Monday, April 06, 2020

You Might Be Settled on God's Love For You, But What About Your Love for God?

God doesn't love us by sending on to us His sentimental feelings.  That's not love.  He actually loves us, and so does Jesus.  Jesus laid down His life.  God does things.  He provides.  He gives.  I can keep going, but it's the length of the whole Bible.

If God loved certain professing evangelicals, like they "loved" Him, they wouldn't experience anything.  They wouldn't even be alive to experience anything, but assuming that they were alive, they might hear God sing, maybe to them because it would be hard to tell if it was to them or for an audience, a simple, sappy, sensual song possibly while strumming on a guitar or hitting emotional chords on a piano.  They might get to sit through His crying about His feelings somewhat related to them.  They would get to watch God have a good time at their expense knowing that His love for them, the professing evangelicals, was His acceptance that they could put up with all the good times He was having.  It would be all about God.  He would have strong feelings toward them and they wouldn't know it.

The love of God for professing evangelicals that paralleled with their love for Him would take whatever they said to Him and make it about Him and not them.  That isn't love and it isn't the love of the true God, but it would be a love like professing evangelicals.  Evangelicals are into the love of God for them, and even though they are even missing on what His love is for them, they are absolutely off on what their love is for Him.

I think I can find some common ground with professing evangelicals about the love of God for men, perhaps more than half of it. We could list together dozens and dozens of things that God has done and does and will do.  I know we would not agree on even what His love is for men.  He doesn't love us by allowing us to live in a way that is displeasing to Him.  He doesn't accept the worldliness, superficiality, fleshliness, and regular sinning.  However, the bigger difference relates to their love for God.  We love Him because He first loved us.  They would agree with that, but that love wouldn't be actual love, as prescribed and described by God.  They focus in on His love for them and their love for Him is feeling good about what they think that love is, which is mainly acceptance and approval.

The love we show God, if it is true love, is very similar to the actual love He shows us.  A portion of the love He shows us, professing evangelicals want a lot of that.  They don't want the chastisement.  They don't want the toughness.  They don't want the love that enables holiness, purity, and sacrificial service.  They want love that takes away their guilt really for their not loving Him.  They want love that accepts their feelings toward Him.  They want love that covers for past sin and continued present sin.

When Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 16:22, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha," he wasn't using the verb "love" in an arbitrary or ambiguous way.  It wasn't, "Fill in the blank on whatever it is that you want love to be."  Love is what God says love is.  God is love.  All love fits into the nature of God.  Most professing evangelicals just profess to love God.  They have developed a theology to convince themselves that they love God, when they don't.  So they are "Anathema Maranatha."

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