Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Basic Truths about God’s Love

…and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”  And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” Acts 9:4-6
Yesterday we considered how Hosea’s love for Gomer is a great example of God’s love for us.  God told Hosea to take a wife that is a Harlot – someone who would surely be unfaithful to him. Why would God actually tell someone to do that?  He did it to make an example for Israel and for all to see of His love and mercy for His children.  At the time, Israel had turned their backs on God and were engaging in all kinds of sin.  God wanted to get their attention.  Hosea would literally show Israel her sin by taking a prostitute for a wife, whom he would consistently show grace and mercy to, exactly as God showed Israel and as He shows us.

Basic Truths about God’s Love
God’s Love is Unreasonable.  Who can explain love?  If love always made sense it would not be love. It does not always respond to logic.  The question of Hosea may not be why God would ask Hosea to marry Gomer, but why would God commit himself to a group of people he knew would not be faithful to him? It doesn’t make sense.

Following God involves having a faith in Him such that you believe in
advance what will only make sense in reverse. Philip Yancey

If God was going to make a commitment to a nation, why wouldn’t He choose a nation He knew would be faithful?  Why wouldn’t He select those who would be inclined to follow His laws and appreciate the wisdom of His ways?

According to our way of thinking, God is unreasonable.  We would choose to love someone who loved us.  We would look for someone we thought would be faithful to us.  In our humanness, we have no room for someone who does not love us back, and especially no room for someone who is not loyal to us.  But God chooses whom He will choose.  Listen to this outrageous verse from the Bible that sounds unreasonable…If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.  2 Timothy 2:13
When God enters into a covenant of love with us, the covenant does not depend on our faithfulness, but on the faithfulness of God.  We keep thinking that God only loves good people, but God loves sinners.  He pursues them like He asked Hosea to pursue Gomer.  He is betrayed but He longs for them.  When they become enslaved by their sins, He buys them back.

The Bible describes our predicament: There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for god; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.   Romans 3:10-12. But in spite of that, God did something completely irrational — He loved us and sought for a way to buy us out of our slavery to sin:… knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:18-19

Ian Pitt-Watson writes, "There is a natural, logical kind of loving that loves lovely things and lovely people. That’s logical. But there is another kind of loving that doesn’t look for value in what it loves, but that creates value in what it loves.”

Scripture to Claim: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15

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