Indescribable

Recently I was reminded of a couple stories I heard in children’s church when I was young. The teacher liked to read from a book of Christianized stories. I don’t recall whether any instruction accompanied the stories, but what I realize now is how deficient they were in explaining the gospel. (As a side note, I shudder to think what kids might remember from my classes when I was on summer ministry teams during college.)

The first story, in brief, was that a fire swept through a barnyard and a mother hen protected her chicks by tucking them under her and sacrificing her life for theirs. The second story was of a drawbridge operator who brought his son to work one day. When he heard the horn of an approaching boat he discovered that his son was out on the gears that would raise the bridge. He had to decide whether to save his son or the people on the boat, and he chose to sacrifice his son.

Aside from the questionable choice to read such stories to children, there were definite misconceptions about how Jesus’s death on the cross came about and how we were saved through that sacrifice. A few corrective lessons come to mind.

1) The cross was no accident or last-minute decision. The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:4 that “God chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world.” And in Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Similarly, Peter wrote, “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Pet. 1:10-11). The cross was not “plan B.”

2) Jesus was not an unwilling participant. God knew from before creation that mankind would need rescued from our sinful state, and the Trinity determined the plan before we knew we needed it. Jesus knew the time of His death was coming but still prayed “Thy will be done” (Luke 22:42), and then “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

3) We are not innocent bystanders, “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” (Rom. 3:23-24). We weren’t just floating through life minding our own business, but instead were (and are) actively sinning against the God who created us. And though we did nothing to deserve it, God loved us enough to make a way for us. “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

4) And flowing from that verse, Jesus didn’t have to convince God to save us. Sometimes gospel presentations make it sound like Jesus loved us first, and only because Jesus gave His life does God the Father love us. Thomas McCall wrote,

“God is for us. It is not part of God that is for us—as if some divine persons or some divine attributes were opposed to me while others are for me—it is just God who is, in the impassible simplicity of the trinitarian life, radically for us. The death of Jesus does not make it possible for God to love us. The death of Jesus makes it possible for us truly to know God’s love, makes it possible for us to love God.” [See TGC’s bookreview here.]

I heard a quote from Thomas McCabe’s Faith Within Reason (which I have not yet read so I’m not sure if I’d recommend or not) that is worth pondering:

“[God] is just waiting to welcome us with joy and love. Sin doesn’t alter God’s attitude to us; it alters our attitude to him, so that we change him from the God who is simply love and nothing else into this punitive ogre... God never changes his mind about you. He is simply in love with you. What he does again and again is change your mind about him. That is why you are sorry. That is what your forgiveness is.”

It’s so easy for us to misconstrue the gospel because we try to break it down into bite-sized ideas. When we do that, we minimize the glory of the whole arc of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We need to remember that our metaphors are just that—tiny, flawed pictures of something magnificent and awe-inspiring.

“How deep the Father’s love for us! How vast beyond all measure, that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure!” (Stuart Townend, 1995).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Shame Interrupted

Every few years I reread Ed Welch’s book Shame Interrupted. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the feeling of never measuring up, which started early in life. This poem was the result of my ponderings.

***

The voices in my head tell me I don’t belong,
I’m not wanted,
     not welcome,
           not good enough.
I don’t look right,
     act right,
          feel right,
                talk right.
I still hear the whispers behind my back,
Taunts and jibes,
     trying to provoke a reaction.
I won’t let them know how it hurts,
     keep my head down,
Pretend I don’t hear them, I don’t care.
One day soon I’ll leave them behind,
     go to better places.

But the voices still follow me, still echo in my head.
I wasn’t invited,
      I’m not wanted,
             they don’t care.
There is One Voice I trust, One who never fails,
One Who says,
      “I hear,
             I know,
                   I love you.”
He too experienced shame,
Crucified, naked, taunted,
     “If you are the Christ!”
              “Save yourself!”
He endured the cross, despising the shame,
For us, for me.

There are some who speak His words,
     but they too forget,
They don’t hear the voices in my head.
They are dealing with voices of their own.
But God remains,
     interrupting shame,
Reminding me,
       “You are My beloved child.”

“Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood,
Sealed my pardon with His blood,
      Hallelujah, what a Savior!”

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Imposters

I wrote the following for our Eastern Regional Association’s June newsletter:

“Imposter Syndrome” is the feeling that if people really know you they’d realize you are a fraud, not really qualified, and it often leads to anxiety and striving to keep the mask in place. It’s a fairly common experience, and one that I’ve dealt with at times because of my unusual path into an accounting career. I have to remind myself, as the saying goes, that “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” We may tend to think that if we just take a spiritual gift test we’ll know exactly what God wants us to do for the rest of our lives. But oftentimes our confidence in our own abilities makes us prideful and robs God of the glory He should be receiving. He delights in using those who know they are unqualified. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor. 1:27-28). It strikes me that God chose Saul of Tarsus, the man educated under Gamaliel and a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” to send him not to his fellow Jews, but as an apostle to the Gentiles. And God sent Peter, the uneducated fisherman, as an apostle to the Jews. God likes to take people out of their comfort zones so that they will rely on Him. As Paul wrote, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9b).

Another manifestation of Imposter Syndrome is the feeling that you don’t quite fit in and would be rejected if people knew you. As I wrote this, Rev. Glennon Balser was nearing the end of his days. If you knew Glennon, you know that he was a great hugger. That made me start thinking about all the hugs that will be shared when we all meet again in the Resurrection. But then it hit me that it’s far easier for me to imagine that than to imagine the embrace of my Savior when He comes. I’ve tended to picture the Judgment Day as an impersonal sorting— “Sheep… sheep… goat… All the sheep to My right, all the goats to My left…” Yet if you look at the life of Jesus, you get a different picture. He was known as a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Matt. 11:19). He reached out to touch and heal the unclean (Matt. 8:3). He stopped to talk to a woman in the middle of a crowd and called her “daughter” (Matt. 9:22). And He told a parable of the prodigal son and said “while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). We too can expect to be embraced when we come to our eternal home as children of God.

The fact is, we’re all imposters. None of us deserves the blessings of this life or the privilege of serving God, and none of us deserve eternal life in His kingdom. But that doesn’t matter because our Creator is the One who chose us, redeemed us, and adopted us into His family—not for anything that we have done but simply because He delights to show us His love. What a day that will be when we can run into the arms of our Father!

 

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

It is not uncommon these days to hear calls for tolerance and acceptance that say, in essence, “If you love me, you’ll let me do whatever makes me happy.” Although this isn’t a new idea, the voices are much louder than they used to be. Often this comes from a misconception of the biblical idea that “God is love.” C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain:

“By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness… And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness… What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ …whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’ …I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don’t, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction… If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt” (35-37).

David Powlison wrote something similar in Good and Angry:

“[God’s] mercy is not niceness. His mercy is not blanket acceptance of any and all. Mercy to us costs him—the blood of the Lamb. And mercy comes to us at the cost of our sins and pride. His kindness is an open invitation to turn to him in repentance and faith, to come to him in our need for mercies freely offered, and our trust in mercies freely given” (as quoted in Take Heart, Jan. 13).

God’s love is not benign approval of whatever we may love and enjoy. His perfect love means He puts divine boundaries on what is acceptable, because He knows what is best for us. We, in our sinful nature, often choose what is less than best—what is convenient, comfortable, and even corrupt. It is for this reason that we have His written Word to guide us, to help us understand what has been true from eternity, as opposed to what may appear true in our culture today.

The Apostle John wrote, “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. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:8-10).

God didn’t create the world so He could just smile down on whatever His creation wanted to do. He created us to be brought into relationship with Him. Because of our sin that relationship was broken, and so God sent Jesus to pay our debts, redeem us from sin, and make us right with God again. God’s love for us meant that He gave the ultimate sacrifice, not to simply make us happy, but to make us more like Himself, in the perfect righteousness that we’ll experience for eternity if we follow Him as Lord in this life.

So when we look to God’s model of love to guide us, we don’t choose indiscriminate niceness and acceptance of anything and everything our culture comes up with. It doesn’t matter whether the demand is from a child asking for unlimited cookies, or an adult wanting unlimited sex, or anything in between. In love, we should recognize that many things are off limits if we truly want what is best for one another. And we need to look at it from an eternal perspective—will today’s choices lead to ‘fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore at God’s right hand’ (Psalm 16:11), or will they lead to “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42 & 50)? True love should make us do all that we can to point people to eternal life, not eternal death.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

 

© 2023 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

The Needs of the One

There are two scenes from Star Trek that have come to mind frequently in recent weeks. At the end of “The Wrath of Khan,” when Spock is about to die because of his efforts to save the ship, comes the following dialogue:

Spock: Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh... 
Kirk: ...the needs of the few.
Spock: Or the one. I have been and always shall be your friend.

Then at the end of “The Search for Spock” is this interaction:

Spock: My father says that you have been my friend. You came back for me.
Kirk: You would have done the same for me.
Spock: Why would you do this?
Kirk: Because the needs of the one... outweigh the needs of the many.

If I’m honest, I often think that the first scene reflects God’s attitude toward mankind— “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” When difficulties arise in life, it’s tempting to think that God has bigger concerns than the wellbeing of one person, that He’s weighed us in a balance and the “best result for the most people” will always outweigh the few who are hurt in the process. I suppose that reflects Western business principles.

It’s complicated by the fact that God is focused on eternal priorities—salvation and sanctification—when we are often craving temporary comforts. It is also difficult to understand when God doesn’t reveal all His plans ahead of time and He rarely answers the question “Why?” However, Scripture tells us:

“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7).

“Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me… Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:4-5, 16).

“When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:17-18).

Somehow, in God’s economy, His care for individuals is intricately woven into His care for His Church as a whole, along with His care for humanity in general. One way that gets worked out is that God uses suffering to strengthen and purify each of us. James wrote,

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4).

Peter put it this way,

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:6-7).

I suspect that if given a choice, most of us would prefer satisfaction over sanctification, comfort over completion, ephemeral peace over eternal perfection. Paul Tripp wrote in Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense,

“Here is suffering’s paradox: the very thing we would do anything to avoid, the very things that confront our understanding of who we are, and the very things that cause us the most pain become the very things that usher into our lives the blessings of the help, hope, peace, and rest that we all long to experience” (162).

“So your suffering isn’t purposeless, impersonal pain that robs you of what’s good. It’s a tool picked up by a Savior of wisdom, love, and grace to produce wonderful things in and through you that you could never produce on your own” (185).

We need a change of perspective (and I’m preaching to myself here!). We need constant reminders that God is good, that He cares, and that He is in control. May God give us the faith to endure and to trust that His good purposes will prevail even when we can’t begin to fathom what He is doing here and now.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers… [Nothing] in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:28-29, 39).

***

The end of today’s prayer from Valley of Vision is relevant to this subject:

Give me unwavering faith
  that supplications are never in vain,
  that if I seem not to obtain my petitions
    I shall have larger, richer answers,
    surpassing all that I ask or think.
Unsought, thou hast given me
  the greatest gift, the person of thy Son,
  and in him thou wilt give me all I need.

***

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Image copyright free from pixabay.com and revised by Dawn Rutan. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Unfailing Love

I have been savoring Michael Card’s book, Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Lovingkindness. Thankfully he made the chapters fairly short so you can chew on an idea for a while before moving on to the next one.

Hesed is a Hebrew word used over 200 times in the Old Testament to describe God’s character, His works, and His people. It is notoriously difficult to translate, not because it is obscure but because it is so rich in meaning. No single English word can do the job. Some of the most common translations include: mercy, kindness, love, lovingkindness, steadfast love, faithfulness, and loyalty. Here are just a few examples:

“‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love [hesed], forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of Your steadfast love [hesed], just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now” (Num. 14:18-19 ESV).

“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His gracious covenant loyalty [hesed] for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commands” (Deut. 7:9 CSB).

“Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven above or on earth below like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy [hesed] with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts” (1 Kings 8:23 NKJV).

“Surely Your goodness and unfailing love [hesed] will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6 NLT).

“Your lovingkindness and graciousness [hesed], O Lord, extend to the skies, Your faithfulness [reaches] to the clouds” (Psalm 36:5 Amp).

In the New Testament the concept of hesed appears in Jesus’ life and teaching (e.g Matt. 9:13, Matt. 20:14-15, Luke 10:36-37). God’s love and mercy are meant to overflow in our lives so that we show the same love and mercy to the world around us.

Late one night as I was pondering what I’d been reading, I pictured myself examining a cup of water and thinking I understood water while being oblivious to the ocean beside me. I think that’s a bit like our understanding of God’s love in the church. We talk about it, sing about it, and proclaim it to others, but we only know one teacup of the vastness of His steadfast love toward us. And because of our anemic understanding of God’s love, our own love is often shallow and feeble. To use the Apostle Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:18-19, we need to “have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

The book concludes with this thought,

“God commands his people to do justly and to love hesed [Micah 6:8]. We struggle with both. If it were simply a matter of doing justly or loving hesed, we might be able to come up with a formula, a set of rules to follow. But the two must function together. We can do justly only by loving hesed. The doing must flow from the loving. And the loving is a response, as love is always a response, to the God of Exodus 34, who is full of hesed and at the same time does not leave the guilty unpunished… In Jesus of Nazareth, the embodiment of hesed, God was perfectly just and perfectly merciful. Through Jesus he fulfilled the promise to not leave the guilty unpunished by placing that punishment on Jesus in an act of pure and perfect hesed. Jesus did justice by loving hesed. He gave himself so that we might be conquered by the kindness of God, a kindness that leads us to repentance, that draws us to the cross… The final challenge to you and me is to take whatever understanding we have in our heads of hesed and allow the Spirit to move it into our hearts. We must enter into the world of the word hesed and then take that world into our world, back to our families, to our churches and towns—to our enemies. The Scriptures are offering us an unimaginable opportunity to make Jesus believable and beautiful by offering everything (even our very lives) to those who have a right to expect nothing from us.” (133-135).

Some time back I memorized the first three verses of Psalm 136 in Hebrew. (You can find anything on YouTube!) At the time I did not realize that they contain a version of the word hesed, since I’m not a Hebrew scholar. Those verses have often brought comfort in the middle of the night, and now that I have a somewhat fuller understanding of God’s hesed love and faithfulness I will cherish them even more.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, for His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1-3).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. Cover art courtesy of Amazon.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

If I Only Had a Heart

One of my Christmas gifts was The Wizard of Oz video. It’s been years since I last saw the movie, and one quote jumped out at me. The Wizard says to the Tin Man:

“A heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others” (1:32).

As much as I like the movie, that’s certainly an unbiblical idea. Jesus told His disciples:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

The Apostle John added this explanation:

“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. 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. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:7-11).

So, in opposition to what the Wizard believed, what matters most is that God first loved us and thus we are both enabled and commanded to love others regardless of what they may think about us. Jesus went on to say,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:43-44).

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you… If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them” (Luke 6:27, 32).

Our culture excels at loving those who love us and agree with us, but don’t let any hint of conflict arise or all bets are off. It doesn’t seem to matter whether there are marriage vows or church membership covenants—love, as we understand it, goes out the window. But that is to ignore God’s command to love even our enemies. Love is not mere tolerance of others, nor approving of sin. It is showing grace and compassion that yearns for others to find reconciliation with God and man through Jesus Christ. In C.S. Lewis’s words, “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained” (The Problem of Pain).

But if we’re honest, none of us love others as we should. There are people who irritate us, people we hope never to meet in the grocery store, and perhaps even people who would consider us their enemies. We can’t love people by our own strength or willpower, but the solution is not to go looking for a heart or looking for people who already love us. We need to continually turn to God and ask Him to keep growing the fruit of the Spirit in us, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

I realize this has been a recurring theme in many of my blogs, but it’s also a recurring theme in Scripture. Love appears over 200 times in the New Testament alone, so it must be pretty important to God, who is Himself Love. This year “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24).

“May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints” (1 Thess. 3:12-13).

© 2022 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Loving Kindness

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law” (5:22-23).

Our church recently went through the book of Galatians, and I’ve continued to think about the fruit of the Spirit and the idea that Jesus is the perfect example of each aspect of the fruit. I started looking up verses related to each trait. I think the thing that has stood out most to me is the idea of God’s kindness.

• Ephesians 2:6-7 – “[God] raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
• Titus 3:4-5 – “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
• Romans 2:4 – “Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

It seems easier to believe that God is merciful and gracious toward us than that He is kind. We are sinners in need of forgiveness, and because Jesus died in our place on the cross we can receive forgiveness. We might tend to think that His mercy is given reluctantly or from some kind of contractual obligation. But the idea of God’s kindness toward us takes it to a different level. As someone has said, “He doesn’t just love me, He actually likes me.”

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word hesed may be translated as “kindness,” “loving kindness,” or “steadfast love.” In the New Testament, we see this kindness illustrated in Jesus’s life. He takes time to talk with the woman at the well even though Jewish men did not normally talk to either Samaritans or women (John 4). He treated her as someone worthy of respect and attention. He evidently found the conversation satisfying since He implied that her coming to faith was better than food for Him (v. 32).

Jesus had compassion on a widow whose only son had died, and He raised the young man from the dead (Luke 7:11-17). He could have stood back and watched the funeral procession pass like everyone else did. One wonders if He was thinking of His own mother and the loss she would soon bear at His crucifixion. His compassion couldn’t help but be expressed in a kind and miraculous act.

At another time, Jesus was approached by a leper who said, “Lord, if You will, You can make me clean” (Matt. 8:1-4). Jesus could have healed him from a distance or with a simple word as He had before. Yet this time Jesus reached out to touch the man to heal him. This too was an act of kindness toward one who had probably been untouchable for years.

Others who saw Jesus brought children and infants to Him to bless them (Mark 10:13-16), and Jesus used children as illustrations (Matt. 18:1-6). There had to be something about Him that attracted children and parents to Him. Unkind and cantankerous people don’t attract children and hurting people to them.

Why then is it so hard for us to picture God as loving and kind toward us? Perhaps we identify more with Jesus’s harsh words to the Pharisees, who thought they could earn salvation if they worked hard enough. We want to prove we are good enough, but deep down we know how desperately lost we really are. We are ashamed of our inadequacy and can’t imagine that God doesn’t cringe a bit when He looks at us. (I know I’m not alone in this!)

In another section of Scripture that is illustrated perfectly by Jesus, we are told “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” (1 Cor. 13:4-7). Do we dare to believe that God looks at us with this same loving kindness? We should!

“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).

“Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You” (Psalm 63:3).

© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Welcome

“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Romans 15:7).

Sam Allberry and Ray Ortlund have started a podcast called “You’re Not Crazy.” In a recent episode Allberry said, “We’ve turned the gospel into the cancellation of debt. We’re preaching mercy more than we’re preaching grace. So I actually went many years in my Christian life not really hearing about the welcome of Jesus. I heard about the debt-cancelling death of Jesus: you’re now not a problem to Jesus. I didn’t hear much about what we’ve been saved into…”

I’d say that my experience was similar. For many years I heard about God’s forgiveness, though not in a way that gave me much assurance that God wouldn’t get tired of hearing my confession. I always felt like I had to keep up with a performance to please God. It still strikes me that when I told my Resident Director in college that I thought God was disappointed with me, she didn’t have any good or biblical response, though I realize now that she wasn’t much further along in her faith that I was. It was a long time before I really understood that God loved me while I was still dead in my sins (Eph. 2:4-5), that He chose me and adopted me into His family not reluctantly but willingly (Eph. 1:4-5), and that He welcomed me wholeheartedly. I’m still growing in that understanding.

The Gospel Coalition podcast had an episode this week with Dane Ortlund (Ray’s son) that covered some of the themes in his book Gentle and Lowly. He made the comment:

“The way a ministry leader approaches others is how he believes or she believes God approaches them. When you see a harsh leader… you are seeing what he believes God is most deeply like toward him, and when you see a gentle pastor, you are seeing what he believes God is most deeply like toward him… We are not only preaching and teaching what God is with what we say, but also how God is with how we say it… Your person is more powerful than your words.”

That makes me wonder, did my lack of understanding of God’s loving and gentle welcome come more from the words that I heard (or didn’t hear) or from what I saw in those who were trying to teach me? Probably it was a combination of both. How well do most churches demonstrate God’s welcome by welcoming others? We all probably need to work on communicating God’s welcoming love more effectively and frequently. It’s not just up to the pastor or the Sunday school teacher or the youth leader. It’s really up to all of us. As the new person or the child growing up in church begins to feel known and loved by the people there, it becomes easier for them to believe that God also knows and loves them just as they are.

Jesus pointed out in Matthew 25:31-46 that if we welcome strangers we are welcoming Him. And in Paul’s words in Romans 15:7, that contributes to the glory of God. Why? Because we get a glimpse into the character of God and come to know Him a little better.

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).

 

© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

All You Need Is Love

Borrowing an idea from a sermon by Sam Allberry, the world readily agrees that “all you need is love.” What they don’t agree on is what exactly love is. Society might even agree that “love is patient and kind… it is not arrogant or rude” (1 Cor. 10:4-5). But those words mean different things. For the unbeliever, love means:

• I can do whatever I want and you can’t judge me.
• I can pursue whatever and whoever I think will give me pleasure and fulfillment.
• You must benignly accept whatever I believe.
• You must allow me to become whoever and whatever I want to be.

Some non-Christians might be familiar with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” And if they heard 3:17 they might applaud the first half of it: “ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world—” but the passage does not stop there:

“but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3:17-20).

God didn’t send Jesus into the world simply to say “I love you, so you can do whatever you want and we’ll all celebrate for eternity.” God sent His Son because we all have been walking in the darkness of sin and unbelief. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God never said “Anything goes.” He set up standards of behavior, and every one of us have failed to meet those standards. Jesus even expanded those standards to include our thought life (Matt. 5:22, 28).

Jesus didn’t come to remove all the measures of morality and holiness. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:19). He also didn’t come to say, “Can’t we all just get along?” Rather, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

Because of God’s love, Jesus proclaimed, “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). The answer to our depravity is not tolerance and acceptance, but repentance. True love is found in turning to the One who bore our sins on the cross so that we might be reconciled with God.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses… God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

He didn’t say, “There’s no such thing as sin or evil, so you’re all good.” Sin is so significant to God that the only way it could be dealt with was to offer His own perfect Son on the cross in our place. For us to accept the world’s view that “love means anything goes” is to cheapen Jesus’ sacrifice and the glory of the God who 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. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10:12).

As we celebrate Easter, may we not make the mistake of embracing love as a kind of mushy sentimentality or an innocuous tolerance. Let us remember the true cost that Love paid to make us part of God’s eternal family, and may that spur us to share the good news of true love with the world.

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are… By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:1, 16).

© 2021 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Effects of Faith

Faith gives us eternal hope.

For those who trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, we have the certainty that there is coming a day when God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

When life is hard and it seems like things will never change, there is always the hope of eternity. Eternal life means that the trials of this life are temporary and they will one day seem insignificant. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17).

Faith gives us purpose.

Life is about more than getting an education, earning a living, raising a family, or saving for vacation and retirement. For the believer, every aspect of life is infused with the purpose of loving and serving God by loving and serving those around us. Joseph Hellerman wrote:

“Experiencing God and serving God are not unrelated. God offers a wonderful alternative to an otherwise aimless life that must rely on regular shots of experiential escape—secular or spiritual—to provide a sense of significance. That alternative is to give our lives to a community with a mission—a local church charged with the task of proclaiming the ‘excellencies’ of the God who has called us ‘out of darkness into his marvelous light’ (1 Pet 2:9)” (Why We Need the Church to Become More Like Jesus, ch. 6).

If we expect this life to fulfill all our hopes and dreams, we will be sorely disappointed. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:23-24).

Faith joins us to a family.

Through faith in Christ we are adopted into God’s family. We don’t just have a relationship with the Father, but with all of His children. We have more in common with those in our Christian family than we do with non-Christians in our nuclear family. We may share history with our nuclear family, but we share an eternal future with our Christian family.

Our brother and sisters in Christ are meant to be those with whom we can share both our joys and our struggles. “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor… Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:10, 15). “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess. 2:8).

Faith assures us that we are loved by God.

“Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us… God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:5, 8). By His love and grace our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled to Him. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3), so we are just as beloved as Jesus is. “For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you” (1 Thess. 1:4).

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13).

 © 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

The One That You Love

For a couple days I’ve had a line from Air Supply on my mind: “Here I am, the one that you love, asking for another day. Understand, the one that you love, loves you in so many ways.” I know some people take issue with the “love song” perspective of God, but as I was humming to myself it struck me that God does sometimes say things like that. “Here I am. Are you going to give Me this day? Do you understand how much I love you?”

God can remind us of truth in unexpected ways, including love songs. Mark Buchanan wrote in The Rest of God, “God is always speaking. ‘There is no speech or language / where [his] voice is not heard’ (Ps. 19:3). But we’re not always listening. We don’t make the effort and so fail to go boldly into his throne room to receive what we need: a word that can pierce, and cut, and heal… Are you listening?”

We all need reminders of God’s love. Jesus told His disciples “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love” (John 15:9). The Apostle John referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” We don’t know what it was about their interactions that made John say that, nor do we know what the other disciples thought about it when they read what he’d written.

In Christ, all of us can know we are His beloved children. “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). But I think, if we’re honest, most of us have a hard time remembering “I am the one that He loves.” We know that God loves all the people He has created, and He has a special love for all who belong to Him through Jesus Christ. But it’s harder to grasp that God loves me with all my sins and failures and wanderings and unbelief. We sing “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so,” but we may struggle to comprehend His love.

The Apostle Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesus “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17b-19). Paul wasn’t one to waste words, so it seems likely that the Ephesians needed that prayer, and we do too. There are aspects of God’s love that we’ll only understand in eternity.

My prayer today is, “Here I am, the one that You love, asking for another day in Your presence. I don’t love You as I should, but I want to love You with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Help me to understand that You love me in ways I can’t yet begin to comprehend.”

“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8a).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

No Other

“He is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and He in whom I take refuge…” (Psalm 144:2 ESV).

Lord, I confess that I often forget that You are my steadfast love.

No human can give the kind of love I want and need.

No one else is always available.

No one else knows my thoughts before I think them

And my words before I speak them.

No one else always has my best interests at heart.

No one else is perfectly wise in heart and mighty in strength.

No one else can work all things for my eternal good.

No one else collects all my tears in a bottle

And knows the reason for each one.

No one else always cares for my soul.

No one else sticks closer than a brother.

No one else fulfills every promise.

No one else speaks words of comfort to my soul

And gives me songs in the night.

No one else has engraved me on the palms of his hands.

No one else can guide me with perfect wisdom.

No one else is my rock and my salvation.

No one else will carry my close to his heart

            And gently lead me to green pastures and still waters.

Lord, forgive me for expecting people to be and do what only You can.

“Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:39).

© 2020 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Jesus, Draw Me Close

In John chapter 6 we read of Jesus feeding more than five thousand people and then withdrawing. The next day when the crowds sought Him out again He told them:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves… I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:26, 35 ESV).

We are often like the crowds, seeking Jesus to meet our felt needs rather than for a desire to know Him deeply. Sam Allberry wrote about this passage, “The greatest gift Jesus gives us… is Jesus. He is not the means to some other, separate end. The Bread of Life is not something else, with Jesus being the one who dispenses it for us. He is the prize.” Heath Lambert wrote, “They minimized Jesus and his work by seeing him as the source of only one good thing rather than cherishing him as the fountain for all life… You should come pursuing a full-fledged relationship with this sovereign King who saves, desiring to draw close to him in every way, and not just seeking to get your problems fixed” (142).

It’s not just unbelievers or young Christians who seek Jesus for the wrong reasons. Even those of us who’ve been on this journey for a while can lose perspective. Our prayers can become a shopping list: heal this person; save that one; bless our food; and, oh yes, I could use a little bit of forgiveness and freedom from temptation too. I know I’m not the only one to fall into this pit at times. It is all too easy to go through the motions of prayer and Bible reading without actually seeking God or interacting with Him. Alistair Begg often uses this short prayer at the beginning of his sermons: “Make the book live to me, O Lord. Show me Yourself within Your Word. Show me myself and show me my Savior, and make the book live to me, for Jesus’ sake.” That might be worth adopting for personal devotional times, though that too can become a meaningless habit.

How might our lives and our churches be different if we were truly and consistently seeking a living relationship with our Heavenly Father rather than seeking the good things He can give us? It is appropriate to be thankful for forgiveness, the promise of eternal life, and the blessings of life and family. But we may start to sound like little children at Christmas saying a perfunctory “Thanks!” while racing off to play with our toys. And yet children who only get periodic packages from an absentee parent quickly learn that gifts are meaningless apart from a loving relationship.

The Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesians:

“[That] according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16b-19).

The blessings of His riches are for the purpose of knowing the Father’s love—knowing the One who is love. We miss out when we settle on the gifts apart from the Giver. May we not stop short of knowing the best He has to offer—Himself.

“See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are… So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 3:1, 4:16).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Look to the Lord

William Shakespeare wrote in Sonnet 116, “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” He wasn’t writing about God’s love, yet those words are more true of God than they are of any human love. David wrote, “For Your steadfast love is great to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds” (Psalm 57:10 ESV). There are over one hundred references to God’s steadfast love in the book of Psalms alone, with 26 of those occurring in Psalm 136.

We all need to be reminded that God’s love does not change just because we sin or doubt or forget His Word. David prayed, “Remember Your mercy, O Lord, and Your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to Your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of Your goodness, O Lord!” (Psalm 25:6-7). It wasn’t that he had to remind God of His love and mercy, but that David himself needed that reminder.

George Herbert (1593-1633) was another poet and priest who gave words to our struggle to remember God’s love. One of his poems begins:

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.           
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lack’d anything.

He goes on to say he can’t look on God because of his shame, to which God replies, “And know you not Who bore the blame?” Love invites him to come sit at the table and enjoy the meal because it is God who provides both forgiveness and grace. As is often the case, I write what I need to hear for myself, but I’m sure we can all relate to that sense of unworthiness that makes us draw back from God when we’ve sinned. And yet, He is more than willing to welcome back His prodigal children.

Herbert’s poem has some parallels to Isaiah 55:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price… Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My steadfast, sure love for David…[Let] him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (55:1, 3, 7).

We cannot begin to deserve the forgiveness and love and many other blessings that God pours out on us. We cannot repay what God has done. Our role is simply to receive with gratitude. In many ways, that takes more humility than it would to perform some kind of penance. If we could do enough to offset the guilt of sin, then we might take pride in thinking we had somehow contributed to our salvation. But if it is a gift of God from beginning to end, we must be humble, powerless recipients. This way God gets all the glory for what He alone has done. “It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8b-9). May we be quick to run back to the Father every time we realize we’ve wandered away!

“To You, I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of the maidservant to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till He has mercy upon us” (Psalm 123:1-2).

“Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136:26).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

God Stoops Down

As I’m nearing the end of Ed Welch’s book Running Scared, I came across this comment about 1 Peter 5:6-7:

“Our natural tendency is to go it alone, or, if the load is too heavy, to call a friend to help. But Peter paints a different picture. In an act that could never have been conceived by a human being, the King comes and beseeches us to lay our burden on him… Peter is doing his best to persuade us to be a new people who call out to the Lord. Let Peter persuade you. He begins by exhorting us to know that our God is the Creator God. He holds history in his hand. He delivers with a mighty hand, the grandest display being the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ… In keeping with his character, he continues to serve; he invites us to cast our burdens on him as we would cast burdens on an ox… In one of the amazing paradoxes of the kingdom, when God takes our burdens and takes the position of a servant, he reveals our inability and his sufficiency” (266).

Throughout Scripture God pursues relationship with people. He made covenant after covenant (Noah, Abraham, Moses, David), not requiring people to serve Him, but telling them what He wanted to do for them. God delivered the people from Egypt before He gave them the law. His grace preceded His standards. The people were to obey because they had been delivered from slavery, not in order to be delivered. He sent Jesus as the mediator of the New Covenant so that we who are sinful and insufficient might become part of His eternal family. And He continues to pursue us when we are wandering sheep. We can’t make ourselves worthy of His attention or mercy.

In no other religion does a supreme being stoop down in love in order to bring people up. What god is there that doesn’t first demand obeisance and obedience before consenting to fulfill a request? What other god says you can “cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you”?

I’ve slowly been reading Mark Twain’s Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. He spent a fair amount of time describing the religious practices in India and all the things people go through to try to appease the many gods. It’s humorous but also sad that people can expend so much time, effort, and money to curry favor with gods that are no gods. The One true God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4 ESV). And He makes it possible for us to come to Him, not because of our obedience but because His grace and the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

He not only saves us, but invites us to come to Him with all our cares and concerns. It’s really dumbfounding if you think about it. We can quickly start to take it for granted if we’ve been around church for very long. The God who created the universe and sustains it by His power desires a relationship with us. His ears are attentive to our prayers. He knows our very thoughts, because He is not a disinterested omnipotent being, but a loving Heavenly Father.

As we enter this season of Lent and approach our Easter celebrations, may we not forget the wonder of what we have because of Jesus Christ. May the truth astound us and bring us to new heights of gratitude and thanksgiving.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

© 2019 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

More Than Anything

Reading in the Old Testament recently I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. In 2 Samuel 9, King David asks, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” (9:1 ESV). He is introduced to Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who is crippled in both feet. Mephibosheth is invited into the palace and dines at the king’s table for the rest of his life. In contrast, in the next chapter David sends condolences to Hanun when his father, the king of the Ammonites, dies. Hanun’s response is to disgrace the messengers, which leads to a massive battle. If he had received the messengers graciously, he could have avoided a war.

It seems to me that in both these chapters King David was a model of God. He extends grace to two different men—one accepts it and becomes like a member of the family; the other person rejects it and brings condemnation on himself. Likewise God has extended the offer of forgiveness and adoption to all, but we can choose whether or not to accept it. “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:17). “God sent forth His Son… so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).

Mephibosheth is one of my favorite characters in the Old Testament. He knew he had nothing to offer the king. He could barely even get around. He was simply grateful to be honored by David. After a misunderstanding when David temporarily fled the palace and Mephibosheth got left behind, Mephibosheth turns down an offer of land, because all he cares about is that his king has come home (2 Sam. 19:24-30). All he wants is to dwell with the king who brought him into his family.

I think we could all learn from Mephibosheth. It’s tempting to desire the blessings more than we desire God. We feel entitled to certain benefits, and when suffering comes we join Job in trying to argue our case before God (Job 13:3 et al). We aren’t content to eat at the King’s table and enjoy being part of His family. God gives us Himself and we want more! (Check out Natalie Grant’s song “More Than Anything.”) We may be poor witnesses for the Gospel if we seek the gifts more than the Giver. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). It is His mercy that matters, not our blessings.

If Christianity were inextricably linked to health, wealth, and other visible blessings, we wouldn’t have any trouble convincing people to join up. But what God offers us is reconciliation with Him and adoption into His family for eternity. That may not sound too appealing to many people. Who needs that when they can have all that they want without having to read the Bible or obey God?

May we learn the contentment of having peace with God. In that way our lives can reflect the glory of the God who saved us in our sin and weakness.

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life” (Philippians 2:14-16a).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Worth It All

Three authors I’ve read recently have said similar things:

“He would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you” (Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, 155).

“To lose us was too great a pain for God to bear, and so he took it upon himself to rescue us” (John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, 61).

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV).

Have you ever thought about the fact that the joy of granting us salvation and reconciliation to God made the cross bearable for Jesus? He endured hours of unimaginable torture in order to give us eternal life. God didn’t have to give us the ability to choose sin, but He did. God didn’t have to send His Son to die for us, but He did. God could have left us as mortal creatures with just one short life to follow Him.

Dennis Jernigan wrote:

“He gave His Son, Jesus, to bear the punishment and pay the debt we owed because of our sin. He rose that we might rise from the death of sin in our own lives. He gave us a free will and man sinned. It is we who separated ourselves from God. He did not separate Himself from us. We are the lost ones. He is the One Who finds us!” (Daily Devotions for Kingdom Seekers, Sept. 7).

If I were God, I don’t think I would have done it this way. I would probably have made a perfect paradise from the beginning and skipped all the drama of sin and redemption. I have to assume that God’s plan maximizes the glory He receives. Perfect, sinless creatures have their place, but they can’t express gratitude for salvation if they have nothing to be saved from. As the old song says, Amazing Grace is one song the angels cannot sing.

I don’t know why He did it like He did, though as one of the creatures in this fallen world I’m certainly glad that this is not the end of our story. I can’t begin to fathom a love that says, “This is the perfect way to create this world. All this pain and trouble will be worth it all just so My chosen people can be made worthy to dwell with Me forever.” Somehow, in His sovereign wisdom, God decided this was the best plan. All we can do is give thanks.

“How precious is Your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings” (Psalm 36:7).

“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! …Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever” (Rev. 7:10, 12).

© 2018 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.