Tag: god’s love

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 – The Steadfast Love of God

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

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O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
those he redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south….

Some were sick through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress;
he sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from destruction.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
and tell of his deeds with songs of joy. (NRSV)

I’ve always found it a bit curious that there are people who continually equate the God of the Old Testament as nothing but a vengeful and wrathful God.  Certainly, there are passages dealing with God’s anger and his action out of that anger.  Yet, everything God does is from a place of love.  He has never been okay with sin because it damages and destroys people.

Which is why, when people are in need and they cry out to the Lord, he is there for them.  Far more prevalent is the reality that the Old Testament is populated with references to God’s “steadfast love.”  This is God’s covenant-keeping love.  It is the kind of love that holds on and doesn’t let go.  It’s the type of love that is gracious, merciful, and kind.  It is the love the has compassion on the needy and does something about their plight.

In our psalm for today, even when there were people sick and in distress because of their own doing, their own sin, God saved them from their plight.  That’s what God does – he is the expert on deliverance.  God doesn’t shake his finger at us when we screw up and realize our fault; instead, he shows steadfast love.  God doesn’t tell us “I told you so” or “that’s what you get for sinning.”  Nope.  God delivers, and he does it because of his steadfast love.

That’s why people all over the world have learned to sing the praises of the God of the Bible.  It’s why folks from every walk of life and every kind of society have found God as the great lover of humanity.  Their overflowing response to such a loving God is singing, praising, thanking, and offering their lives to him.

If you or someone you know struggles with seeing God as capricious, indifferent, or angry, then I strongly urge you to take in a steady and daily diet of the psalms over the course of the next month.  I think you need an intervention of the God of the Psalms.  Reading 5 psalms per day gets you through all 150 of them in a month.  More than that, pray the psalms.  Allow them to give you a new perspective on the world, your relationships, and yourself.

God of all that is good, your steadfast love has been shown to millions who find in you the desire of their hearts.  May I see your overflowing goodness, your steadfast love, and your infinite mercy operating in this broken world and in my needy heart; through your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever.  Amen.

Psalm 147:1-11 – An Ode to Divine Love

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Lord treasures the people
who honor him,
the people who wait for his faithful love. (verse 11, CEB)
 
            Early each morning I rise, take the dog for a short walk, make a cup of coffee, then open the life-giving message from the God of the Bible.  I read out loud – slowly, mindfully, carefully allowing the words to seep and make their way down into my soul.  The Holy Spirit of God gently nudges, sometimes forcefully hurls, me toward a verse, phrase, or word from the text.  Contemplating, ruminating, thinking about the Holy Scripture begins to set the trajectory of my day.  God is throughout the hours, as I move from one to the next.  Sometimes very much at the forefront of my thinking, other times in the background shaping how I speak and act, and always on my heart enlarging it and filling it with his grace.
            Most of life is lived in the mundane.  The banality of life is the norm.  While others run from prayer to prayer looking for miracles and the next big spiritual hit, the one who is patient… waits… and honors God… has a treasure within which transcends language or outward fanfare.  The settled conviction of the person in continual communion with the God of the universe peacefully waits for faithful, steadfast, committed, divine love.
            There is no description for such a divine/human spiritual relation which exists, giving patience to the penitent and joy to the heart of God.  Such love exists beyond the plane of daily news crises and the continual hum of the crowd.  Indeed, the Lord God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, has stooped to cup his hands and treasure his creature.
            The great medieval mystic, Teresa of Avila, said: “Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.”

 

            Patience is not a bore, and to wait is to be at peace because God is in it.  It is good to be full of him.

God Rejoices Over You

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
God is love, and he loves and rejoices over you.  There is a reason why so many people in this cruel and calloused world are unloving and unkind:  they lack knowing that God loves them.  If we do not believe or know that God infinitely loves us, then our words and our actions will reflect more of hate than love.  God really truly does love you and me.  This is crucial.  Do not forget this.  Believe it.  Live it.  Enjoy it.  Know it.  Tell it to yourselves until you are thoroughly bathed in it because it is more wonderful than any 70’s sappy love song could ever describe it.
 
            There is a verse tucked away in the small book of Solomon’s Song of Songs.  It is an ode to love.  The verse, Song of Solomon 7:10 says, “I am my Beloved’s, and his desire is for me.”  Far too often we think of God’s love in some abstract, distant, detached way.  But the truth is that we belong to God and his desire is for you and me.  God has an intense and overpowering longing for you.  I encourage you to pray that verse every day this week, multiple times in the day.  Let the deep desire of God for you shape and form your thoughts so that fear is replaced with faith; loneliness with enjoyment; the fickle nature of others with satisfaction; praying as duty with praying because I want to be with the God who loves me so much.
 
            Oh, how we need a vision of God singing over us with joy!  Yes, God loves you that much!  Grab a hold of this verse:  Zephaniah 3:17 – “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  Even the most unlovely of people are made lovely through God’s persistent and pursuing love for them.  You are being seen every single day by the infinite gaze and eternal compassion of God, who watches our every step with delight.
 
            Christianity does not “happen” simply by knowing some belief statements about him; rather, Christianity “happens” when individuals experience the white hot burning love of God in Jesus Christ.  Jesus came not only for those who skip church and only occasionally read their Bibles, but also came for the hard-hearted prick, the immoral adulterer, the strung-out addict, the terrorist, the murderer, and for all those caught up in bad choices and failed relationships.  “I have not come to call the self-righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13).  “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).  “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). “Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34-35).  All of Christ’s words and actions are because of God’s intense desire to love the world, and to love it through his church.
 
            God’s love is never based on our performance, or how good we look to others; it is never conditioned by our moods.  The love of God only looks longingly at you and me with the potential of what we can become in Christ and cares for us as we are.  It is a world-altering revolutionary thought that God loves me as I am and not as I should be.  “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
 
            Despite the inroads of atheism in our Western world, the vast majority of people still believe that God exists.  Conversely, however, the majority of people do not believe that God really loves them.  We are in a crisis of love.  People need to know the God who is Love.  Christianity never begins with what we do for God to make ourselves lovely for him.  No! Christianity always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wonderful love that exists for us in Christ Jesus.
 
            “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4).  All the wrong turns in the past, the mistakes and the moral lapses, everything that is ugly or painful all melts in the light of God’s acceptance and love for us.
 

 

            If the consuming passion of church ministry and followers of Christ is not showing God’s love, then we have lost both our mission and our first love of Jesus.  Perhaps we must let time evaporate as we bow at the foot of the cross and experientially know the great love of God in Christ for us and for the world.

Romans 5:6-11

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            Biblical Christian love is more than a feeling; it is an active gracious meeting of a need in another simply for no other reason than that the person requires it.  This means that God’s love is not dependent upon any person’s striving toward him.  Rather, God’s love is based solely upon his free choice to show mercy to whomever he wants to show mercy.  It is an astounding phrase that we have here in Holy Scripture:  “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  God doesn’t wait until we look good enough, act good enough, or make a good enough effort toward good until he steps in and acts.  No, when we are at our worst; when we have no thought toward looking to God for answers; when we are going along our merry way with no intention of being a Christian; then, God shows his love for us by doing the improbable and the impossible:  he saves, justifies, and reconciles us to himself.
 
            This is some really robust truth that needs to sink deep down into our spiritual bones.  We do not save ourselves – God does.  We do not have a leg to stand on in making ourselves righteous – God does that.  We do not gin-up faith and love from within ourselves – God gives it to us.  In other words, all of Christianity is a precious and wonderful gift to us from the very heart of God, who delights in showing grace to the ungracious.
 
            So, then, the appropriate response to all this is to rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ!  Rather than grumping our way through most days like a believer baptized in pickle juice, we can contemplate the mercies of God, which are new every morning.  We can take some time each day to stop and think about the great love of God in Christ that saved a wretch like me.  And, we can live our lives being gracious and loving even toward those who disagree with us or are different from us, because that is exactly what God did for us.
 

 

            Gracious God, your love is unfathomable and beyond description.  Even a glimpse of your mercy is enough to change my life forever.  Let your enduring love be with me always so that I might show that same love toward others, just as Jesus did.  Amen.