How wonderful is it to know that “God is love”?!!
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
– 1 John 4:7-8
If there’s one aspect of God worth knowing, it is that He is love. Of course, that’s not all He is. Holy Scripture describes love as the embodiment of God’s law, which speaks to the fact that God’s justice and righteousness are manifest in His love.
Godly love exists in accordance with all other aspects of His being. For example, to be just is to love. To be righteous is to love. To be gracious and merciful is to love. We are called to love this way, thus fulfilling the whole law of God. We are called to love God this way, first and foremost.
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
– Romans 13:8-10
God is love. No truer statement could ever be made. However, just because an infinite source of love exists in this Universe doesn’t mean that love can be assumed or, even worse, abused. “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
Just because God possesses perfect, unflappable love doesn’t mean we have a right to demand it from Him. While it’s true that His love never ends, it is also true that He expects our fidelity. In other words, we can’t be worldly whores and expect Him to bless us. If you were married to a whore, would you bless that person? You may continue to love them because of your own holy character, but you are by no means going to encourage such abuse. And yet, if you look around at contemporary “Christianity” today, what do you see?
The simplest example relates to the very first of the Ten Commandments.
“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
– Exodus 20:3-6
Our God is a jealous God, which means He rejects whores. While He may love them enough to make Himself known to them (and the way of salvation – ala John 8:11), He will never compromise His integrity.
The First Commandment commands us to have no other gods before Him. As believers, God expects fidelity the same way a husband expects fidelity from his wife. What husband will stand by, passively endorsing a wife who cheats on him? Is the wife to expect she can abuse him indefinitely without recourse? And yet, isn’t that the very picture of today’s so-called “Christian”? Do they not hold up idols, whether self or some other famous person, in the face of the One who saved them? Does not the average “Christian” today mock God and expect His unending love to blot out His jealousy? These same people have placards on their walls that read:
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
– Lamentation 3:22-23
Or…
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me. There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
– Psalm 86:5-8
Placards with Bible verses on them are meaningless if they represent cloaked excuses for evil living. While these are wonderful things to know about God, they cannot be used as shields from God’s wrath. God sees past the lip service and straight to the heart.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
– Romans 1:24-25
At some point, God will stop saving people. For unbelievers, that means He will give them over to their many gods. For believers, that means His patience will come to an end. Only the Lord knows which bucket each of us falls into, but I’ll say this- I don’t want my hope in salvation/deliverance to be based on how far I can push God before His patience runs out. I don’t want to have that kind of a relationship with the One who loved me enough to save me. I don’t want anyone to walk that line, for it is treacherous. We, indeed, have a jealous God who will not be mocked. He is holy and sovereign and has every right to punish us for our trespasses against Him. Let’s not abuse His patience.
My prayer is that I return His love in kind and that I’m humble enough to confess my sins, repent, and enjoy maximum fellowship with Him always. I don’t want Him to be jealous. I hate being jealous and I’m merely an imperfect human being (I can’t imagine how His jealousy hurts Him). I want to keep it simple. I want to stop playing games and acting like I’m not. I want to surrender in humility to Him and Him alone – no other gods, no not none.
“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
– Michah 6:6-8
Love in Christ,
Ed Collins