Understanding the Importance of the Order of Things | Part Seven

We are discussing the importance of the order of things. In particular, we have focussed on the command to love God and love people and how important that order is.

Is God’s love unconditional? We would have to answer “yes”, because it is His initiative of grace and therefore totally unearned.

So, whilst that statement is true, is it the best way to communicate the nature of God’s love?

When people hear that God loves them unconditionally, they may assume this means He is content with the way they are and that no change or growth is necessary. Often when the world speaks of love, it frequently means unconditional acceptance and total affirmation. Consequently, we might be better using the idea that God’s love is undeserved.

If we have an aberrant view that God simply accepts and tolerates and affirms every thought, choice and action in our lives, there will be a sense in which God’s love is offensive to us. God’s love, and therefore our Christian love for one another, calls us to holiness. It seizes us wherever we are, but then it refuses to leave us wherever we are. It calls us to conform to Christ’s image.

“God’s love is directed by God’s holiness. It always, and only, moves toward holy ends.”[1]

Sometimes we would like a Bible verse that reads “God indulges those whom He loves” – but rather than indulgence, the God of the Bible tells us that He “disciplines” those whom He loves. Our un-holiness will be challenged and changed by the loving discipline and correction of God. What a joy it is that God cares for, and delights in, His people so much that He disciplines us towards righteousness.

God does not love us because we are loveable but because He is love. Because He is love itself, His intentions for His people are always what is best for them. The goal, and journey, is that His people will be progressively transformed into those who know and live in holy love like Himself. He will settle for nothing less.

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”[2]

God’s love for His people is committed, powerful, transformative, born of a one-sided covenant, and therefore permanent, and unchanging.

We will love well when we know we are loved well.

Blessings
Brian

 

Martin Luther said: “Good works are not the cause, but the fruit of righteousness… The tree makes the apple; the apple does not make the tree.” [3]

We earnestly desire that our young people will live righteously and that the Father will be glorified. How can we more effectively enable them to see that this is a work of God in them?

 

 

 

[1] Jonathan Leeman (2014) Article How Do Love and Holiness Relate?

[2] C. S. Lewis (2012). “The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics”, p.64, HarperCollins UK

[3] “Luther Martin A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians,” (1978 reprint) pp. 207–208, Zondervan .