The Lord disciplines those He loves. (Proverbs 3:12)
Maybe you have been wondering if God loves you since you seem to be going through such a hard time. Maybe you are poor or sick or harassed. You know God is love intellectually, but you don’t “feel” love.
My friend, you have a wonderful opportunity to choose to trust God.
God is over all the earth. He is King. He is Greater than all your troubles.
But He is closer than your own mother. He desires to be your Father, not only by creation but by adoption and regeneration. If you would choose life, choose God. Choose to trust Him.
He put you where you are and set you in the times of your life so that you would reach out and find Him: the Giver of life. (Acts 17:26)
God loves you enough to let you suffer, so that you will look to the Lord of life beyond the gains and losses of life on this earth.
He won’t leave you. Maybe you feel that now as, “He won’t leave me alone. He keep watching me.” Remember, God intends to give you good. The reason God is paying such close attention is that he cares so much.
But just as a good leader leads his people through difficult times so that they might enjoy times of prosperity and joy, so for now for a little bit you may be going through difficult times so that later, perhaps only in the resurrection, you will have in your presence perfect and total joy.
Keep hating sin. Keep loving what is right. Keep seeking peace & pursuing it. You will reap a harvest in due season if you do not lose heart.
Then, there came a point at which I really got to know Jesus.
Now I know what a wretched sinner I am!
Oh, I had already called on the Lord and was saved, but this was different. I committed to follow Jesus by identifying with his death, burial, and resurrection. He who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we might become the integrity & virtue of God.
I do not follow the traditional teaching of the church on this verse. The traditional teaching of the church is that Jesus became a sin offering, thus inserting the word offering. I go behind the traditional teaching to look at Jesus Himself. He did not come to offer sin. He offered His Holiness. The Father came close in Christ.
Let us take this at face value though. What is this verse actually saying:
1. Jesus knew no sin.
2. Jesus became sin for us.
3. 1 & 2 are so that we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus became what he did not know so we could become what we are not. Jesus allowed himself to be humiliated so that we might become honored. Jesus was shamed so that we would be saved.
Jesus was indeed a sin offering. But that is not necessarily what this says explicitly. It says he became sin.
Ask any Muslim what the greatest sin is and they will say it is “Shirk.” to ascribe partners to God. I.e. to identify Jesus as divine.
Jesus was sinless. All are agreed on that except for a few people who claim that there is no absolute morality, which is self contradictory, so we will kindly ignore those proud souls for now who exalt themselves over God in their own mind (particularly since their own morality often is less than that of Jesus.)
Jesus also asserted that he is God. When he claimed to be the Son of Man, he was claiming not merely to be human, but to be made in the exact image of God and to be exalted as the one like a Son of Man who reigns in glory before the Ancient of Days as described in Daniel.
For a man who appeared to have been born of an illicit union, though he was not, to have claimed what appeared impossible, that he is God, resulted in the predictable condemnation at the courts of the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities. This was indeed a most preposterous claim for mere flesh to make.
But Jesus was no mere mortal. He was also immortal. He laid down His life freely (that is, he chose to make that claim, when he could have kept it to himself). He also took up his life again (that is, he happily and triumphantly rose from the grave and left the grave clothes behind. He was victorious over death. He submitted to what appeared to be the defilement of the grave that he might sanctify the grave yard as a rest area for the saints, a mere passing through place which leads to a much better place.) Jesus is fully alive and well today.
So what? What difference if Jesus rose? I haven’t seen him, the atheist will say.
Ah, but Jesus is alive and active in His Body. Wherever 2 or more gather in the name of Jesus, submitting to His authority as Lord, they experience and communicate the presence of Jesus. It is not merely in this ritual or ceremony. It is a moment by moment reality.
And so it comes to pass, that when the doubter, the bitter soul, the slanderer, the evil doer, or any other person with any bad intentions comes against a church (that is, such a gathering of saints who are submitted to Jesus) the presence of Jesus is assaulted. But so also, the power of the Messiah’s resurrection is present in His people. He comes back again and again to present the truth claims of God on man. Because Jesus demonstrated what it is to be 100% submitted to God, he can claim to be fully God without any duplicity. Not even the angels can claim to be God without lying. But Jesus not only claimed this power, he demonstrates it over and over again every time His people demonstrate patience with the wicked. Everytime the church witnesses to the truth in a world of falsehood. Everytime a believer confesses the deity of Jesus the Messiah to a Muslim or Jew or Hindu or Buddhist or atheist or tribal practitioner, he experiences the righteousness of God.
You say, then how come witnesses seem so care-free, so unworried of what the world says about them? Why is it that missionaries go about their mission as though ignorant of the plans and purposes of the world to destroy them and to undermine them?
We can laugh at adversity, not because adversity is inherently fun, but we know the One (the Father, the Son, and the Spirit), the Lord who is greater than all our troubles.
We know the provider. Even if we starve and are indebted, we know the One who will feed us daily bread and who will forgive all our debts. Even if we are slaughtered, as the Islamic State is trying to do in Mosul, we know the One who Saves from the grave through the power of the resurrection.
Last week we looked at how human relationships should always have a measure of what might be called relative “hate” when compared to the Love we should have for the Lord Jesus. That is, our love for Jesus should be so strong that we are willing to strive with others for the truth. This is a loving thing to do, but some will interpret it as hateful.
There is no need to be contentious, but we should contend for the Good News of Jesus Christ.
So, then what about love, is there no such thing as love? Or, are all relationships marred by “hatred”?
Love is an attractive thing and forms when there is some kind of agreement. We should love God 100%.
This means we should always say God is right and sin is wrong. If we sin, we should love God more than our sin, and confess the truth about our sin. It is a high standard. We all fall short.
To Love God is to hate evil and to delight in wisdom that is pure. It is to do good and pursue peace.
So then, what does love look like in our human relations:
1. It is natural to agree with oneself. If we discover we have made a mistake, we should love ourselves enough to repent and turn from the evil of our hearts. It is assumed that those who are wise will love themselves in this sense. Those who are wise will not prefer themselves over all others. Indeed, the most loving thing is to put others ahead of oneself.
2. We should love our families. While family members may not always agree on everything, we should do the best we can to ensure their well-being. We should share the Good News with our families. To hide the Truth of Jesus from our families is an unloving thing. To let a family member do evil without seeking to speak to them directly about the wrong is to do them a great disservice. They may think you are hating on them when you kindly tell them that they have sinned. But in fact, correction and rebukes are signs of love. So is teaching your children to live godly lives. Training your children how to live in today’s world in a way that pleases the Lord God Almighty and yet is sustainable is a good thing. Providing for family members is a good thing and a sign of love. Those who do not love their family members are worse than unbelievers.
3. We should love one another. That is, we should love other Christians as Christ loved us. If someone identifies as belonging to Jesus, then we should come alongside them and support them and prioritize their wellbeing. In a day and age when the family of Jesus is growing rapidly as new believers are born again all around the globe every day, this could keep us busy all the time. If you find you are “witnessing” to a Christian, the goal must always be to build them up in the most holy faith and to help them draw closer to Jesus and not to be a stumbling block to any Christian unnecessarily. This is done mostly through getting acquainted with saints in your church/congregation or small group. But it should also extend to supporting the persecuted church or training believers in ministry around the world. We must not stop there though.
4. We are to love our neighbor. Jesus made it clear who our neighbor is: anyone we encounter in need, even if we do not know them or necessarily have any ethnic or national or political reason to agree with them. Loving our neighbor means breaking out of the mold and showing kindness to strangers. We must not only greet one another, we must also go to places where there are people who have yet to be greeted in the Lord’s Name. In today’s world where our neighbor may be discovered through a broadcast or website about tragedy in a distant land, the heart is called to expand to a greater degree. Whenever we learn of someone hurting, we should be sensitive enough to feel their pain. Wisdom teaches us not to focus on the problems of the world lest we become insensitized and numb in spirit. PRAY when you watch the news. Pray when you are in public, only in your heart and not for show. Pray wherever you walk. Pray while you study and read. Pray while you watch. God will lead you to your neighbors.
5. We are to love our enemies. You say, this is a tall order … HOW? Does someone offend you? Forgive them immediately and do not hold any grudge. If someone attacks you, pray for them. Do good to them. Show kindness to those who are cruel. May God’s kindness lead them to repentance. It is not enough to restrain from evil, we must bless. Do not return insult for insult. When cursed, blessed. When struck, shake hands. You do not have to invite ruin by aggravating an offended person, simply show kindness and be joyful. You cannot make everyone happy. Do not worry about that. Love anyways. If they hate you and seek to do you harm, that is their business. Bless and do not curse. Encourage them when they are down. This will not be easy. When people see you treat your enemies like this, they will call you a fool. They will say that you have lost your mind. They will say you are mindless. Keep loving. Love is foolish only to fools. Better to be an idiot in the world’s eyes and beloved of the Lord than to be rich in the world’s eyes and destitute of mercy on the last day.
Now you see why loving can seem like hating. If you love your enemies, you will seem to be hating yourself. You may end up dying as you proclaim the Good News of Jesus to the nations.
You may be rejected and poor as you apply the teachings of Jesus.
You will lose all and gain all if you follow Jesus.
In this world, you will count all as loss. In the world to come, you will lack nothing if you lack no love here. To have love, you must give love. God’s love is available to all. It is holy, pure, undefiled by sensual, sexual lust. It is innocent of evil. It is clean and enduring forever. It blazes away evil and shines in the night of wickedness. Stand, and shine the light of God’s love to the world, even the nations at the world’s ends.
For Americans, remember, to love not only America, love those who are assaulting her freedoms and love those who are attacking her people. Love your enemies and be perfect. Go to the nations. Preach the good news of the Lordship of Jesus. Stand against evil and for freedom, even if you must lose your life in the process, but there is no need to take their lives to share the sacrifice of Christ. Love is about giving life, not taking it. Celebrate the victory that is yours in Christ Jesus rather than the wars fought on domestic and foreign soil. Love your enemies.
These days everybody wants to talk about love. People act as though it is a sin to talk about hating anything or anyone.
Go to most churches on a Sunday, and you will hear the word “love” at least once. That is the way it should be.
Go to many movies, and you will hear about love, often in a more vulgar sense or almost always in a selfish sense. Sometimes you will get to see hate acted out.
Go to a stadium, and you will see love demonstrated vigorously (sometimes for no reason). But you will also see some hate (for the opposing team).
Go to a psychologist, and they will encourage you to love yourself and your family and your community. But they will put the censor on any reference to that “h” word like it is a four letter word. Well it is, but so is love … and lust. (These two “L” words are often confused by a psychologist, but we will talk about that at another time.)
If you love someone, you hate others, at least in a relative sense. If you love someone, you are drawn to him and repelled from all others. At least this is true if we are talking about the highest, deepest, and most extensive of loves.
The Love of God should fill our lives. But, we cannot love God properly, unless there is also some relative hate for all others. Jesus taught this.
Where in the Word did Jesus get the idea that we should hate?
The Psalmist says, “I hate them with a perfect hatred.”
Wait a minute, Jesus said love your enemies? There is no room for hatred if there is love, right?
The more proper question is, “Who is our first love?”
It must not be for ourselves.
It must not be for the church.
It must not be for our family.
It must not be for our spouses.
It must not be for our wealth or status.
It must not be for anyone … other than God.
The Lord is our first Love.
Shema Yisrael …
All who do not love the Lord are anathema, accursed.
Whoa, buddy! What are you doing!! Calling down curses on people?
I am simply referring to the same Holy Bible that says, “Jacob have I love, but Esau have I hated.” The Holy Spirit inspired it, and He will help us understand it, as He teaches us.
So often, you will hear people mixing up the love commands (not love command, singular, but plural.)
Our first love is for God and God alone.
NOBODY shares in the full glory of God except the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One Lord.
Muslims call such replacing the Love for God with lesser loves shirk. It is a great evil.
However, the Love of God is such that God is willing to pour out His love into our hearts. As we hate sin and even the garment stained with sin, we will be drawn to love the Lord with pure devotion.
We will humble ourselves so deeply that it will appear to be a kind of hatred. We will appeal to the God of Heaven for His mercy moment by moment, because we will know that without Him we can do nothing. This is what it is to despise oneself: to delight utterly in God.
But if we so humble ourselves, he will lift us up in due time.
To hate your wife is to put intimacy with God ahead of intimacy with your wife. This will sound weird to some, but we must kiss the Son lest He be angry in His wrath and we perish in our way.
But if we are intimate first with God and most intimate with God, then we will enjoy the times we spend with our families all the more.
Perhaps you are by now eager to hate your mother and father and sister and brother that you may get them back. I think you get the picture, your family must be formed around your identity as a child of God the Father. And if you love God, you will certainly seek to repay your debt of love to your parents and the rest of your family by sharing the Gospel with them and all that they need if you have it at all in your power to help.
However, there is more, perhaps you will be like those who only get to see their family occasionally, if at all, because they have chosen to follow Jesus to the ends of the earth to reach the nations.
Ah, you will say, the nations must be hated because they do not love the Lord, and so they must. We must never love any ethnic or pagan so much that we hide the truth from them out of a counterfeit sensitivity that leans more toward those you have gone to reach that towards the God who sent you. Yes, we must love God more than the lost.
But if you love God, you will certainly want to see His name honored among the nations. A love for God will most supremely mean that if it is your first love, you will seek to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to all nations. If one group will not hear, you will go to those who will, till some from all have heeded the Hope of Heaven’s Reward: Life in Christ.
Perhaps you harbor a little hatred for your enemy, pure hatred rather than perfect hatred. I would urge you to repent and love your enemy as you know you should. You may receive no reward in this life. Don’t worry about that. Look to the joy you will have on the last day when you will have a clear conscious when you cared nothing for honor in their eyes, but cared more for the Honor of God among the wicked.
How do you honor God? Truth in love. Think, act, speak with all integrity and compassion, patiently and kindly fixing your eyes on God, the Author and Finisher of your faith, the Foundation and Goal of your hope, the one who loves you enough to send His Son to die for you and is worthy of supreme love to the end.
Scott Mackintosh took on shame so that his daughters would live honorably.
Almost a year ago, the above foto of Scott Mackintosh went viral. He dressed down, way down, to communicate to his daughters, one in particular, that “modest is hottest.”
Scott was not above humbling himself in what many would regard as humiliating. He did not aim to humiliate his daughters, but humbled himself of his rights as a the “Best. Dad. Ever.” in order to help his daughters choose the path of honor.
There are some fathers in the world who will beat their children if they do not dress in a full burqa. There are some fathers and mothers who might make their kids wear a sign and stand on a busy intersection. But real men make their points in humility.
Indeed, this is a small picture of what Jesus did for us. He who knew no sin, became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. In Christ, God touched the unclean and became “contaminated” in the world’s eyes. He was humiliated in the world’s eyes. He was scorned by the world. But Jesus had a higher aim in view: the salvation of the world.
The Lord Jesus was instrumental in creating the world, and though the whole universe was formed at His command, the people He had redeemed from Egypt rejected their Savior. Jesus used this rejection to bring righteousness to the nations. Jesus became utterly sinful, a blasphemer in the eyes of the Jewish establishment, in order that all the peoples everywhere might join in praising the Holy Name of God and call God, “Our Father.”
Our Father in heaven did not remain austere and distant, but drew near. The Lord spoke severely against sin, but all the same he spent time with sinners. Jesus made it possible for the wretched rebel to reconcile: He revealed our sin and redeemed us from it. Jesus healed the defiled by touching us and telling us to clean up our act.
Jesus did not confirm us in our sin, or merely “tolerate” sinners. He called sinners to follow. To be holy. To be like Himself in mindset.
Joy, Peace, Righteousness … all are available in the Holy Spirit.
What sin are you deceived by?
What rebellion are you clinging to?
What wrong have you not sought to right in your life?
Where is Jesus inviting you to repent?
Do it. He is worth it.
The Father’s embrace is waiting. The Fame of our King is worth you calling on the Name of Jesus. The Fullness of the Spirit is available to all who turn at His gentle rebuke.
Several mistakes in this “debate” as I listened to it:
A. Suze Orman attempts to justify her homosexual feelings/actions for another woman through her monetary success. Money does not prove anything. If it did, Al Capone and the crooks who successfully steel millions would be saints. Money is not the basis for right & wrong. Money is not the basis for marriage.
A2. Suze bases her argument on estate taxes (and she makes not claim to poverty, to my knowledge.) But then says that this is not really the issue when the Ryan Anderson states that he and the Heritage Foundation share the position calling for the abolition of the unjust estate tax.
B. There is something wrong with Suze Orman. She is a sinner … like everyone else was in that room, not to mention in the world. Therefore, Suze’s choices do not prove anything about what should be legally endorsed or not.
C. Suze basis her definition of marriage on monetary status: from that perspective all of the following could be eventually: polygamy, incest, herbogamy, pontigamy.
D. Love leads to life in terms of reproduction, not merely adoption.
E. America is defined as tolerant & loving … forget the liberty to state truth based on what God said & based on historical realities.
F. A very small, very biased sample size (the studio audience) is used to represent an entire nation of well over 315,000,000 people. Hmmm… not a very sophisticated way to prove a point.
G. Suze calls Ryan Anderson uneducated, when in fact he is well educated, being a Ph.D. from Notre Dame and graduating with highest honors from Princeton. She then recants and states that while he may have his facts collected and correct, he is wrong. She then lifts herself up and says she has “compassion” on him. That is a lie. She has no compassion for him, otherwise she would hear Ryan out. She is arrogant because she judges as intolerant while not wanting to tolerate him.
If she truly felt compassion for him, she would perhaps be moved to grant Ryan Anderson’s organization the Heritage Foundation a gift of substance. This is the most ugly kind of love: it boasts of itself, while giving not gifts; it does not lead to future generations, but propagates lies; it claims to be tolerant, but cannot stand to hear the truth.
IF this is America, then America will fall. And like Babylon of old, it will be a great fall. Like Rome, it will fall utterly when the rottenness in Washington, New York, and Hollywood have pooled together into a cesspool of corruption that leads to the pit. Woe to this America with a futile, empty compassion! Woe to this America that calls evil good and good evil. Woe to this America that conspires against righteousness!
Is there hope for America? Yes, if people in America will repent and trust in Jesus and humble themselves and delight themselves in the redeemer rather than in the ridiculous notions of their own morality. There is hope, ready to be had, if only Americans will call out to Jesus as their friend and will acknowledge their own sins and turn from the sins of our fathers. There is hope if we allow the Word of God once again to govern society and look not only to vain tradition but to the Scriptures which are able to equip us for every good work.
If there is a lack of good work this year, it is because we have failed to look to Jesus to provide it.
If there are hungry people in the world, it is because we have fed ourselves rather than sharing.
If there are lonely people, it is because we have lacked real compassion & real love that reaches beyond marriage into all nations.
Crushed, disappointed, insulted, rejected? … Press on. There is more in store. Cry out to God for the promise to come.
This post is dedicated to a young woman I spoke with recently, and to all who self-injure &/or have suicidal thoughts.
Sometimes in this world, people both old and young say things that are mean-spirited. Sometimes they say them simply to make themselves look good. It can hurt even worse when they say things just to hurt someone else. Either way, those words which expose how far short of perfection a girl or boy falls often lead to feelings of shame, loneliness, and hopelessness.
“Will anyone love me just for me? Does anyone really care about me? I want to be beautiful / handsome. I want to be strong / elegant. I want to be liked and appreciated. Instead my face is rubbed in the dirt.”
Sometimes fellow students tear down the weaker ones. It is after all easier to pick on those who won’t fight back.
Sometimes parents expect a cool perfection from their children. It is after all parents’ job to help their kids grow up to face the realities of the harsh world.
Sometimes bosses or co-workers can pressure a struggling worker to perform beyond capacity or even perform more than everyone else.
Sometimes other authorities can put pressure on those under their charge. NOTHING WE DO IS EVER GOOD ENOUGH, cries the hurting heart.
There are two most common ways to respond: In anger: lashing out at those who insult. In self-loathing, listening to all those voices that expose imperfection.
Imperfections that make us feel ashamed, can also add unique dignity to each of us. They are like the freckles that
Natasha Bedingfield sings about:
This reminds me of Jesus: sometimes people of His day talked about Him because He didn’t wash His hands. Sometimes people insulted Him because He was so confident that He had a special relationship with God. They hated Him because He worked long hours and healed the hurting and forgave the seemingly unforgiveable. Jesus forgave anyway.
In 1 John, it says that the spirit of the antichrist denies two things: 1. That Jesus came from God and 2. That Jesus came in the flesh. Taken to logical conclusion, the antichrist spirit denies the deity and humanity of Jesus.
So what? What difference does that make in how the poor kid who gets picked on in school feels?
When somebody treats you like you are not made in the image of God, that is the antichrist at work. If someone is despising you and all that you do, they are not doing the work of God but are serving the devil. Satan tries to get us to regret that we live. God gets us to regret that we have sinned. Lord, have mercy!
When someone treats you like you are not human with human feelings and an ordinary human body with human wants and needs, that is the antichrist at work. The antichrist expects a sterile sanctification. The Spirit of Jesus washes us with water from the Word, the Word of God. Lord, thank you!
And God’s word says, He loved us enough to send His own Son to cover over ALL our imperfections, sins, shame, and flaws. That is why Jesus was scarred on the cross and on the way to the cross was beaten and tortured, so that you and I could hold our heads up in dignity when the world, our old flesh, and the devil conspire to make us feel like we are useless and unwanted. He set aside heaven’s arms so that we could lift up holy hands and praise Him.
If people tell you that you are good for nothing and dirty: First, clean up if you are dirty. Second, be glad that you are clean in God’s sight. Third, forgive the people who have such dirty hearts that all they can see is filth.
If your own mind tells you that you are unloveable: First, separate the truth from the lie. While love is never “deserved,” anyone can be loved. God loves the least, the lost, the last. God loves you. Second, read promises in the Bible about how the Lord’s purpose is to bless and not curse. Third, receive God’s forgiveness for all your faults. He delights in you and rejoices over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)
“The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in His love He will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”
We need to realize who is the source of all these accusations though: it is the devil, satan, that old serpent, the dragon. Satan hates you. God, however, loves you and delights in you. If you have persevered in reading this, I believe God is calling you to a deeper knowledge of His mercy. Consider reading a chapter from the Proverbs and a chapter from the Gospels every day. Or, develop your own plan for reading through the whole Bible in a year … and stick to it. God will speak to you in new and amazing ways. The lies of the devil will fade.
Maybe you are married and your spouse hates you and you feel miserable and you feel like giving up: Let me encourage you to keep loving and keep forgiving. God has a prize for those who persevere in marriage.
Maybe you feel lonely because all your fellow students or co-workers seem to despise you and ignore you or trip you up: Let me encourage you that you are special in God’s eyes. What you are learning is something teachers can’t teach you. You are learning what Jesus taught us, to love your enemeies. Don’t lose heart. Don’t give up: your work will be rewarded by the one who supervises all bosses and you are storing up for yourself a retirement that is out of the world.
God loves you. Jesus proves it. Live.
…
Now, about those who tear you down, how do you deal with them?
I must be 100% honest here: I am far from perfect. When I was a teenager, I picked on other students. Then, one day, a classmate I was picking on, told me off. They responded and told me to shut up, I was getting on their nerves. Maybe I was more sensitive than some bullies, but I don’t think so. When they talked back and said, “Shut up, it’s not nice, I’m not all that bad, you don’t have your facts straight.” I shut my mouth. I stopped insulting. Later, the Lord would fill my heart with Love, with the Holy Spirit as I started to regularly read the Bible and pray for the Lord to teach me how to love. God changed me.
Life is not easier for me, it is harder. But that is OK. It was not easy for Jesus, and He is with me when I face insults and injury, hospitalizations and hatred.
If you care to contact me, write to: MertAKA -at- everybody .ORG
I’m pulled from death and taught to walk
You hold me safe. My lips now talk.
You stole my chains and set me free.
You robbed the dark. Now I can see.
“Captive by my abiding grace,
Your former paths have been replaced.”
I taste a treat and first say, “Ahh!”
Too much I eat and then say, “Blah!”
I back away and have no more.
Is this the way I treat my Lord?
“Though this is how you’ve dealt with sin;
Come here, my child, again and again.”
A woman holds my eye, my ear,
My heart, my hand, and so my years.
But if all love is but for her,
I find my faith is weak, unsure.
“Though for another your heart yearns
For Me My child, come let it burn.”
Your flow of life has made me right.
All else is still. You share your life.
All else is dark. I see your light.
Lord, now I know that you are right.
For I’m in Christ, and Christ in I.
In this one way, I’m satisfied.
In deepest need comes compulsion.
From sin I’m freed with deep revulsion.
More than my other deep attraction,
In God alone is satisfaction.
In all movements of my desire.
Lord, draw me nearer, draw me higher.
The death of a loved one is hard. Pondering one’s own demise is hardly any easier from a natural perspective, so I have been a bit hesitant to raise this issue in so public a forum. Yet, I have heard it too many times, and today, my Bible reading raised this issue to the very forefront of my mind:
Often when someone dies, people mourn by saying, “At least, they are in a better place now.”
Are they?
Do all dogs go to heaven?
Or do dogs merely go into the earth, never to be remembered at the end of the age?
On a more significant level: do humans who refuse the glorious good news of Jesus Christ enter into peace on the last day?
OR was Isaiah right when he quoted God as saying, “There is no peace for the wicked.”
It certainly can assuage fears of the terrible termination of life at the least. At worst, such false assurances regarding those who are without Christ lulls the living into a false assurance that everything is gonna be alright … When in fact, it will not be alright for those who are not right with God.
There are some who like to talk about being witnesses but are not honest about the dread of falling into the wrathful hands of the Living God. Yes, the Lord is loving, but for those who refuse to acknowledge their need for him, only wrath is stored up.
Sadly, churches are drifting away from being honest about this aweful truth. People like to talk about the “fear of the Lord” as though it is just an exageration for respect for some large being. Kind of like you would feel in a giant redwood forest.
Friends, the fear of the Lord is real. Those who are not walking in faith with Jesus will face the terrors of eternity if they do not repent!
Have you consoled yourself with a generic, everybody goes to heaven, kind of conversation? Let me warn you: You are deceived.
Have you lied to yourself by saying, “I deserve heaven”? Wake up o sleeper and Christ will shine on you! God alone deserves heaven. For all other creatures it is His loving mercy which alone draws people into His presence.
Prepare your heart to enjoy God’s mercy: Don’t get drunk with wine. Don’t sleep around. Don’t get into agry fits with others. Forgive. Trust. Hope. Love.
Are you wealthy? Share what you have with others.
Are you healthy? Serve the sick.
Are you happy? Listen to the cries of the sorrowing.
Are you busy? Slow down and read the Bible and pray.
Seek God while He may be found. If you are reading this, there may yet be time for you to repent and be restored to the King of the Universe.
Genesis 2:20-25 (LEB based)
The man gave names to every domesticated animal and to the birds of the sky and to all the animals of the land. But for the man there was not found a helper as his opposite. Yahweh God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. While he slept, He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in the place of it. Then Yahweh God fashioned the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. And the man said,
“This one is now bone from my bones
and flesh from my flesh;
this one shall be called ‘Woman,’
for this one was taken from man.”
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh. The man and his wife, both of them, were naked, and they were not ashamed.
For most men, finding a wife is not an easy process. Now, perhaps some immoral men find a second wife easier to get, but it was not this way from the beginning. In the beginning, it was God’s design that there should be one man for one woman. How much difficulty there has been in the world because marriages fail and are replaced so quickly! It ought not be so.
Notice, God did not merely recognize what the man surely felt: something is out of order for there to be a lack of a mate for the man. Immediately, the man began naming the creatures on the land and in the sky. The first engineer is God, and the first scientist was the man He made, ie. Adam.
It seems the man was so busy naming the creatures and doing His God appointed task, that he got tired. There are many animals made by God, so this would have taken some time. Yet there was no match. Have you ever looked and looked and found nothing, and then you suddenly found what you sought after getting some rest?
This is what happened to Adam, he was so exhausted that he slept and slept deeply. It was as though his scientific endeavors served as an anesthesthetic. In that deep sleep, God took from his side a rib, or a part.
What is so significant about taking something from his side? Had God taken a toe, the man might have ruled over her. Had He taken the man’s hair, she might have ruled over him. Hand God taken from the man’s hand, he might have made her work all the time. No, God took from the man’s side, so that she might be beside him, near his heart, a companion next to him, a counterpart. They were to correspond to one another. They were a match designed in heaven, made on earth. The mind of God knew how to match the heart of a man and a woman, and so the man sang.
Clearly, the woman was beautiful and the man was refreshed as soon as he woke from his sleep, because he immediately sang a love song. Interestingly, this is the second love song. The first was when God made mankind. This reveals a mystery: As God loves mankind, so a man must love his wife. It will not always be easy, but it will be possible. God will heal the heart if we rest in him.
God heals the heart not by all these beasts of the field, though those are certainly nice. A bird cannot compare to a person, no matter now lovely the bird’s song. Any man worth any salt will know that a human love song truly sung between a couple has more heart in it than the song of any other creature. The dutiful dog is not delight compared to a wonderful wife.
Some speak of this as a time of innocence. And surely there was innocence: no shame. But the last sentence speaks of more when it speaks of two in the nude without shame. It speaks of love. While it does not say that they knew each other (there seems to be little mention of the word “know” apart from the tree and until after the curse), still the Lord brought the woman to the man and he sang.
The only time there is absolutely no shame when a couple comes together like that is when there is perfect love. Perfect love casts out fear and shame and anger and anxiety and sadness. There is a satisfaction in love, and the song the man sang indicated he was satisfied at last.
Are you looking for love? Where are you looking? Are you doing God’s will? Are you doing the work God has assigned for you to do like the man naming the animals? Are you following Jesus like the woman followed the Lord in the garden to her man? If you are lonely, look first to Jesus and do the work He has assigned you. I cannot guarantee you will immediately find a husband if you are a woman or a wife if you are a man, but you will find purpose.
Finally, do not look too hard for someone just like you. The man did not look for a man, but for one that was his opposite, his counterpart. The woman was not led by God to another woman, this would not make sense in God’s kingdom. They were not led to match up with boys and girls. Here we see a family beginning in seed-like form: a husband and wife meeting, called by God, made in His image, walking in love. It was paradise, heaven on earth. Multiplication requires diversity.
To close with, I would like to include a poem I sent to my wife before we were engaged. Her response made me realize that this woman who had been corresponding with me for years just might be the one who would correspond with me face to face one day.
Courage in a Raging Internal Environment
Send first to S.E.F. on November 6, 2000
When mourning dawns upon the whirling earth
and tears begin to stream the face of mirth
a cry erupts and breaks the dullness of
the eye: a plea for Son, “O Fiery Love,
Come warm the heart that’s borken by a soul
untouched by tender hands.” Alone, the sol-
dier marches on, his only food the fruiful day
that is to shine: a dream still far away
to eyes that cannot gaze upon the Light
beyond the freezing smog of sluggish fright.
Then pain, though thick around my mind, is pierced
by promise of a change in whether fierce
or fair the day shall be when met by
courage that internall foes cannot deny.
if4es 