came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! ¹⁸ I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ ²⁰ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. ²¹ And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. ²³ And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. ²⁴ For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:17–24 ESV)

Your Father in heaven is not reluctant to forgive you, but ready, willing, and able through Jesus to joyfully welcome you home.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Pride makes fallen people slow or unwilling to forgive others who wrong them. We may think God is equally unwilling to forgive.

God’s way: Because of his great love, God wants to forgive sinners. Because of his perfect justice, he cannot forgive sinners—unless they come to him through faith in the substitutionary death on the Cross of the Savior Jesus Christ.

Life principle: The condition that God requires you to meet to receive his gladly offered forgiveness is simple but earth-shaking. The apostle Paul summarized it this way: he preached “of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). If you will repent of straying from God and ignoring his commands, and if you will have faith in Jesus Christ and the saving power of his death for you on the cross and the reality of his resurrection from the grave and the authority he has been given as Lord of God’s creation, God will forgive you of every sin you have ever committed—every single sin, no matter how heinous.