God’s love is one of those things, that if you do not “get” as a Christian, it is going to be very difficult for you to have the kind of peace and joy that I believe God means for you to have.  The problem of course, like is that many Christians want to take a culturally understood meaning of a thing, and apply it to God.  God doesn’t work that way though.  God doesn’t change to conform to our understanding or desires – we’re the ones that change, or we perish.

Let me ask a question.  If you go out and feed homeless persons every week, but you never tell them about Jesus, is that loving?  I fear that much of society, and even those within the church would say, “Yes”.  If you go over to Africa, and build clean water wells for villages that would die otherwise, but you don’t tell them about Jesus, and plead with them to be reconciled to Him, is that loving?  Now you might be saying, doesn’t the Bible command us to love our neighbor as ourselves?  Surely, then this act of giving food or water is loving, right?  Now, I want you to see this and feel the weight of it.  If you do not view someone seeing and savoring the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, as INFINITELY more valuable than meeting some base physical need, then you don’t know Jesus, and you need to know Him.  If you can’t understand that the greatest “love” one can have for another is to give them the greatest treasure they know of, salvation through Jesus Christ, then you don’t know what love is.  Who cares what I say, what does the Bible say?

John 15:13 – “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Romans 5:8 – “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

1 Peter 3:18 – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,”

1 John 4:8-9 – “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

What is the love of God?  The love of God is Him doing whatever is needed, at great personal cost to Himself, to bring us to Himself, our greatest need and greatest good.  What is love?  It’s not an emotion.  It’s not a feeling.  It’s not food to the hungry, it’s not being nice and agreeable, it’s not money to charities… The love of God is praying, fasting, weeping, – doing everything so that whomever is weak, and tired, and thirsty for God might come and know Him.  Love people like Christ loved people, that even though it cost him his life, He did everything to reconcile sinners to God.  Jesus even refused a crowd of hungry persons, in this way – John 6:47-51 – “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

It is said that if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish he’ll eat for a lifetime.  If your love terminates on having others “happy with you”, or on meeting someone’s physical needs only, you’re not helping that person.  The world might tell you that you’re a good person, and you’re helping them, and that “good feeling” is your reward, and that’s it, because God doesn’t see it that way.  That isn’t love to God, that’s just making that person or group more comfortable on their way to hell, so that you can feel good about yourself.  Don’t be content with that kind of love.

Now, my caveat to all that I’ve said about the love of God is this.  Feed the poor, love the orphans and widows.  Also, this isn’t license to be a jerk and run around telling everyone they’re going to hell.  Your labor of love should be marked by what you see in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 – “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

If you love someone, make your heart’s purpose to see them know Christ as their Lord and Savior.  It’s easy to give a hungry person food, it’s harder to stand there and tell someone about Jesus, when they might yell at you, or assault you.  Don’t let your definition of love be conformed to the world, but strive to be transformed by the love of God, through the gospel, and share it with others.

Grace and peace,
Adam

Today’s title isn’t really the main point of what I would like to convey, but unfortunately I believe it is the biggest barrier to a question I would like to answer, “What is the chief end of man?”.  Why did God create us, and what is it that we are supposed to do?

The Westminster Catechism gives this answer:

Question 1: What is the chief and highest end of man?
Answer: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

source:  http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/larger1.html

Now the answer given by the Westminster catechism is a good answer and true, however in modern American culture, we need to expound on that answer.  It’s not because of a deficiency in the answer given, but more because we cannot take for granted, something that the writers of the catechism could.  We cannot assume that the readers understand that God is more valuable than they are.  In a culture that promotes the idea of self as ultimate, where the end goal of man is to be made much of by others, and God is used as a means to that end, we need to give the answer some legs.

Here is a question to start us off.  If a man goes out and works all his life, for the purpose of having others think highly of him, would that be sinful?  Yes, of course, we would say that man is extremely prideful, and he is an idolater of self before God.  Now if God works all things together that others would know Him as He is, and think highly of him, would that be sinful?  No, God’s commandment in Exodus 20:3 is “You shall have no other gods before me.”  For God to exalt Himself is not sinful because He is God, it is the most loving thing He can do.

Let me say it another way.  If a man has a son, and the son’s greatest joy would be spending a day with his father, but the father instead gives the boy a toy and sends him on his way, would that be loving?  If a father sees his son ill, and instead of giving him medical care, gives him a toy and sends him on his way, would that be loving?  No, clearly not.  Now if God is a loving Father, and sees that our greatest good is to know Him and delight in Him, and doesn’t seek to exalt Himself, He is not loving.  He would be depriving us of our greatest good.

So then, God’s purpose in creation, is to make Himself known and exalt Himself above all things, and we have been invited in to that purpose, to enjoy God forever.  We were created, to have and spread a passion for the glory of God, and to enjoy Him forever.  It seems redundant (hopefully) to say this after explaining everything else, but to do this, we must first acknowledge that God is infinitely more valuable than any piece of His creation, including ourselves.  If you put the value of 6 Billion people on one side of the scale, and God’s worth on the other, the scale on God’s side is heavier.  It’s going down in a hurry… fast enough to launch all of those 6 Billion self-exalting, self-seeking persons into space.  You can’t compare the worth of God to all of creation, let alone an individual, and this is good news.  In heaven, none of us will be looking around for a mirror to see how great we look, we will be captivated by the unending, infinite glory of God.

Now I don’t want these to be my words, I want you to see this in God’s word.  Look at these scriptures, and ask yourself if God’s purpose is for His glory, and to be enjoyed forever.  Bolded sections are by me for emphasis.

Before creation – we’ll start in Ephesians 1:3-6 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved”

Isaiah 43:6 – “bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Romans 9:17 – “For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

Isaiah 48:9-11 – “For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.  Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.  For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned?  My glory I will not give to another.”

Luke 2:12-14 (of Jesus) – “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest,”

Romans 3:23-26 – “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

What is sin?  We were created in the image of God to treasure and reflect His glory.  We sin when we do not do this, and everyone of us has fallen short.  God put forth His Son, because He loves us – yes, but first because of His namesake.  His glory needed to be seen as just.  His glory is never secondary in His mind, and I thank God that it is so.

I could go on forever with scripture, but my encouragement is to read through the Word yourself and see if you are convinced of these things as I am.

Now I don’t want to have people think that there is no way in which God makes much of us as individuals, He does.  I just want us to get the order right, and make our mission during our short short time during our lifetimes the same as God’s.  God delights in us, as redeemed creations, and is glorifying us already through the process of sanctification, and will fully glorify us when we see Him as He is.  But we are not ultimate, God is.  God’s delight in making much of us, stems and terminates in His glory being made known to us, and our enjoying Him.

Look at your life?  Do you exist to make much of God, or are you asking God to make much of you?  Realize that God would not be loving you if he gave you a mud pie, when there is a feast available.  My encouragement is to seek God, to ask Him to stir in your heart a passion for His glory, and to spread that to others.  There is no more loving thing you can do for someone.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

We all have times in our life when we look back at something “bad” that happened in the past, maybe it was a break-up of a relationship, and we thank God that it didn’t work out like we’d hoped.  Isn’t it funny that in looking back at the time when you initially broke up, you were praying to God to “make things work out”?  So what changed?  Why did you go from praying one moment for God to restore a relationship to a later point in time thanking Him that it didn’t work out?  Well obviously the answer is time, but more specifically, perhaps you gained some objectivity over time, perhaps your perspective change, your desires may have changed, or perhaps things that were unknown at the time, came to light.  If you then, being finite in your knowledge and understanding can see how a previous “bad” situation was ultimately for your good, how much more is God capable of this?  The difference is you only know your life up until today, but God is outside of time, able to see every moment of every day from that day, until you die.  His knowledge is not just the result of a slightly better perspective, He has perfect knowledge.

Now I’m going to switch gears, but I’m going to tie everything up at the end, so bear with me.  How do you know whether or not you trust someone or something?  Surely it’s more than just saying you trust someone.  You know who you trust because you have shared things with them, you may have entrusted your children to them for a weekend, or your home, etc.  Ultimately you have placed your well being, and/or the well being of those you love, into their hands.  Now you wouldn’t put your trust in just anyone right?  They have somehow, over time proven themselves to be trustworthy, by their actions, and perhaps the testimony of others.  Maybe you sent off your 3 kids with them for an afternoon, and 2.75 kids returned in relative health that evening (close enough, right?).  But the reality is that there is also broken trust.  There are those that you have placed your trust in, that have let you down.

Now what I’m not going to say is that we are able to understand God’s purposes in things.  Even in the Bible it tells us in Romans 11:33-34 – “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 

Again in Isaiah 55:8-9 – “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

I think a lot of Christians feel the need to comfort others by trying to “understand” God’s purposes in hard times, and in reality, it may be that we are never to know.  It’s better usually just to weep with those who are weeping, but I could go off on a tangent here, so I’ll save that for another day.  So we, in our finite ability to understand the limited things we do, will never fully understand the “reason” behind things.  If that’s true, why should we trust God?  God has given us commandments in His Word, as to how we are to live our lives, so that we will have a measure of joy in this life in relationship with Him, and a fullness of joy in His presence after.  Why should we trust that His way is best, when the pain that you feel is real?  When it is within your ability to reach out and grab temporary pleasure, why should you trust God, that His way, maybe a harder path is better?  What has God done to reveal His trustworthiness?

Romans 5:7-8 – “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

2 Timothy 2:11-13 – “The saying is trustworthy, for:  If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”

God has proven His trustworthiness in Christ.  How many friends do you know that would remain faithful, loyal to you, even while you mocked them, spat on them, and called for their death by the most humuliating and painful possible way?  God is faithful, because He is the essence of faithfulness, He cannot be otherwise.

If then God has perfect knowledge and is perfectly trustworthy, why do we struggle to listen to Him?  Why do we seek to run after what seems right to us in our own eyes, instead of walking in obedience to the One who knows all things, and loves us perfectly?  This isn’t easy, because we’re fighting our sinful nature along the way.  Our sinful nature tells us that we know better than God, that happinness is within our power to manufacture.  That voice, that urging is what we must kill, and the gospel is how we do it.  My encouragement is to dig deep into these truths, press them into your heart, and walk in submission to God.  Not blindly, but with eyes opened by the gospel to know the Truth.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

There is a reason that I push so hard on the idea that a believer’s health can be determined by his/her joy in God.  Namely, it is very easy to have affections for God because of what He has done, or what He can do for you.  It is also very easy, after a time of study, to maintain a very solid theology, to have correct thoughts about God, without any joy in Him.  God is not pleased when He is a means for us towards something else, nor is He pleased that we merely learn about Him, but find no joy in what we see.  As much as I love theology as a means to know God, it is very humbling and helpful to remember that Satan has more correct thoughts about God in one moment, than I will in my lifetime.  The difference of course is, Satan knows much about God, does not delight in Him.

You cannot manufacture by works or effort, however hard you try, delight in the person of God.  Now when I say that you cannot manufacture delight in God on your own, and that is true, that doesn’t relieve us of our responsibility to have it.

Deuteronomy 28:47-48 – “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.”

The Bible describes salvation, as a person finding a treasure, and delighting in that treasure greatly.  Matthew 13:44 – “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

“In his joy”, one gives us all that they have, to obtain a greater treasure.  Joy in God is a natural response to seeing the glory of God, and claiming all that He is for us in Jesus Christ as our own, through the cross.  If one does not delight in God, that very absence of delight is sinful.  If that does not make sense, look at the things in your life that you delight in.  The relative worth of a thing in your life can be measured by your delight in it.  That could be TV, money, new clothes, sex, family, or your home.  God is not against those things by any means, but if you can delight in the gifts of God, but not the Giver, how is God glorified?  Moreover, if faith is described as someone finding a treasure in a field, and in their joy selling all they have to obtain it – what does that say about our faith?  Joy is so much a part of saving faith, that in certain places the Bible almost makes joy and faith interchangeable.

2 Corinthians 1:24 – “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” 

Philippians 1:25 – “Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith,” 

Now some of you at this point might be asking yourself the question, “I don’t have joy like this, and if joy can’t be manufactured by my effort, what am I supposed to do?”

I don’t want to leave anyone hanging there, because while God wants us broken before Him, he does not want us to despair.  You cannot manufacture delight, but you can put yourself into the path of delight, where God desires you to be, and with prayer, eagerly ask God for it.  That is our burden.  That is how we can work out our salvation with fear and trembling, yet God is the one truly at work in us, giving us the gift of joy.

Philippians 2:12-13 – “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

We put ourselves in the Word of God, singing songs, surrounded by our Christian brothers and sisters, serving others, getting out into God’s creation, and we pray, we fast, and we wait.

Psalm 40:1-3 – “I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.  He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.” 

Joy may be spontaneous, but it must be pursued.  Joy in God is not a peripheral “nice to have” for a Christian, it is the essence of the gospel.  It is a fight, a fight for joy, and a fight for faith.  The gospel, and authentic faith may be more than just joy in God, but it is not less than that.  I pray for the day that the weight of God’s glory will press into our hearts so deeply, that joy overflows around us, at work, at home, among friends, and in our quiet moments.  I pray for the day when among professing Christians, God is not merely a concept to be known or a means to some other end, but that God is an end unto Himself.  That is my exhortation, for your joy, that you purpose your heart to pursue joy in God.  Be encouraged and hold fast, God may not grant joy immediately, but our Treasure awaits us, and our Treasure is great.

Grace and Peace,
Adam