by Wretched on Friday, April 1, 2011 at 10:50am
The answer to this question is, We all do! The freeness and richness and depth of God's love for believers in Jesus Christ sounds too good to be true. Our world operates as a meritocracy. Everything is about achievement, success, what you do to get ahead. So when we hear in the gospel that the Father loved us so much that he sent Jesus to live the life we could never live and die the death we deserved to die as a sheer gift by his grace, we are baffled. And because we're in touch enough with our weaknesses and flaws and sins, we can from time to time feel insecure: Does God really love me?
How should you handle this struggle? Repent and believe the gospel.
Believe the gospel - meditate on and reappropriate the truth of texts like 1 John 4:10: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins." Or Rom 5:8: "But God demonstrates his love toward us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Or Rom 8:1: "There is therefore now no condemnation (= no doom) for those who are in Christ Jesus." Fight to keep the truth of the Father's love in front of you. Pray the truth of these verses deep into your soul till your heart is at peace, resting confidently in the unchanging love the Father has for you. The Father loves you. The cross proves it.
But you also need to repent. And the reason you need to repent is that there is often a sinister and subtle mixture of faith and unbelief swirling around your insecurity.
First, you need to understand that part of you wants to believe that God the Father is cold and capricious...because who can blame you for rebelling against a vicious dictator? But if the God of the universe isn’t simply and all-powerful and transcendent deity, if this all-powerful and transcendent deity is also full of love for us, then to rebel against that kind of God would be nothing short of treason. What I’m saying is that if God is distant and disinterested in us, then we have a ready-made excuse for running our own lives without regard for his authority over us. It allows us, in a manner of speaking, to have our cake and eat it, too: we can rebel against God and feel justified in our rebellion. So we get rebellion and we get an unfettered conscience.
We also don’t want to admit that God is a loving, generous, gracious father, because to admit that would be to admit that we’re children – that we need him, that we’re not all that wise, that we’re not all that strong, we’re not all that powerful. I mean, the whole Christian life is summed up in terms of being a child – needy, humble, dependent, weak - Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You need to linger over that and take that in…because what Jesus is saying is that what it means to be a Christian is to be a child of the Father. But to be a child is to be the opposite of every inclination of our hearts. You don’t want to be weak (or even seen as weak). You don’t want to be needy. You don’t want to be foolish, childish. Every fiber of your being (and mine) wants to be strong and self-sufficient and wise. So if God can be something to you less than or other than a loving Father, then you don’t have to admit just how much of a child you really are.
So if you're struggling to believe that God loves you today, remember the gospel. Remember that God's love for you is as certain as his love for his own son, as certain as the cross of Calvary. And as you remember that God's love for you will never, ever change, you will find yourself free to confess to him that part of you wants to believe he's not a loving father. From there, you can repent and run right back into his loving arms, knowing that even in your rebellion, you were and always will be his dear child.
R W Glenn
Pastor of Preaching and Vision
Redeemer Bible Church
Minnetonka, MN
www.solidfoodmedia.com
www.redeemerbiblechurch.com
http://redmeatforthesoul.wordpress.com/
The answer to this question is, We all do! The freeness and richness and depth of God's love for believers in Jesus Christ sounds too good to be true. Our world operates as a meritocracy. Everything is about achievement, success, what you do to get ahead. So when we hear in the gospel that the Father loved us so much that he sent Jesus to live the life we could never live and die the death we deserved to die as a sheer gift by his grace, we are baffled. And because we're in touch enough with our weaknesses and flaws and sins, we can from time to time feel insecure: Does God really love me?
How should you handle this struggle? Repent and believe the gospel.
Believe the gospel - meditate on and reappropriate the truth of texts like 1 John 4:10: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins." Or Rom 5:8: "But God demonstrates his love toward us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Or Rom 8:1: "There is therefore now no condemnation (= no doom) for those who are in Christ Jesus." Fight to keep the truth of the Father's love in front of you. Pray the truth of these verses deep into your soul till your heart is at peace, resting confidently in the unchanging love the Father has for you. The Father loves you. The cross proves it.
But you also need to repent. And the reason you need to repent is that there is often a sinister and subtle mixture of faith and unbelief swirling around your insecurity.
First, you need to understand that part of you wants to believe that God the Father is cold and capricious...because who can blame you for rebelling against a vicious dictator? But if the God of the universe isn’t simply and all-powerful and transcendent deity, if this all-powerful and transcendent deity is also full of love for us, then to rebel against that kind of God would be nothing short of treason. What I’m saying is that if God is distant and disinterested in us, then we have a ready-made excuse for running our own lives without regard for his authority over us. It allows us, in a manner of speaking, to have our cake and eat it, too: we can rebel against God and feel justified in our rebellion. So we get rebellion and we get an unfettered conscience.
We also don’t want to admit that God is a loving, generous, gracious father, because to admit that would be to admit that we’re children – that we need him, that we’re not all that wise, that we’re not all that strong, we’re not all that powerful. I mean, the whole Christian life is summed up in terms of being a child – needy, humble, dependent, weak - Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
You need to linger over that and take that in…because what Jesus is saying is that what it means to be a Christian is to be a child of the Father. But to be a child is to be the opposite of every inclination of our hearts. You don’t want to be weak (or even seen as weak). You don’t want to be needy. You don’t want to be foolish, childish. Every fiber of your being (and mine) wants to be strong and self-sufficient and wise. So if God can be something to you less than or other than a loving Father, then you don’t have to admit just how much of a child you really are.
So if you're struggling to believe that God loves you today, remember the gospel. Remember that God's love for you is as certain as his love for his own son, as certain as the cross of Calvary. And as you remember that God's love for you will never, ever change, you will find yourself free to confess to him that part of you wants to believe he's not a loving father. From there, you can repent and run right back into his loving arms, knowing that even in your rebellion, you were and always will be his dear child.
R W Glenn
Pastor of Preaching and Vision
Redeemer Bible Church
Minnetonka, MN
www.solidfoodmedia.com
www.redeemerbiblechurch.com
http://redmeatforthesoul.wordpress.com/
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