Truthful Love

Does God ever deny the truth to maintain a relationship?

Imagine you became an employee of a small startup company whose owner invented a revolutionary medical device for doing blood tests in half the time and expense of any current technology. Your starting salary is more than you ever imagined you could earn, and in less than a year the owner informs you she is so impressed with your work she wants to promote you, double your salary, and give you hundreds of shares of company stock. She also suggests that if you keep up your good work, you could be a vice president in no time.

Your head is spinning. You feel as though you have struck gold.

But a few months later you discover something troubling. Reviewing one of the company’s marketing presentations for use with venture capitalists, you find it contains what appear to be false claims. What should you do? Who is the source of these claims?

You go to the person in charge of the presentation and investigate. “All the data in this presentation came from the top,” says your colleague.

“But I don’t think all of this is true,” you insist.

Your colleague replies, “The owner told me the data is based on information that up till now has been secret.”

For the remainder of the day you ponder what to do. The need for secrecy is a given in this business, but you are being asked to put your approval on a presentation that appears to you to be fraudulent. That’s criminal. On the other hand, there are many things you don’t know about the company. You are not yet in the inner circle. It seems more reasonable to trust the owner because she has information you do not. You don’t want to challenge her information and imply she is lying. In the end, you decide to keep your mouth shut.

To your relief, the marketing presentation eventually goes nowhere with potential investors, and you resume your ambitious work. Within months, the owner promotes you again, and you find yourself now working closely with her. In fact, you have become good friends, eating together often, even hanging out at one another’s homes.

One day she calls you into her office and puts you in charge of making an investment appeal to a huge venture capitalist. She hands you a folder. “Here is the current information to use in your pitch,” she says. You return to your office and get right to work. As you read the documents in the folder, though, to your astonishment you once again find data you know to be false, and this time you have enough firsthand access to know the truth is not hiding behind a wall of secrecy. The owner is lying.

Your path forward is a simple, though painful, one. You believe in telling the truth. You are committed to honesty in business. Although you don’t want to lose your job, income, or friendship with the owner, integrity is more important than this relationship.

The next day you meet with the owner, confront her regarding the facts, and immediately you are fired. You return to your office, pack your belongings, and walk from the building knowing you have done the right thing.

Love must be truthful

Truth can bring people together, and truth can separate them (Matthew 10:34–38). Whenever people do wrong, the truth becomes their enemy (John 3:19–20), and truth-seekers become their enemy (Galatians 4:16). In such a situation, truth becomes divisive, but there is no avoiding this divisiveness if we are to be people of integrity (John 8:31–47).

Satan is a liar and the father of lies. Jesus said there is no truth in him (John 8:44). Lies and evil walk hand in hand. Evil-doing needs lies and depends on deception (2 Timothy 3:13).

God is a truth-seeker, a truth knower, a truth teller. He is light and brings all things sooner or later into the light (1 John 1:5–7; Matthew 10:26). The Lord hates lies (Proverbs 6:16–19). He loves truth (Psalm 15:1–2). He is the truth (John 14:6).

The unavoidable casualty of God’s commitment to truth is some relationships. When Satan fell from his exalted place and became a committed liar, God’s loving relationship with Satan ended. When a host of angels followed Satan and likewise became committed deceivers, God’s relationships with them ended.

When Adam and Eve fell into evil and began their cover-up, God’s relationship with them changed dramatically.

Jesus had to choose between truth and relationships

God’s love for us rests on the foundation of truth. He does not compromise truth to begin or maintain a relationship (for example, see Mark 10:17–23). Anyone who enters into a relationship with God must be willing to hear the truth and follow it (John 6:51–67). Those who stubbornly hold to a lie in order to maintain their evil-doing will eventually find that their relationship with God has ended (1 John 2:3–5), for when there is a necessary choice between truth and a relationship, the God of truth and righteousness will always choose truth (for example, see Matthew 16:21–23).

He is patient and long-suffering in cleansing sinners of their deceiving ways, but there comes a point when that patience ends. God is love, but he is not a liar. So, his love for you will always be a truthful love (1 Corinthians 13:6).

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Fallen sinners need lies and tell lies. They compromise truth in order to maintain relationships they don’t want to lose. They can be loyal to a fault, loyal to the point of believing and supporting lies. They shade and twist the truth in order to please people they love. Postmodernism, which is the prevailing worldview of Western culture, is a belief system riddled with falsehoods, exemplified in phrases such as “your truth,” “everyone has their own truth,” and “follow your heart (even when your heart contradicts moral truths revealed in Scripture).”

God’s way: He cannot lie. He speaks only truth. This harmonizes with his love, for lies destroy. He is not sentimental, not guided by feelings over against truth and righteousness.

Does this mean there is no hope for deceived sinners? No, God, in love for evildoers, found a way to follow truth and still adopt them as his children. He sent his holy Son to die on the Cross to take the punishment that truth and justice require of deceived evildoers. As a result, God in love can uphold truth and forgive sinners. That is, sinners who confess the truth by repenting of their rebellion against him and trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Life principle: Those who love God must love the truth he reveals in Scripture even when it counters falsehoods that our fallen, deceived minds have followed for years. God knew the deceptive power of Satan and the falsehoods that would fill our fallen world and its fallen systems, so he gave a book of inerrant truth. Jesus, who is the Truth, always treated the Scriptures as a fully inspired, word-for-word, revelation of God’s truth. If you are wise, you will follow the example of Jesus, who as the divine Creator knows infinitely more than you do, and infinitely more than the deceived people who shape our confused culture.

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)

October 21, 2019October 11, 2019

Satisfying Love

If you feel empty, unsatisfied, you need to experience the love of God.

Recently my wife and I drove 30 minutes to a forest preserve and took a two-mile walk. The walk lasted through lunchtime, so afterward we decided to get lunch somewhere nearby. I checked the map in my phone, and we selected a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant was small and tucked into a corner of a struggling shopping center. The sign in the window said, “Authentic Mexican food.” By the time we sat down at a table and ordered, we were famished.

I ordered a chicken burrito, and we had guacamole and chips, jalapenos and pickled carrots before the main course arrived. The sign in the window was accurate, for the food was like homemade. Everything was fresh and delicious. My burrito was large, but I ate it all. When we eventually walked out of the restaurant, I felt mucho bueno. That meal literally was a happy meal.

The satisfaction loop

One’s soul goes through repeating cycles of hunger, eating, and satisfaction. The loops can be with food, with work and rest, prayer, intellectual learning, connection with friends and family. In all these areas we know what it’s like to experience deep satisfaction. Your soul says, Ahhhhhhh, that was good. I’m at peace. I’m full.

According to Psalm 63:3, the greatest satisfaction the soul can have comes from experiencing the love of God. It says, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” It appears that the psalmist David was trying to find a comparison to say that God’s love brings ultimate satisfaction. He may have gone in his mind through a list of satisfying things: Your love is better than seeing a beautiful sunset. Your love is better than fresh grilled lamb. Your love is better than being intimate with my wife. Then he realized that experiencing God’s love is better than any of those things. In fact, it’s better than all of them put together. And the best way he could find to say that was, your love is better than life itself.

Full satisfaction in God’s love

God’s love is better than anything in life, than everything in life put together. It’s so great that it’s even better than being alive itself. Which is a paradox, of course, because you can’t experience God’s love without being alive. But just being alive is good and wonderful, when we are in our right mind, not complaining or depressed or afraid or misguided by other bad attitudes. When we are thinking clearly, we realize that just being alive is a great pleasure and gift.

We’ve all heard people who somehow sidestepped death from something like sickness or a car accident, and through that event they came to appreciate every day the gift of life, all by itself. Just being alive is deeply satisfying. So, the psalmist is saying God’s love is even better than that. Knowing God’s love is the most satisfying experience available to the human soul.

A prayer guide for thinking about God’s love

That’s one reason why for nearly a year I’ve been posting articles on that theme. That’s why as I now finish the theme, I plan to give in a forthcoming post a summary outline of the ground we have covered, with Scriptures and declarations you can make in prayer and meditation. So that as you keep calling these truths to mind, your hungry soul can say, Ahhhhhh.

God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Your soul’s greatest satisfaction matches the fundamental nature of God. That’s not a coincidence. It’s one more example that confirms you were created by and for God.

Not you?

You might read this post and feel disappointed, however. You might feel that meditating prayerfully about God’s love doesn’t bring you that much pleasure and satisfaction. My counsel to you is, be patient and ask God to teach you about his love and to reveal it to you (Romans 5:1–5; Ephesians 3:14–19). Some people get hold of this easily, but for a host of reasons others don’t. If you persist in asking and seeking, you will have a dawning of God’s love in your soul and find the satisfaction you cannot have in any created thing.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: The fallen soul seeks ultimate satisfaction in created things, rather than God. Following this course is like a person who is adrift in the middle of the ocean in a lifeboat, desperately thirsty under a burning sun, all fresh water long gone, who finally reaches over the side and drinks salt water, which only exacerbates dehydration and kills the person who drinks it.

God’s way: God made us for himself, for divine love, and the soul is always thirsty and hungry until it learns to feast fully on the love of God.

Life principle: We do not automatically know how to experience God’s love continually. We must learn to love him and learn to comprehend his love.

October 14, 2019October 3, 2019

Cherishing Love

God treasures and nurtures his children.

In this series on God’s love, I’ve written three other posts that address the strength of God’s affection for his people (Affectionate Love, The Intimacy of Absolute Trust, and Romantic Love). Each has a different emphasis. I want to do one more on the theme because it also has a different, encouraging emphasis. This topic is God’s cherishing love. Two Scriptures call attention to it, both using the same Greek word (thalpo), one using the analogy of a person cherishing his own body and the other using the analogy of a nursing mother cherishing her child.

Cherishing our bodies

“No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes [Greek, thalpo] it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:29, ESV).

Consider the many ways you may have cherished your body this week: cooking and eating healthy food, enjoying unhealthy food, sleeping, brushing teeth, showering and washing hands and assorted other cleanup, beautification of hair and face, exercising, assorted doctor visits, buying and caring for clothing, looking in the mirror, cutting nails, applying lotion or sunscreen, taking medicine and vitamins, physical therapy. You may have even gone to a spa.

Yes, we cherish our bodies. We nourish, pamper, comfort, strengthen, heal, and protect them. Jesus cherishes the church, and you a Christian, the way people cherish their bodies.

Cherishing a child

“We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care (Greek, thalpo) of her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7, ESV). Notice that the comparison here is not just to a mother but to a nursing mother, a woman who tenderly holds a baby to her breast and lets the child suck milk from her for hours each day. Nursing mothers sing to their children. They caress and shelter them. They gently nurture and hold them.

To communicate this same idea, Scripture also uses the analogy of a shepherd with sheep. Isaiah 40:11 says, “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”

Psalm 23:1–3 says, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”

Jesus commanded the apostle Peter, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15).

The Book of Revelation describes the cherishing kind of love God will show to those who have suffered on earth for their faith. “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:15–17).

All these Scriptures picture God’s heart toward you.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: A fallen person tries to take advantage of God’s cherishing love. Or we may think of God in either-or categories: always either judging or tender.

God’s way: His love is not indulgent, but he is not just a disciplinarian. He truly cherishes and treasures his children more than any mother cherishes her child or any woman cherishes her body. In a sense, God’s love is a spa for the soul.

Life principle: When your soul yearns for comfort, think long on the cherishing love of God.

October 7, 2019June 15, 2020

Discerning Love

God’s discerning love ensures the most excellent goodness for you.

Recently I overheard my wife Nancy on the phone as she was discussing the first few days of the new school year of one of our grandchildren, who, she said, came home quiet and subdued. “It was a hard week” for the grandchild, she said. That grade level is a big adjustment, she said. Without the child saying anything about it, Nancy showed the ability to discern a child’s heart, to recognize correctly what the child was feeling and thinking. Mothers know when a child needs a nap, needs help, needs a hug.

God is discerning about all things. His love is discerning. Scripture says of Jesus, “He knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:24–25, ESV).

To discern is to detect, to recognize, or to identify as separate and distinct. We exercise discernment when we can taste a particular spice or ingredient in a dish, or when a doctor can diagnose a disease based on symptoms. An investor like Warren Buffett exercises discernment when he buys stock in companies that prove to be valuable. A coder uses discernment when she skillfully uncovers why a website is buggy.

God’s discerning love brings comfort

God’s ability to discern the heart of a man means he knows both the bad and the good, including all a person’s potential in God.

Jesus showed this when he first called Nathanael to be his disciple. Scripture says, “Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’” (John 1:47).

David wrote that God’s discerning love was a comforting thought to him, “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! ² You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. ³ You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. ⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (Psalm 139:1–4).

God’s discernment of your heart enables him to know how to work for your highest good in every situation. He is not an inept parent who constantly misreads his children’s motives or needs. He does not discipline us without real cause. Rather, he resembles the mother of a toddler whose nose knows when the diaper needs changing. He is like a father who recognizes when his son is ready for a challenge, strong enough for his next responsibility.

David saw the benefit of this. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24)

Always in love

Love always seeks the good of another person. The connection between love and discernment is seen in Philippians 1. “It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent” (vv. 9–10).

Notice it is discernment and the knowledge it brings that enables a person to approve what is excellent. God’s discernment enables him to pursue the highest good in you, the excelling good—the excellent. Every day you can look at your life and be assured that God’s work in this situation is excellent.

Moreover, in this world of many sorrows, it is God’s loving discernment that enables him to know what you can bear. Scripture says, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Moreover, through discernment he knows your needs, your real needs, and thus can provide every one. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19) If a true Christian feels that God did not meet his or her need, it was because God knew whether it was a real need in relation to his perfect purpose for the person’s life.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Fallen people think they know better than God what is best for them. A fallen person prefers to walk in the darkness and hide from God’s searching knowledge.

God’s way: The Lord knows you infinitely better than your mother knew you. The expert on you is not you; it is God.

Life principle: You can always trust God to work in your life based on perfect information and understanding.

September 30, 2019July 17, 2021

Covenantal Love

God’s covenantal love is a faithful, committed, loyal, no-messing-around love.

How many covenants are you in? That is, how many relationships are you in that are bound and ordered by a formal covenant?

A business contract is a weak form of covenant. I am bound by two contracts with publishers for books still in print. I have obligations and promises to fulfill under those contracts, and so do the publishers. I am also bound by contract with a rental company for my apartment, involving a host of promises and obligations, with financial repercussions for breaking them.

But beyond business contracts, I have also entered two formal covenants. When I married my wife, we each entered a marriage covenant in the sight of God and under the guidelines of Holy Scripture in which we made vows to each other. God is the witness to our vows, and he holds us responsible if we neglect or break them. A marriage covenant is far more than fine-sounding words in a marriage ceremony. It requires faithfulness.

In covenant with God

Finally, I have also entered a covenant with God. That’s the most serious business of all. Anyone who becomes a follower of Jesus Christ enters the same covenant. Jesus called it the new covenant in his blood. At the Last Supper, Jesus took “the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Luke 22:20 ESV). We are reminded of our covenant each time we receive Communion.

This covenant with God is ordered and bound by promises and obligations. God’s promises are found in the Bible, and you can be sure he will never be unfaithful to them, for he is incapable of breaking his Word. He is the God of perfect truth and faithfulness. He cannot lie; he cannot break faith; he cannot be disloyal.

In Scripture we also find our promises and obligations as followers of Jesus Christ and the repercussions of being unfaithful. Unfortunately, we have not yet been perfected, and so we do fail to keep the covenant completely. Thankfully, we have an advocate and High Priest who mediates for us, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for the forgiveness of our covenant breaking if we will confess and repent of our sins (see 1 John 1:9–2:2).

God’s covenantal love

God makes covenants with people as an expression of his love. Just as a man and woman enter into the marriage covenant as an expression of their loving commitment to one another and their pledge of enduring faithfulness, so God in love pledges himself to us and calls us to pledge ourselves to him. He doesn’t do one-night stands. He doesn’t do no-obligation cohabitation. He doesn’t have partners; he has only covenant partners. It’s his nature. His love is a faithful, committed, loyal, no-messing-around love.

His love is a promise-making love. He delights to obligate himself to people he loves and come through forever. He promised himself in covenant love to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Phinehas, Levi, the nation of Israel, and the followers of Jesus Christ. If you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, you are in the most wonderful, life-giving covenant imaginable, and if you remain faithful it will be your perfect satisfaction, safety, and security forever.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: In our fallen nature we are reluctant to commit to others and prone to breaking the commitments we do make.

God’s way: In love he yearns for covenant relationships and maintains his faithful love forever.

Life principle: The essence of keeping our covenant with God is to believe in him and all his words recorded in Scripture; to trust in Jesus for our salvation; to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

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

September 23, 2019June 8, 2020

Gracious Love

We are the unworthy beneficiaries of a generous-hearted God. We are the recipients of his gracious love.

“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love’” (Exodus 34:6).

God’s love is gracious. Because of his grace, God loves us before we are good, before we are lovely.

Grace means giving to others what they do not deserve or have not earned. Grace is the overflow of God’s infinite love, goodness, and kindness, which is so great that he delights to bless even those who have offended and rejected him.

When God loved us in our sins, it was not as though he was a dog lover who walked by a pet rescue center, saw a cute, sad-eyed puppy in the window, and just couldn’t help himself but had to take that puppy home to the family. No, God’s love for sinners is his overflowing grace that delights to extravagantly love and show immeasurable kindness to those who least deserve it. In his grace, God chose to love people who were an abomination to him. He didn’t feel good about fallen sinners. Far from it.

For example, read the story of how God felt about the people of the world prior to his sending the deluge in Noah’s time: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them’” (Genesis 6:5–7 ESV).

I’m going to give some Scriptures now that may shock you. You may even think I have lost it theologically, but please read to the end so you get my full, balanced explanation, and why it is important to understand and believe what these Scriptures say if we are to understand his love, grace, and gospel. If you don’t read to the end, you will misunderstand me.

Here we go. Notice in Scripture how God feels about both sin and sinners: “There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16–19). Notice that it is not just lies that God abominates; it is also the false witness who speaks them. It is not just discord that God hates; it is also the one who sows it.

As Psalm 5:4–6 says: “You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.”

It sounds shocking to say God “hates evildoers,” but it cannot be otherwise. God is perfectly good, and perfect goodness cannot be indifferent about evil. Perfect goodness must hate and oppose evil. For example, a perfectly good father wants the good of his child and therefore hates any evil that could harm his child.

To use another example, no one would suggest that God could be indifferent toward the evil of Adolf Hitler or the mass shooters who plague American society. If God is perfectly good, he must hate the evil of a sociopath, or any other evil that God recognizes as such but that we often minimize or overlook because we are guilty of these evils or know someone who is guilty. (See Hebrews 1:8–9, in which God says of Jesus, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.”)

You may be thinking, Wait a minute; the Bible says God hates the sin but loves the sinner. That is an appealing saying, but it is not in the Bible. There is certainly a sense that God loves the sinner, but it is emphatically not that he feels good about them. God loves sinners in the sense that he cares about them, wants them to be saved from the guilt of sin, offers his Son Jesus to them as Savior, and for the present time patiently shows undeserved kindness to them in hope that they will repent and become children in whom he delights.

So when God loves sinners, it is an act of grace, not attraction. He gives love and chooses (Exodus 33:19) to have compassion on and show mercy to those who do not deserve it and in fact actually provoke his holy and just wrath and hatred. He gives extravagant love to his enemies (Matthew 5:43–45). In love he gave his beloved Son Jesus for sinners. That was the greatest expression of gracious love in human history (John 3:16–19). Jesus came to express and display the gracious love of God and his choice to show compassion and mercy to sinners (John 1:14–18).

But Jesus loved sinners

Still, this just does not sit right. If God loathes stubborn, proud, unbelieving sinners and regards them as his enemies, why did Jesus in his lifetime not express that? Jesus was the friend of sinners. He hung around tax collectors and showed kindness to prostitutes. He expressed compassion for those in bondage to Satan’s torments.

What’s more, it was the Pharisees—the bad guys of the Gospels—who despised sinners, while Jesus loved sinners and defended them from the Pharisees. And Jesus said he was the perfect reflection of God the Father.

So the idea that God in one sense loathes and—in another, limited sense—graciously loves sinners seems unthinkable.

Understanding the seeming contradiction

Three truths explain the paradox.

1. Jesus introduced a special period when God is offering mercy. In the salvation offered through Jesus, God opened a window of opportunity that will one day shut. In Jesus, God offers his gracious love (hence the topic of this post). God is offering his love to all, to the undeserving, the idol worshipers, the arrogant and rebellious, inviting them to humble themselves, repent, follow Jesus, and be saved. This is the gracious era of salvation, and Jesus offered it during his ministry. For this limited era, Jesus came not to condemn, but to save.

But this is only a season. This is not a permanent state of affairs. This door will close.

The New Testament says: “‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Again, the New Testament says, “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil” (Romans 2:4–9)

The Book of Revelation also makes clear that this period of God’s gracious, loving welcome to sinners will come to an end. When it does, the wrath of God that never left his heart but has been stored up against unrepentant sinners will finally be expressed in a great and terrible judgment. And it will be expressed not just by God the Father, but also by Jesus (see Revelation 6:16; 14:10; 19:11–21). As always, Jesus is perfect theology.

2. Jesus came to be our mediator and high priest. He came to mediate between us and God. Even though in his hatred of evil, God was against us, in gracious love he chose also to be for us (Romans 8:31–32) by sending a mediator who could satisfy his holy wrath, turning it away from us by taking it upon himself at the cross. The cross is the unmistakable evidence that God never lost his hatred of evil and evildoers, but in gracious love chose to save evildoers through the blood of Jesus.

So, Jesus showed kindness rather than hostility to sinners because that was his special role as the Mediator, the High Priest, the Savior, and the Lamb of God. Sinful humans could not come near to God without a mediator and Savior. This merciful, mediating role does not deny God’s wrath toward sinners, but rather emphatically affirms it. There would be no need for a mediating high priest if God felt good about sinners.

3. During his earthly ministry, Jesus actually did display God’s wrath and hostility toward some sinners. These sinners were of course primarily the Pharisees, and Jesus did not treat them warmly because most of them were beyond salvation, for they knew better and had hardened their hearts.

Jesus felt anger toward them: “Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come here.’ And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored” (Mark 3:1–5).

In his words he expressed utter loathing for them: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” (Matthew 23:33) (Read the full-length, scathing declaration of Jesus’ loathing for the Pharisees here: Matthew 23:15–35).

Pharisees were not the only ones toward whom Jesus expressed the wrath of God: “In the temple [Jesus] found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables” (John 2:14–15). That’s not nice, nor is it warm and welcoming, nor is it merciful.

Avoiding the pharisees’ error

As important as the truth of this post is, it can lead to error. Again, it was the error of the Pharisees. They hated sinners, even though they themselves were grievous sinners, blind to their own wickedness. Jesus condemned them for hypocrisy, selfishness, greed, hardness of heart, self-righteousness, injustice, godlessness. They thought they were good enough for God. They imagined they had kept the requirements of the law of Moses and judged others for not keeping it.

Why this is important

The reason this difficult truth is important to believe is it compels us to speak the gospel to lost people and urge them to come to Christ. If we believe God has warm and fuzzy love for everyone regardless of what they do or believe, we easily assume that God will certainly forgive and accept everyone but the most hardened sociopathic killers. It reminds us that apart from Jesus, the people you know and love are lost and facing eternal condemnation. You need to risk offending them by talking to them about the good news of Jesus.

And these truths give the proper warning to non-Christians that all is not well between them and their Creator. In fact, they are living under the shadow of a coming storm worse than any hurricane (Romans 1:18; 2:5, 8). God loves them, but he does not accept them and will certainly judge them if they do not trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We think God loves us because we are lovable, because we are good.

God’s way: God gives you his love based not on your merits or your loveliness but rather based solely on his grace. He gives love you do not deserve.

Life principle: We must respond to God’s gracious love by repenting of breaking God’s commandments, by trusting in Jesus Christ to be our Savior from the guilt of our sins, and by following him from now on as our Lord.

September 9, 2019December 29, 2020

Holy Love

God’s holy love is perfect love that always pursues the highest good of righteousness, truth, and purity in us.

A year ago I got an ugly cold and sinus infection. My nose ran nonstop for days, I was sneezing and had a mild fever, and my body hurt all over. I carried around a paper shopping bag and filled it with used tissues. I was so miserable I didn’t shower for two or three days. I was unclean. When I finally felt well enough to shower, I experienced sweet relief as I washed away the germs, oil, and sweat, holding my face in the spray to let the purifying water keep rushing over the skin that had been a hazardous material zone. When the shower ended, I wasn’t yet fully healed, but I felt like a new man.

God’s love is like that shower. It is a holy love that sanctifies us. “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11, ESV).

God’s holy love

The holy love of God is displayed in the love Jesus has for his church. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25–27 ESV).

Uncleanness literally kills our bodies and souls, so true love cleanses.

God’s love is not an unholy love. An unholy love is selfish, exploitative, fickle, ignorant of what is best for another person. Unholy love seeks only pleasure, not purity. A holy love pursues righteousness in the relationship. God’s holy love seeks a holy relationship, marked by the fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

Models of holy love

God’s holy love is like the love of Jesus for Peter, with an unswerving commitment to truth, the forgiveness of wrongs, a desire to be together, patience and understanding, and the pursuit of Peter’s growth and maturity.

God’s holy love as displayed in Jesus is like the love of Paul for Timothy, marked by testing, challenges and charges, admonishment, and instruction.

On the other hand, we see unholy love in the relationship of King Ahab and Jezebel, marked by manipulation, weakness, a love for evil-doing, and the rejection of the Lord and his ways. We see unholy love in Samson and Delilah, Solomon for his foreign wives, Judas for Jesus.

God’s holy love as displayed in Jesus is like the love of Ruth for her mother-in-law Naomi, marked by a servant’s heart, humility, unselfishness, and commitment.

God’s holy love as displayed in Jesus is like the love of Jonathan and David, marked by righteous loyalty in the face of evil attacks.

God’s promise

God will succeed in his loving purpose of cleansing us entirely. We will someday be perfectly clean and pure, holy in status before God, in nature, and in conduct. God will accomplish this, for we cannot do it by ourselves, though we must cooperate. The great struggle against sin, temptation, and darkness will soon come to an end, and we will be pure people living in a pure world cleansed of all moral filth.

For when Jesus comes again, “He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD” (Malachi 3:2–3).

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Fallen humans want God’s love to be a permissive, indulgent love, to accept us as we are and leave us as we are. We want absolutely unconditional love. We do not want to change and resist becoming clean.

God’s way: He seeks our highest good, so he seeks our purity. Uncleanness corrupts, degrades, and destroys. To leave us in filthiness would not be loving. Holy love always accords with truth and righteousness.

Life principle: The strength of our relationship with God depends on our ongoing pursuit of purity. For, by pursuing holiness we walk in harmony with the holy God.

September 2, 2019August 25, 2019

Saving, Redeeming Love

When you need a savior from harm of any kind, God loves you enough to come to your rescue.

In the Old Testament, what would you say is the defining act of God, apart from Creation? The people of Israel would undoubtedly answer it was when God saved them from the iron-smelting furnace of Egypt. He saved them from slavery to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, who were too strong for them. He redeemed them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, pouring out judgments on the Egyptians and then parting the Red Sea so that Israel could march through on dry ground.

Why did God save them? He explains: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1 ESV). God saves because he loves. His love is a saving, redeeming, rescuing love.

In Psalm 18, David described being in great danger, but then God came on the scene: “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19).

God’s love-inspired rescues are the story line of the entire Bible. God created humans; Adam and Eve fell to sin and Satan; and the rest of the Bible is the story of how God saved our fallen race.

Moreover, salvation is the story told again and again throughout the Bible. God saves Noah and his family from the flood; Abraham and Sarah from Pharaoh; Jacob from Laban; David from Goliath and then from Saul; Hezekiah and Jerusalem from Nebuchadnezzar and his vast army; Israel and Esther from Haman and the annihilation edict of the king; Daniel from the lion’s den; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace; Jehoshaphat from the hordes of Moab, Ammon, and Mount Seir; Jeremiah from the false prophets; Peter from prison; Jesus’s body from the grave. The Lord never tires of this plot. He loves saving people because he loves people.

When God’s Son became a man, the Father named him Jesus, which means “save,” and the angel explained, “[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21 ESV).

When you need a savior

So, what does God’s saving love mean for you? It means he saves you from what threatens to harm you. He is still in the salvation business, large and small.

It’s as natural for God to save as it is for you to breathe. Redemption—a rich biblical word for salvation, emphasizing the idea that God brings good out of bad—is God’s nature, and it’s the nature of love.

If there is some harm that threatens you, whether spiritual, financial, physical, social, relational, or whatever, call out to God. As David prayed, “Save me in your steadfast love!” (Psalm 31:16 ESV).

Our way and God’s way

Our way: In pride, fallen people don’t want God’s help. We want to save ourselves through our own goodness and skill.

God’s way: In love, he saves those who are poor in spirit, who are humble enough to admit their need and ask for help.

Life principle: In all things, the Lord is your salvation from harm.

August 26, 2019August 16, 2019

Love That Serves

Love serves. Though God is exalted, he actually serves us.

God’s love for us leads him to do many surprising things, and perhaps the most surprising is his choice to serve us. We normally think that it is we who serve God, not God who serves us. It even sounds wrong to say the great, exalted God serves us. But in fact it is God who to an infinitely greater degree serves us because of his love for us.

He truly humbles himself to serve us. For example, changing diapers is not prestigious work, yet parents—because of love—do for their infant children what they would not lower themselves to do for others. They humble themselves and serve them.

Love serves.

Because God loves us, he serves us, not just now and then, but continually, for we continually, unceasingly need his support, for we are completely dependent on him for life, breath, and everything else—at all times. At no time are we self-sustaining. So God in love, in humility, serves us, like a restaurant server waits tables, like a nurse cares for patients.

Love serves

Jesus, who is the perfect reflection of God, made a point of this:

“¹ Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ² During supper…³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, ⁴ rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. ⁵ Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him” (John 13:1–5, ESV).

Notice it says, “He loved them to the end.” It was love that moved Jesus to serve the twelve—even the man he knew would betray him—and it is love that moves him to lower himself and serve you, for to wash feet one must stoop.

God’s love keeps on serving

This was not a one-time aberration. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). Everything Jesus did for us during his earthly ministry was an act of servanthood. He gave his life for others, for you.

Moreover, he is not finished. Teaching about his Second Coming, Jesus said, “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37). So, even when Jesus comes as the unmistakable King in power and glory, he will change his clothes, direct everyone to find a seat at the banquet table, and serve them dinner.

Why does he do this? This is not the way kings act. But it is the way God acts. He humbles himself to serve the people he loves. How can we resist loving a God like this?

Letting God serve you

Even so, it doesn’t feel right to have someone as great as Jesus serve you. Peter felt it when Jesus came to wash his feet. Lapsing into another of his “I need to straighten out Jesus” moods, Peter told him, “You shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

Peter wisely reverted course: “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We may regard serving others in humble ways as demeaning.

God’s way: The Lord shows his humble love by stooping to serve us.

Life principle: To receive God’s humble love actually takes humility, for it requires that we acknowledge how much we need him. God’s humble servanthood teaches us to serve him in return, and to serve others. To be a servant is to imitate God.

Love must be truthful

Jesus had to choose between truth and relationships

Our way and God’s way

The satisfaction loop

Full satisfaction in God’s love

A prayer guide for thinking about God’s love

Not you?

Our way and God’s way

Cherishing our bodies

Cherishing a child

Our way and God’s way

God’s discerning love brings comfort

Always in love

Our way and God’s way

In covenant with God

God’s covenantal love

Our way and God’s way

But Jesus loved sinners

Understanding the seeming contradiction

Avoiding the pharisees’ error

Why this is important

Our way and God’s way

Books I’ve been reading

Website I value

Favorite three posts since my last letter

God’s holy love

Models of holy love

God’s promise

Our way and God’s way

When you need a savior

Our way and God’s way

Love serves

God’s love keeps on serving

Letting God serve you

Our way and God’s way