Healing Love

God’s healing love delights to take action now to fix what is wrong in our lives.

I know someone with a serious medical problem who desperately wants to be healed. She is trying everything the medical profession can offer. Unfortunately, she believes that prayer may offer emotional support but no real help for her physical condition. Prayer is sweet but not powerful and effective (James 5:16).

Do you believe that God loves you in a way that includes not only sympathy and good intentions but also compassionate action, even supernatural action when necessary? Do you believe God loves you in a way that can change your situation and meet your need now?

God’s healing love here and now

This was the question when Jesus spoke with a grieving woman whose brother had died days before. He was already buried in a tomb. Yet when Jesus met her, he spoke an astonishing promise: “Your brother will rise again” (John 11:23).

The woman, named Martha, responded cautiously: “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24).

She believed that God could fix the problem in the future when God restores all things and inaugurates the eternal kingdom. But she was not at that point able to believe that Jesus meant to say in that moment he was able and willing to raise the already decomposing body of her brother Lazarus from the dead.

Yet that was precisely what Jesus intended. For he then said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26)

Jesus said, “I am the resurrection” not “I will someday be the resurrection” (though that is also of course true). He wanted Mary to know that his love included the current and immediate fixing of problems. His love is a healing love now, a saving love now, a delivering love now, a restoring love now. Jesus’ love is the answer for our needs here and now.

It is one thing to believe he is able to heal us. It is another to believe he is willing to heal us. It is another still to believe he can heal us now.

Jesus continually expressed God’s healing love

Jesus made that clear years earlier at the beginning of his public ministry. He went to the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth on the Sabbath, and when it was time to read Scripture, “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:17–19)

Emotional support is good; healing is better. Jesus healed people everywhere he went, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the crippled, the dead. He delivered people from demons. His mission was search and rescue.

“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” (Matthew 14:14)

“Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.’” (Mat 15:32) And Jesus proceeded to perform the miracle of feeding thousands of people from seven loaves of bread and a few fish.

On another occasion, meeting two blind men, “Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him” (Mat 20:34).

And so it is now. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8).

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We may believe in a small God who loves us but can’t or won’t do anything in the here and now to change our needy situations.

God’s way: He has the love of a big God who is able and willing to rescue us in our lifetime from whatever is broken in us. The timing is his, and the answer may require our patience, but he invites us to pray and believe for immediate answers.

January 7, 2019December 20, 2018

Inseparable Love

You cannot be separated from God’s love if you sincerely love him.

Separable

A few years ago my wife Nancy was sitting in our Sunday morning worship service when she glanced at her left hand and then did a double-take. The diamond on her wedding band was gone. She had a mild panic and began looking around, on her lap, the adjacent chair, the floor—no diamond. She began crying. When we got home, she searched our apartment. No diamond.

We never did find it and were deeply disappointed.

This is a picture of life. We lose things we love. We lose people we love. And the more that happens, and the more painful the losses, the easier it becomes to fear losing what we now have and love.

I will never forget the sudden emptiness in my soul when at age 18 I moved away to college three-months early, on Memorial Day weekend, in order to train with the gymnastics team for the summer. The house I moved into was virtually empty except for one or two other students because most everyone went home for the holiday weekend. I experienced homesickness for the first time, and the sense of pain and loss was sudden, acute, and took me completely by surprise. It really hurt.

Far greater still was the painful surprise 15 years later when my mother and father were in a car accident, and my mother died a few days afterward at age 62. That was the first time I experienced the death of an immediate family member, and it was a shock to my emotions. I grieved for months. I felt pain I had never felt before. At the funeral I remember vividly how difficult it was to believe that she was now separated from me in a way I could not overcome. I could not talk to her or be with her. We were truly separated, at least until we are reunited in heaven. This was not like going away to college and feeling homesick, for then I could write letters to my family, talk on the phone, and go home if I really wanted to go home. No, when my mother died, we were truly separated.

God’s inseparable love

These memories of loss and separation help me appreciate fully one more quality of God’s love. The Lord promises that if we will sincerely follow Jesus, nothing we experience can separate us from his love. Nothing.

In Romans 8, which many people regard as the greatest chapter in the Bible, Paul describes all the ways that God has graciously expressed his love and goodness toward us in Christ. Then he turns to the opposition that Christians face. In the Roman world at that time, following Christ could bring violent, government-sanctioned persecution. What’s more, serving Christ to spread the gospel, as Paul did, meant great hardship. In the face of all these troubles, did Paul feel as though he had somehow lost God’s love?

Far from it. Rather, he writes:

“³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ 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 8:35–39)

Nothing

Paul was not writing in rhetorical metaphors when he spoke of tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and sword. He had experienced each of these threats firsthand except for the sword—that would come later. But he was certain that none of these things could rob him of God’s love. Neither could death. Neither could supernatural beings like angels or demons or mighty spiritual powers in heavenly places. Neither could any other created thing that any person can face in any place, at any time then or now. They cannot separate us from God’s love. We can separate ourselves from God’s saving love, as Judas did, but nothing outside of us can do that to us.

Tenacious

So, we do not have to fear losing God’s love. His love for you is like the love Ruth pledged to her mother-in-law Naomi, only greater. When Naomi urged Ruth, now a widow, a Gentile, a Moabite, to return home to her family and people, Ruth responded: “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:16–17).

Ruth’s love was humanly tenacious. With none of the weaknesses of fallen humans, God’s love is divinely, perfectly tenacious. He promises to stand by you. You can count on it. No created thing can separate you from the Almighty Creator’s love.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 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 10:27–29)

So, fear not; God’s love for you is far stronger and more tenacious than your love for him.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We may stop loving others. We may run out of love. Due to our own fault, we may fall out with others; divorce others. Our love can be fickle and self-centered.

God’s way: God’s love is tenacious. His love never ends for those who sincerely love him. His love does finally come to an end for those who persist in rejecting him.

December 31, 2018November 4, 2019

God’s Universal Kindness

No matter how painful our lives are or have been, we all have tasted enough of the kindness of God to love him and worship him forever.

In Kindness God Sends Rain on the Just and the Unjust

I was speaking with a relative recently who has lived long and experienced much hardship, suffering, and loss. In such seasons she has repeatedly experienced help from other people that enabled her to survive and cope. She has never forgotten the kindnesses people have shown in her times of need, and she lives to do the same for others. She said, “The human virtue that I value most is kindness.”

She is not the only one.

It is kindness, God’s kindness, that draws us to him.

God sends rain on the just and the unjust

God is both benevolent, as we saw in my previous post, and beneficent. These words do not have the same meaning.

Webster’s dictionary defines beneficent as “doing or producing good” especially in the sense of “performing acts of kindness and charity.” Last week we looked at God’s goodwill, which is an attitude; today we look at his good actions.

Acts 17:25 says God “himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

Psalm 145:9, 15, 16 says, “The LORD is good to all, and hismercy is over all that he has made…. The eyes of all look to you, and you givethem their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire ofevery living thing.”

Jesus said that our Father in heaven “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

God does good things for everyone, even those who reject him and do extreme evil. He shows universal kindness.

For example, our five senses

God gives not only sunshine and rain to all kinds of people, even to those who do not return his love as they should, but also such wonderful gifts as the five human senses: eyesight to look upon the beauties that fill the earth; hearing, which enables us to communicate with others and enjoy music; smell, which enables us to taste food (thanks be to God!) and enjoy the fragrances of flowers and nature; taste; and touch (imagine going through daily life with a body that could not sense touch, as though you received a 24/7, full-body novocaine shot).

Any one of these senses is a treasure by itself. All come from the God of universal kindness, not from evolution, not “mother nature,” not from chance, but from the deliberate design of the God who controls all things in your life even before you are born. If you have any physical senses, you should thank not your parents or your chromosomes, but your beneficent God. They are just one example of his kindness.

Entitled

One indicator of just how great is God’s universal kindness is how much people take their blessings for granted and either neglect to thank God or deny that he is the source of every good. God’s universal kindness is so great that people think that they deserve a life filled with good things. They think the world just ought to be filled with sunshine, rain, fertile soil, food of innumerable varieties, people, natural resources in the ground, blue sky and livable temperatures, green grass, beautiful and fruitful trees, flowers, birds, edible vegetables, animals, fish, clean water, music—to name just a few of our God’s universal kindnesses.

If we go to Mars or any other planet, we see that such a profusion of goodness is not automatic.

Obviously, not every person enjoys every kindness. In our fallen world, which groans under the consequences of sin, life in this world can be cruel, and people can suffer great harm, deprivation, and handicap. But even in those circumstances, there is goodness and mercy from God. There is the gift of existence as a conscious, living being, of this earthly life, and the offer of eternal life through God’s gift of Jesus Christ.

God’s love is beneficent, marked by universal kindness expressed to every person. It is an expression of his grace, his unmerited favor. And it also has a purpose: “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4).

God’s wallet

I read one author who said he always carries a one-hundred-dollar bill in his wallet reserved for one purpose. He gives it away as God leads.

Likewise, God has an infinite number of one-hundred-dollar bills in his wallet, and he’s giving them all away, daily, over and over again, to every person in the world. He enjoys it. His beneficence is the tangible expression of his benevolence. His universal kindness is the concrete outworking of his goodwill.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: To feel that God owes us more.

God’s way: To lavish kindness on all.

December 24, 2018July 17, 2021

Benevolent Love

No matter what happens in your life, you can always trust God to bring you the highest possible good from it.

Let’s meditate on one of the sweetest of all truths about God’s love: His constant, capable, and inexhaustible benevolence.

That benevolence is summed up in one of the most quoted verses in the Bible: “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28, ESV). Another translation says, “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God” (NAU).

The Old Testament expression of that idea is: “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

Or, “‘I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11, NAU).

Or, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6).

Or, “Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant!” (Psalm 35:27).

These are just a few of the verses that express the meaning of the long Latin word benevolence, which comes from two Latin words: bene, which means well, coupled with volantem, which is a form of the word for wish. So it means well-wishing, goodwill. The Lord wills what is good for you. A wonderful truth like this deserves a big word like benevolence. God’s capable, constant, and inexhaustible desire for you is for good to come to you.

God’s benevolence is capable

By the word capable I mean that he is able to pull it off. He can make good happen—really, really, really make it happen. No one is more capable of producing good than God. He doesn’t just wish good for us but lack the power to bring it about, like an agonized father sitting in the bleachers watching his daughter perform in a high school gymnastics meet. God showed what he can do in Genesis 1, “and it was good.” He showed his power to bring good when he made Joseph vice pharaoh of Egypt, Ruth the wife of Boaz, Solomon king of Israel, Mary the mother of Jesus, Abraham the father of all who believe, and Mary Magdalene the first to see the risen Christ. God has all the skill, power, authority, desire, and wisdom necessary to bring maximum good—indeed, infinite good—to his children.

And because he loves us, that’s what he’s doing, today and always, even when we don’t recognize it as good because in this fallen world all followers of Christ suffer. We’ll recognize God’s goodwill fully when we get to the New Creation and receive our rewards.

God’s benevolence is constant

God’s benevolence is also constant, unceasing, without interruption. Yesterday, out of the 86,400 seconds in your day, there was not one second when God wavered in his goodwill toward you, when he felt ill-will, not one heartbeat. Over the course of 2018, out of the roughly 31,536,000 seconds in your year, there will not have been one, split second when God had ill-will toward you, not one blink of the eye. His goodwill is constant, unceasing, without interruption, like water over Niagara Falls.

I look into my own heart and think about my benevolence toward my sons. Even though my heart is fallen and selfish, I can say there has not been one moment when my goodwill toward them wavered, when I wanted something bad to happen to them—and I am but a weak and sinful human. If a human father is like that, think of God’s constant benevolence.

God’s benevolence is inexhaustible

Even Niagara Falls can someday run dry. It is subject to earth’s ever-changing climate and topography. But God does not change. He is love and will always be love. He is good, he does care for us, and he will always be so. Even the oceans could eventually be emptied of their 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water, but you cannot empty God of his benevolence. His goodwill literally has no limit. Take out 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of benevolence from the heart of God, and there would still be 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of benevolence remaining.

For all eternity we will keep drinking from the sweet fountain of his benevolence, and it will never lose its pleasures.

Benevolent love

Earlier this year I played a game of Chutes and Ladders with my grandson Charlie, who at the time was 4-years-old. Chutes and Ladders is a board game in which you roll dice and move your marker along a path toward a goal. The first player to reach the goal wins. Simple, except that you can land on squares that put you on a ladder that advances you forward several levels and you can also land on squares sending you down a chute that sets you back several layers. You can also land on squares that give you a card that helps or hurts you.

Of course Charlie wanted to win. I also wanted Charlie to win. There was not one bone in my body that wanted Charlie to lose that game, and there was no way he was going to lose that game because no matter what Charlie rolled, with my help things turned out well for him. And no matter what I rolled, I made sure that in the end the grandson I love won the game and had a fun time.

In the same way, no matter what numbers you roll in life, God is making sure that you win in the end.

“We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

That’s benevolent love.

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

December 17, 2018March 20, 2020

Unwavering Love

Do you ever feel as though God’s love for you fluctuates based on your conduct?

Christians need to live with the assurance that God loves us. Our soul needs this in order to have peace, joy, and security.

One obstacle we face when trying to live with the assurance of God’s love is our daily failures. When we fall short of God’s perfect will, when we are carnal and worldly, when we fail to love God with all our heart, soul, and strength, when we are selfish, we feel less worthy of love. We feel God must therefore love us less.

God’s love and our sin

The battering ram that breaks that obstacle into teeny pieces is this truth: God loved you first, before you ever loved him or wanted him, while you were still a wayward, rebellious sinner at your worst. God does not restrict his massive love to holy people; he also loves sinners—even Christian sinners. He is always calling Christian sinners to repentance and holiness, but he loves them even before they get things right.

This love should not make us complacent in our sin, for that would be to trample underfoot the Son of God and insult the Spirit of grace (see Hebrews 10:29). But the knowledge of God’s love should draw us back to him, giving the assurance that he wants us.

Romans 5:6–10 teaches this:

^“6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 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.”

The point of these verses is that God loved us before we were worthy of love, before we were justified (v. 9), before we were reconciled to him (v. 10), while we were his enemies (v. 10). This proves that his love does not depend on our perfection.

God’s love and wrath

Verse 9 draws an inescapable conclusion. If we are a Christian, if we have been justified by his bloody death, then we are saved, saved from our sins, and thus saved from the status of being God’s enemies, and thus—this is all-important—we are also saved by Jesus from the wrath of God. A Christian does not live under the wrath of God, as God’s enemies do. Jesus has removed God’s wrath from us, at the cross, with his blood.

If you are a Christian, God’s wrath against you is history, in the sense that, now if you commit a more serious sin, incurring his displeasure and even righteous anger, he does not come to you bringing condemnation (Romans 8:1), but rather fatherly discipline (Hebrews 12:5–13; Revelation 3:19). He is still your judge (1 Peter 1:17), but he now judges you as a member of his household (1 Peter 4:17). He now judges you not vengefully as your enemy but redemptively as your Savior (1 Corinthians 5:1–5, especially v. 5).

Now, for the true Christian, we experience God’s faithful, covenant love. Jesus is alive, beloved of God the Father, and we are in Christ, and thus we are also beloved of God the Father. His is not a soft love, or a love that indulges our sins. As we will see in future posts, it is a strong, fatherly love that rebukes and disciplines as necessary, that judges as necessary, that never compromises the truth. But it is still the love of your Father who accepts you in Christ as you repent daily of rebellion.

So, Christian, did you have a bad day yesterday in which you failed God? Or a bad week or month? The one thing you should not do is assume God no longer loves you with infinite, faithful, covenant love and as a result doubt your relationship with him, grow discouraged, and stray even further. Talk to your Father and make things right. Ask for his help in overcoming sin, for he never expects you to overcome sin on your own. Ask mature Christians and pastors to help you.

God’s love and comfortable sinners

Have you had a bad year or two, following the ways of our sinful world consistently? You should not doubt that God loves you, but you should question whether you are a true Christian. A true follower of Jesus cannot go on sinning and sinning in a major way without deep distress and a tormented conscience. See 1 John, especially chapter 3. God loves you and calls you to repent, or condemnation likely awaits you. Presently you are deceiving yourself. If you are living comfortably in sin, you almost certainly are not a child of God, not justified by the blood, not reconciled to God, but rather still God’s enemy—whom he loves and for whom he gave his Son. (Again, read 1 John carefully.)

God loves his enemies before they love him back. If you are comfortable in sin (such as those listed in Romans 1:18–32; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Galatians 5:19–21; 2 Timothy 3:1–5), God loves even you, but give him the sincere repentance he requires and save yourself while there is yet time.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We feel God’s love fluctuates based on our conduct.

God’s way: God’s love for his true children is unwavering.

December 10, 2018November 4, 2019

How to Experience God’s Love

God pours his love into the heart of every Christian through the Holy Spirit, but we may need to learn how to perceive it.

How do we experience God’s love?

In our relationships with people, we experience love through what they say and do. When someone says, “I love you,” those words do something; they are powerful.

But people also communicate love powerfully in a way beyond words and physical expressions like hugs and kisses. We can feel a person’s loving spirit, warmth, goodwill, and enjoyment in our relationship.

Likewise God tells us, “I love you,” but he also communicates his love in spirit. Romans 5:5 says:
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

The implications of this verse are many.

God’s love in our hearts

You can experience the love of God in a way that transcends words and thoughts about God’s love. The verse doesn’t specify whether we are experiencing God’s love for us or an infusion of love into our hearts toward others. Probably both. A Christian may not be able to point to overwhelming experiences of feeling loved by God, but since becoming a Christian he or she may feel more abundant love for other people and relate to others far more often in the way described in 1 Corinthians 13. That could be what Paul describes as God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
The experience of God’s love can be abundant. God’s love is “poured into our hearts,” not dripped into our hearts. The experience of God’s love is described in liquid terms with the analogy of water pouring from a pitcher.
However, the experience of God’s love comes from the Holy Spirit, so a person is making this known. This is more than the experience of a shower in impersonal water.
God’s love is revealed in “our hearts.” We feel it. If we don’t feel God’s love for us and in us for others, it may be that our mind is getting in the way, that we are thinking wrong thoughts leading to wrong feelings, because at the level of human spirit united with God’s Spirit his love has been manifested.
This experience is spiritual, supernatural, divine, not just emotional, for it comes through the Holy Spirit. He gives the experience spiritual substance and reality. It is not just an idea. You don’t imagine it or work it up; rather, you perceive what he is communicating.
If we don’t feel we have experienced this, we should ask God to teach us to discern and recognize this love. Make it an ongoing prayer until you can say with assurance, “The love of God has been poured into my heart. I feel God’s love for me. I feel God’s love for others.”
If we continue to feel that we have not experienced the outpouring of God’s love in our hearts, we should also ask God to teach us to discern and recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. According to this verse, we should be able to discern his presence. If you believe in Jesus Christ and follow him as a true disciple, you are not just you. Another person lives in you and is one with you, a divine person, the Holy Spirit. Pray that he will teach you to discern his anointing in you, and patiently pay attention to your soul. In a few weeks, months, or perhaps years, you should become aware of God’s movements within.
The experience of God’s love prevents disappointment and shame. It makes suffering and endurance worthwhile.
The verse doesn’t say anything about this love leaving our hearts. God’s love is there, just as surely as he is there. But we may need to clean away the clutter and dirt that accumulate within and hide God’s love. So, if we quiet our own thoughts that will at times be fleshly and worldly, if we forgive every grudge we hold against anyone, if we repent of all known sin, if we surrender our lives fully to God and die to self, if we consider who Jesus is and what he has done for us, and if we turn our hearts in worship and thanksgiving to God and wait patiently on him, we will likely find the love of God radiating in our hearts.

A few decades ago, Michelangelo’s masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was restored. He originally did the painting in the early 1500s, and over the centuries the soot of candle smoke, wax, and air pollution had accumulated on it, darkening and hiding its colors. Although the masterpiece was still there, it had lost its colorful luster. So, the church brought in specialists in art restoration to put up scaffolding, climb to the ceiling, and painstakingly remove the layer of grime. What they found beneath the dirt startled them: bright, vivid colors not seen there in generations. The restorers didn’t normally add color; instead they needed to remove what was hiding the painting’s true colors.

(Check it out here.)

December 3, 2018February 28, 2020

God’s Merciful Love

God’s love for sinners is so great that he can feel both wrath and love toward the same person. How great, then, is his love for his children who have turned to Jesus in faith!

Ephesians 2:1–7 provides another crucial revelation that will deepen your understanding of the love of God and how it differs from our love.

God’s love for sinners precedes their salvation

First, in verses 1–3, notice our wretched, unlovable state before we find life in Jesus:

“¹ And you were dead in the trespasses and sins ² in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— ³ among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Before we become a Christian, we are dead in sin. We follow the sinful ways of the world. In doing so, we follow Satan (most of us unwittingly). We disobey God’s commands. We follow sinful desires arising from our flesh and mind. As a result, we are “children of wrath,” that is, we are the objects of God’s righteous wrath. God, the Holy One, is burning with furious anger toward those who do evil. That is important to see because it sets the stage for the wonder of his love.

God’s love for sinners overflows in mercy and grace

Next, in verses 4–5, notice how God responds to the people who arouse his wrath.

“⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4–5)

Here is the wonder. God does not give us what we deserve—if we turn to Christ. Instead he shows mercy. Verse 4 says he is “rich in mercy.” He is richer in mercy than Jeff Bezos is rich in money and stock, infinitely richer.

And he shows this mercy “because of the great love with which he loved us” (v. 4). His mercy is an aspect of his love. God’s love is a merciful love. Because he loved us, he decided to show mercy to us, to help us in our need, to rescue us from the wretched, evil condition we were in.

So, God has “great love” (v. 4) for sinners. God’s love for sinners is greater than the greatest love you or any human has ever felt. God’s love is infinite, even for sinners, even for his enemies who make him angry, even for those who despise God and choose what he despises.

John 3:16–17 offers the proof of this love: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

God had this great, sacrificial love for us when we were still unlovable. That means God also loves Christians greatly, despite their unloveliness, despite their ongoing sins. His love arises from his own character, not ours. He loves us first, before we have any love for him.

God loves the unlovable with the compassion of a good person who does not want others—even evil persons—to suffer and die. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is…not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Ezekiel 18:32 says, “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD.”

So, God’s love is merciful, God’s love is great, and God’s love is gracious. “By grace you have been saved” (v. 5). God gives sinners what they do not deserve, offering Jesus to them as the only way to be saved and forgiven. God gives Christians what they do not deserve, so great is his love. His grace arises from himself, from his loving character.

God’s love for sinners made righteous will bring never-ending kindness

Finally, notice what the future holds for those who receive God’s love by believing in Jesus:

“ ⁶ and [God] raised us up with [Jesus] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:6–7)

God saved us “so that” he could forevermore show us “kindness.” God is so loving that he intends to pile kindness after kindness on us through Christ. Saving us is not the end of the love story; rather, it is only the beginning. Once again we will experience “immeasurable riches,” this time riches of grace. We are going to be treated like kings, like VIPs, like favorite sons and daughters, forever, not because we earned it but because God is love. It is his nature to give. He enjoys being kind, in an immeasurable sort of way, just as he enjoyed make a universe so big we can’t imagine it, and he enjoyed making life on earth more profuse than helicopter seeds on a Maple tree.

Get ready for it. It’s going to be overwhelming, forever. Kindness upon kindness upon kindness upon kindness, all through Christ, all from love. God is the great Lover, from whom come immeasurable riches of mercy, grace, and kindness. Love is who he is and what he does and what he wants.

If you are living for anything other than God, get over it, for you have your sight set on what is not worthy. This love of God is the great prize of life.

Our love and God’s love

Our love: We love our friends, those we like, those who do kind things for us. But even in our love for them, we usually have limits.

God’s love: He richly loves all, even his enemies, even those who are wicked and ungrateful. And his love is inexhaustible. He loves because it is who he is and what he delights in.

November 26, 2018November 9, 2018

Massive Love

Christ’s love is always greater than we can grasp, and it brings us into the fullness of God.

Today we begin a new theme. I choose this theme because, like the previous theme of holiness, it plays a major role in enabling us to know God rightly. The theme is God’s love. We see the significance of this theme for knowing God in Ephesians 3:16–19, where the apostle Paul prays for his readers

“that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Are you interested?

Christ’s Love

Notice the progression in these verses:

1. God strengthens you with power through his Spirit in your inner being.

This is not automatic; we don’t experience the full measure of God’s power simply because we believe in Jesus. So, Paul prays it will happen (Eph. 3:14–16).

2. As a result of the Spirit dwelling abundantly in you, Christ dwells in your heart through faith.

The power of the Spirit enables faith in Christ. The power of the Spirit brings the actual indwelling presence of Christ into your heart. (v. 17)

3. As a result, you are rooted and grounded in love, because God is love and God is now indwelling you through the Holy Spirit. (v. 17)

At the most fundamental level of your soul, God is powerfully there. And so love is abundantly there, and you are planted in that love like a tree with roots deep in rich soil; and you are built on that love like a building whose foundation rests on bedrock.

4. As a result, you have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth (v. 18).

God’s love in you gives you the strength to comprehend. Love equips you to understand. Love enables you to know. So love puts eyes in your head. And what God’s love strengthens you to comprehend is big. It’s broad, long, high, and deep, like the ocean. Like the expanse of outer space with its one hundred billion galaxies each burning with a hundred billion stars, an observable universe 93 billion light years across. When God’s love fills your heart, it is as though a powerful telescope, like the Hubble, enters your soul and you are able to see far and wide into great spiritual truths that you never could see before.

5. As a result, you are able to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

The love of Christ is so great that it surpasses any person’s ability to fully know it. Think of a scientist who devotes her fifty-year professional career to mapping out something as complex as the subatomic world, trying to understand what atoms are made of, in a mysterious world that turns the normal laws of physics inside out. After a lifetime of study, growth, and breakthroughs, she knows there is still so much of that mysterious world she does not know.

So it is with the love of Christ. We know his love, but only partially—so great is its length, breadth, height, and depth. That he, God’s Son, fully God in awesome holiness, would become a man, and live in this evil world, and offer himself to his Father to suffer and be tortured at the hands of evil men, and bear on his soul all our evils, and suffer for them—this is love incomprehensible. We can know it, but we can’t know it. We can revel in it yet never exhaust it.

That he would live to intercede for us now continually before the Father as our High Priest. This is love infinite in length, breadth, height, and depth. You are not on your own. You have a Redeemer who intercedes for you in love.

That he would rule the circumstances of your life in meticulous detail, with perfect timing in every occurrence, for his highest purpose. This is love infinite in length, breadth, height, and depth. For you.

6. Finally, as a result, you are filled with all the fullness of God.

Knowing the love of Christ to any degree is the ultimate. It is like a mountain climber who scales Mt. Everest and looks out upon the shining world from its peak. Only we never can truly reach the peak of knowing Christ’s love. The nature of God is such, and he has designed us such that love is the ultimate. No matter how full you feel as you meditate on all the various qualities of God, nothing will give you greater fullness than knowing his love. Nothing will give you greater joy, peace, hope, satisfaction, significance, and security.

And however much you are able to grasp this love and rejoice in it, remember that you are still only seeing a small fraction of how great it actually is. He still loves you way more than you know. Christ’s love is like an iceberg. You see some of it above the water, but there is way more under the water that you do not see. Always there is more. Meditate on that, and be full.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: Our love is limited and small, and we think Christ’s love is like ours. We think Christ loves us only to the extent that we can imagine or feel.

God’s way: Christ’s love is always greater than we can grasp.

December 4, 2017November 18, 2019

Ultimate Experience: The Unmanageable God

Knowing God is the ultimate experience because he is beyond control.

Relationships

Relationships are interesting because people are interesting, and one reason people are interesting is they are not puppets. People are a wonder to explore and a challenge to know because we each have our own mind and will.

And because of that, relationships are dynamic, fluid, ever changing, like Chicago weather. Being a weatherman in Chicago is interesting; in San Diego, boring.

God has his own mind and will, and so he is anything but boring to relate to.

If you want a God you can control, master, limit to formulas, put in a box, and have all figured out, you’ll need to make yourself an idol. People make idols so they have some measure of control. We come to idols because we want some higher power who will do what we want. Idols are manageable deities.

The true God is not manageable.

People have written books about How to Manage Your Boss. That’s an interesting turnaround, and it’s something every employee would like to do. How sweet it would be to control the supervisor who controls you.

But you can’t do that with God. Forget about writing the book How to Manage God. It can’t be done.

Few would dare put that into words, but that is what we all try to do. We want to control our lives, and therefore we need to control God. We know he is superior to us, but we need to manage him if we are to have the life we want. So we set the agenda and schedule for how he works in our lives and see if we can persuade him to go along.

But the true God is way beyond us.

He is “the blessed and only Sovereign” (1 Tim. 6:15). He “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth” (Psalm 135:6).

The world is his kingdom, not mine.

If that were the end of the story, we might not be happy.

God’s open-door policy

But there is more. For God invites us into a relationship where our desires matter immensely to him.

Though he is sovereign, he invites us to present our requests to him. He is a good Father who loves to give his children what they ask if it is in their welfare.

God is sovereign and holy, which is wonderful; he is also loving, fully open to our entreaties, good, kind, generous, gracious, relational, and completely approachable through faith in our perfect mediator Jesus Christ.

Put that all together, and you know he is both almighty and trustworthy.

Knowing him is never boring. Never shallow.

What it is to mountain climbers to scale Mount Everest is just a hint of the majestic experience that awaits us as we walk with God.