​LOVE HELPS YOU THINK

That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God. Eph. 3:17-16, R.S.V.


Feelings of security are a rare commodity in our present chaotic world.  We are often incapable of reaching our full potential because of the negative forces at work inside us--lack of self-worth, the unsureness of the solidity of our lives.  And most of our inabilities sten from feelings of being unloved.

Our tenderhearted God knows this.  He understands that we can never be fulfilled, or fulfill our high calling, unless we come to the realization that we are absolutely secure in Him, that His love for us is without reservation and totally unconditional.  And so He gave us Jesus.

Jesus.  We have so many mental pictures available to us.  Many are of Him healing.  God means to be healing to us, very tenderly healing.  Many pictures of Him teaching.  God means to teach us, to fill our hungry hearts and minds with exciting themes, expanding ideas and ideals.

Jesus--quietly riding the waves of the Sea of Galilee.  Serene in His awareness of His Father's love.  Our Father's love, how steadfast it is, how enduring!  We see Him in the midst of a throng of children, their dusty little hands clamoring for His arms.  They were sure of acceptance.  How sure we may be of God's acceptance, His eager enjoyment of all that we are!

Slowly, as the edges of our agonizing souls give way to the soothing reality of our Father's love, our minds awake.  Awake to adventure, because we are secure enough in our heritage, our divine heritage in and through Jesus.  We find the paths of understanding opening to us, the marvel at His Creation, His plan for us, and ever more so, the inexpressible height, breadth, length, and depth of who He is.  We spontaneously worship Him whose ideals for us surpass our knowledge--that we should be filled with His own fullness, that we should one day be restored into His image.

God's love sets us free to think, to explore, to become.  We may be sure that He watches our every step of progress with infinite pleasure, encouraging us to keep on growing.

IS REJECTION USEFUL?

All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out.  John 6:37, R.S.V.

Perhaps we've gotten it from each other, this idea that God rejects us when we fail.  When we disappoint each other, we know how quickly that cold distance flows in.  Almost intuitively we suspect that with His very high standards God has even more reasons to reject us when we don't measure up.

In fact, some are sure that God's giving and withholding of acceptance is the leverage He uses to get us to do good.  When we behave properly he rewards us with His smile.  When we act selfishly, we are punished by His judgmental frown. (Somehow we overlook the fact that this never works in human relationships.)

But our God knows that the whole problem of sin is centered in our being distant from Him.  He pleaded with Adam and Eve not to break the original faith relationship with Him; but they did, and---along with all their children---have been suffering the tragic losses of alienation ever since.


So the Father's plan for saving people requires that they come back to Him.  In His great redemption plan He knows that we have everything to gain if He can keep us in constant fellowship with Himself.  The Scriptures are full of admonition to abide in Christ.  That's where the healing takes place. 


What value is there, then, in His rejecting us?  Having put such energy into getting us to join with Him, would He ever break the bond?  Would He ever cast us out?  Even using rejection as a form of leverage to get us to be good ends up in complicating the problem.  Rejection always hurts, making one all the more concerned with himself and his needs. It is only loving acceptance that heals.


Furthermore, God has vastly better reasons for obedience than for us to try to earn as a favor that which He has already offered as a free gift.  Obedience, which means living in harmony with His spirit and wisdom, carries all its own inherent rewards.  In the same way, one who disobeys draws down all manner of terrible consequences upon his own head.  Rather than needing the additional "punishment" of God's frown, he is at that point even more in need of tender nurturing.


Why, then, could Jesus say, "Him who comes to me I will not cast out"?  Because He knew better than any that absolutely nothing is gained by casting one out, even when he fails. 

​WHEN YOU'VE BEEN FORGOTTEN

"Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?"  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Isa. 49:15, R.S.V.

The closest relationships available to us in this life are supposed to teach us of God's relationship with us.  When they fail to do this or teach us just the opposite, we might well wonder if there is any hope.

One of the most agonizing of life's tragedies is when someone who should have loved us, no matter what, fails to do so.  IT is almost enough to destroy us.  Bitterness often pervades the whole life causing every good thing to be discounted, every slight to enlarge like a mountain.  "It's not fair!" we cry.  And we are right.  But that is not the end of the matter.

God sees deeply into our wounded hearts.  With utmost sensitivity He lifts us up into His great arms of love and reminds us that though such unthinkable things can happen on this runaway planet, they will never happen with Him.  By using a carefully chosen analogy, He helps us to realize that He cannot forget us because He has so identified with us as to make us a part of His own being (see Isa. 49:16).

All of us are damaged by our passage through this life.  Some are devastated.  Only very tangible evidences of God's love can bring these wounded souls back from despair.  But God has a plan to do just this.  It includes all of us who have come to know and trust Him.

Jesus showed us how.  He lived God's life in very real and reachable ways right in the middle of a very damaged people.  He cared, He listened, and He touched them.  He cried, and I believe He laughed--warm, genuine laughter of someone who enjoys another person and delights in him.  He was honest and straightforward about the problems of life.  People were always more important than their current decisions.

Hearts were warmed, hopes renewed.  Some even dared to believe that their past life need not hinder them in their future successes and acceptance.  And is not this the finest privilege of a mother--to send forth her offspring secure in their potential and innate worth?  Perhaps we may cry with the Master Himself, " 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?'   And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers!' " (Matt. 12:48, 49, R.S.V.)

FIRST RELATIONSHIP, THEN DEEDS

Formerly you were yourselves estranged from God, you were his enemies in heart and mind, and your deeds were evil.  But now by Christ's death...God has reconciled you to himself.  Col. 1:21, 22, N.E.B.

There is a vital one-two-three sequence in this text.  Seldom has Paul spoken more clearly about the real nature of the sin problem.  Notice how it happens" (1) you were estranged from God; (2) you were enemies in heart and mind, and then (3) your deeds were evil.

We can hardly say it too often: Sin is a relationship word.  I cannot talk about sin without talking about God--about the alienated relationship between myself and God.  Having chosen a life apart from Him, all my values become distorted.  Being estranged from the lover of my soul, I become insecure and defensive.  And that insecurity so readily finds its expression in hostility.

What, then, can result except evil deeds?  Since we have been created for fellowship with a loving and personable God, the absence of that friendship is devastating.  It is fair to say that virtually everything we do that is unkind, immoral, immature, and otherwise sinful, we do in a frantic attempt to fill that resulting ugly emptiness

Of course, our God knows that this is exactly what happens.  He knows that just as sin is a relationship word, salvation is also a relationship word.  If we do sinful deeds because we are estranged from Him, then His first step is to win us back into that healing friendship with Himself.

Satan is also very interested in spelling out a path to God's friendship.  He says that if we will do enough good deeds, God will reward us with His friendship.  God, however, offers His friendship, not as a reward for our good deeds, but out of the sure conviction that his is the only means than can ever produce good deeds.  Only those who are loved can be truly loving.

How much we need to remember that we are not trying to reconcile God to us, but that God is reconciling us to Himself.  The hostilities never were His in the first place; they are not His to drop.  We are the estranged ones.  The cross of Christ is God's act to win us, not Christ's act to placate God.

And God is confident that, having won us to Himself, He can do great things in us, even removing every last blemish that the broken relationship has caused.

FALLING SHORT OF KNOWING GOD

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Rom. 3:23, R.S.V.

Jill felt a deep estrangement from her mother, who always seemed to find fault with whatever Jill said.  Finally, she began to understand the reasons behind her mother's thinking--and to appreciate her obvious love for her.  In time Jill and her mother became close friends.

In our growing understanding of the sin problem, we see more and more that it is our lack of knowing God Himself that has always hindered our relationship with Him.  This He knows, and in every conceivable way He seeks to win our confidence.

On the mountain with Moses, God passed before His hidden servant and proclaimed His name by declaring the quality of His dealings with mankind, which is His glory.  In Jesus He lived before us with such winsome candidness that our hearts have been thrilled.  Yet, even for believers, God has seemed somehow a little remote and unreachable.  We "fall short" in our understanding of Him, and in the end it perpetuates our inability to relate totally and positively to Him.  This results in what we typically call sin.

God understands our need to understand Him!  In the most loving and thorough way He has set about to reveal Himself to us.  That revelation has taken time, as it does in all lasting friendships.  But that need not put us off.  It is not a statement of any lack on His part of a desire to have us live eternally with Him.  Rather, it is concrete proof that He is most eager to establish a union with us that  will endure throughout the fathomless ages of eternity.

Just knowing that God cares so much about the quality of my relationship with Him causes my heart to swell.  It means that He believes in my capacity to be that kind of friend.  It means that His opinion of me is favorable, that He will go to any lengths to secure me to Himself.  I can hold my head high!  The great God of the universe values, and is aggressively seeking to establish, my friendship!

As I see Him as He is, I trust Him with my very life and future.  I love Him with all my heart.  And I know that the break in my relationship with Him will be forever healed.  Let us seek Him with renewed assurance, knowing that His eagerness to be one with us far exceeds anything we have imagined before.

JESUS CAME ANNOUNCING FORGIVENESS

Let it be known to you therefore, brethren, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him every one that believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.  Acts 13:38, 39, R.S.V.

Jesus didn't come bargaining with forgiveness; He came announcing it.  Jesus didn't say, "I will forgive you if you will believe in Me."  He said, "I am a forgiver--won't you please believe Me?"  Jesus came to this earth to proclaim "good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:0).  The good news is not that I am forgiven, but that God is a forgiver!

The angels didn't say that the good news was only for the believers, but for all people.  Unfortunately, not all of them would become believers in that good news.  But the news remains constant, whether or not we believe it.  In Christ, God announced forgiveness for all people.  The lost will indeed be lost, not because God did not offer them forgiveness, but because they did not accept the Forgiver.

We cannot trust in that which is conditional if we must produce the conditions.  Were God to say, "I will forgive you if you will believe in Me," we would begin to measure the quantity of our faith, then doubt we had produced enough.

By contrast, were God to say, "I am, by My very nature, a forgiver; I cannot be unforgiving, any more than I can be unloving," we would have something upon which to rest our confidence.  Then, believing in Him, trusting in that unconditional forgiveness, we would be healed from further need to rebel.

When Jesus cried out from the still-prostrate cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34), He was not begging for something the Father was unwilling to do.  Rather, He was announcing for all to hear that the Father is a forgiver.  And He hoped those cruel soldiers who were at the moment driving spikes into His wrists would hear that message, for someday they might come to know full well what they had done.  And as they staggered under the awareness that they had driven nails through the Creator, He wanted them already to have heard the news "You are forgiven."

What could be more freeing from self-centered concerns than the assurance that our greatest need, freedom from the death penalty, has already been met at the cross of Christ?

​IT IS OURSELVES WE HURT

But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul.  Prov. 8:36.

Another translation says, "He who finds me not, hurts himself" (N.E.B.)  If you discover that you have a fatal disease, you seek a physician.  If, instead, you decide that you don't need one, give yourself enough time and you no longer will need one.  Many grieving widows have exclaimed ruefully that their spouses just wouldn't admit that they needed medical help--to their own destruction.

Our estrangement from God is causing us untold suffering.  We are thirsty; He is the Water of Life.  We are hungry; He is the Bread of Life.  We are sick; He is the Great Physician.  However, a very convincing liar, Satan, has made us wary of our wonderful God, saying things that are very misleading and downright wrong about Him.  He says that when we sin, it makes God angry.  That if we don't shape up, God will wipe us out.  (And good riddance, too!)

If God were to be vindictive with anyone, certainly it would be to this perpetrator of falsehood.  Instead, God acts with utmost integrity.  No artificial shame is cast upon this archenemy.  No arbitrary disciplines exacted.  Looking on, we can even detect a definite courtesy being displayed on God's part toward this most unsavory foe.

God never changes.  We have found ourselves born into the enemy cap.  "Condemned!"  Satan screams with hellish accuracy.  But with infinite tenderness and careful language, God tells us the full story.  He tells us how we have been born into a broken relationship with Himself, but that His feelings toward us have always been thoughts of peace and healing.  "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare, and not evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jer. 29:11, R.S.V.).

He tells us the truth about our condition.  Our separation from Him damages us.  God does not punish us by inflicting hurt.  We are hurt as a natural consequence of our apartness from the One who is the most loving, caring, truthful, loyal, exciting, innovative, encouraging, et cetera, source of input into our lives.  It only makes good sense to agree that He is absolutely correct and to confess our condition.  Coming back into right relationship with Him (justification), we begin to experience the total healing that God so desires for us.

​WHOSE OPINION NEEDS CHANGING?

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  2 Cor. 5:19, R.S.V.


The sin problem does not center in God's opinion of man but in man's opinion of God.  It was not God who turned away from man, but man who turned away from God.  The focus of all true religion is on God's endeavors to get men to change their opinion about God.  The focus of all false religion, on the other hand, is found in men's attempts to get God to change His opinion of them.

Christ came to change our understanding of the Father.  He died on the cross that we might know something very important about His love and truthfulness, so that--in knowing it--we would change our opinion of the Father.  Satan has distorted even the death of Christ on the cross as Christ's act to appease the Father on our behalf.  Many Christians believe that Christ's crucifixion allowed the Father to change toward us--to show mercy where previously He could show only wrath.

Sin is the breaking of a relationship with God, but we humans are the ones who moved away.  It grieved God that we should go "into a far country."  And Jesus revealed that the Father walks by the gate, continually looking down the road for the first glimpses of any returning children.  Remember, however, that the wandering son came home when he began to understand who his father really was.

But how will the Father feel about us wanderers when we do come home, still smelling of the pigs and dirty laundry?  Will He dress us down for our stupidity?  Will He make sure we are not restored to family membership until a pound of flesh has been exacted in payment for our crimes?  Paul answers that question explicitly: God's attitude is one of not counting our trespasses against us.  no retribution, no groveling for condescending forgiveness.  We see that we need to come home to the Father; that is enough.

What is more, the Father does not put us on the provisional membership list in order to rub our face in our crime.  He immediately entrusts to us the most important mission a human can carry!  He sends us to help change the opinions of still others about the Father.  He makes it clear that He holds no grudges.  He expects great things from us.  Incredible!  Couldn't you love such a God? 

FREEDOM THROUGH CONFIDENCE

In him we have access to God with freedom, in the confidence borne of trust in him.  Eph. 3:12, N.E.B.

A young boy who was crippled in one foot was cautioned by his mother not to run.  Indeed, while in fact he could outrun his younger sister, he was told that he was not able to run.  Relying on the information given him by the one he most trusted, he ceased this activity, slowly lost what ability he had, and ended up a recluse.  This seemed to confirm his mother's assessment.

What a tragedy!  And it is equally so with those of us who have listened to the interferences of the evil one.  We have a crippled left foot, as it were, and the devil tells us that we cannot run--to the Father!  His reasons are all lies.

First of all, Satan tells us that the Father is angry.  You rarely run toward someone who is angry with you!  Adam and Eve surely did not.  To this falsehood he adds a subtle insinuation: God doesn't like cripples in the first place.  He tolerates their approach only after they have done something to appease Him.

God deals directly with this misleading information.  He gives us better facts, both about us and about Himself.  And in order that He can be the most trusted source of information in our lives, He lived out the truth about Himself in the person of His Son.  As we see God in Christ, we begin to trust in Him.  As our trust grows, we become more confident in our approach to Him until, at last, we know that we have total freedom in or access to Him.  Some even start to run toward Him!

If only we could grasp an even greater truth: we do not need to stay crippled!  God is the great restorer.  In our flight into His presence we find that He "is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or conceive" (Eph. 3:20, N.E.B.).  For God desires us not only to be able to run but to run and not be weary. He has it in His plans that we shall renew our strength, mounting up with wings like eagles (Isa. 40:31).

Our God is the one we should trust the most.  He has the most reliable information.  He has only our best interests, our highest achievements, in mind.  And He is eager and ready to have us run into His presence.  We might even hasten there on wings!

BEING FREE IN JESUS

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  2 Cor. 3:17, R.S.V.


For thirty-five years Bill had been very careful to live by the minute requirements of a conservative Christian lifestyle.  He was convinced he must do that in order to obtain salvation.  Suddenly, however, he turned his back on all religion.  "I've got to be free to become myself,"  he complained.

Perhaps Bill had never studied today's text.  Probably he felt, as do many Christians, that the Spirit's presence and freedom just don't seem to go together.  Such people see God as needing to impose upon them a heavy sense of "ought-ness"--"You ought to do this," "you ought not to be that."  Freedom seems a cruel joke, but to admit it would be rebellious, and they "ought not to be rebellious!"

But if there is in one's religious experience such a feeling of oppression, of heavy demands for submission to power, then we can be sure that the Spirit of the Lord is not there.  He is not involved in such religion.  For the Spirit of the Lord does not work by force.

We must recall that there is more than one kind of force.  Far more subtle and therefore more effective than physical force is emotional force.  And that comes in myriad forms: the threat of withholding love, using past failings to rub the raw nerves of hurting self-worth, and verbal scoldings and harangues, to name just a few.

Our God works not by force but by imparting the principles of truth and illuminating the mind to understand that truth, making it vital to our lives.  God doesn't need to use force to support His truths for they are well able to stand on their own merits.

In human structures, whenever leaders become deficient in truth they must immediately compensate with a display of power.  Such leaders either do not have truth behind their schemes or they do not trust the ability of their subjects to grasp what truth they may have.

But God has neither problem.  Not only is His government rooted in sensible, coherent truth, He also has great confidence in the capacities of His creatures to perceive that truth!  To use force is to deny both these principles.

In an atmosphere of freedom, how quickly our minds respond to grasp the principles of truth on which God builds His gracious government.  Are you free in Jesus?  Then thank His Spirit for showing you how to be free!