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 Love - The Basis Of All God's Dealings With Man -poonen


[b]Love - The Basis Of All God's Dealings With Man[/b]
[i]by Zac Poonen[/i]

We need a solid foundation for our love for the Lord. That foundation is His own unchanging love for us. "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Many Christians experience difficulties later on in their lives, because they were never clear on this point initially. Right at the start of our Christian life we need to get this foundation strongly laid.

When God created this earth, and put man upon it, His intention was that everything in it should live and move in an atmosphere of love. Even the obedience that He sought from man was not the obedience of slavery but of love. Since there can be no love in the true sense of that word where there is no freedom of choice, God endowed Adam with a will that was free to choose, even though it involved the great risk of a wrong choice- of man disobeying Him. At any cost God would have a relationship with man that was free. He never wanted slavish service from man. He did not want it then, and He does not want it today.

Right through the Bible we see this picture of love governing all God's dealings with mankind. Right through the history of the nation of Israel God sought to impress upon them the enduring nature of His love. He loved them with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3; Deut. 4:37). He told them that the response that He sought was their love in return (Deut. 6:5). But they were just like us. They constantly doubted His love. And yet God kept on loving them. When they complained that He had forgotten them, He replied in those tender words of Isaiah 49:15: "Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget yet will I not forget thee." A mother may not think of her grown-up children all the time; but if she has a child on her breast, there is hardly a moment of her waking hours when her thoughts will not be upon that child. When she goes to sleep at night, her last thought is about that baby sleeping beside her.

The book of Hosea also stresses this. The painful experience that Hosea went through in his own personal life was a parable of God's attitude to Israel. His love, it tells us, endures as does that of a faithful husband to an unfaithful wife. Why, do you think, has the Lord placed a book like the Song of Solomon in the Bible if it, too, does not embody a picture of this great truth-the faithfulness of the divine Lover to His wayward bride?

Our faith needs to be founded firmly upon this fact that all of God's dealings with us are based upon His love. The words "He will rest in his love " in Zephaniah 3:17, have been translated: "He is silently planning for you in love." Do we realize that every single thing that God allows to enter into our lives comes from a heart that is planning for us in love? Every trial and problem that has come into your life and mine has been planned for our ultimate good. When He crushes our plans, it is in order to save us from missing His best. We may not be able to understand it fully on earth, but if only we realized that there are no second causes, but that everything comes from the hands of a loving God, it would take away all the worries and fears and hard thoughts that normally plague us. It is because believers are not firmly established upon this truth that these anxieties and cares arise in their minds, and they remain strangers to the "peace of God that passeth understanding".

The ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was very often a corrective to the false conceptions that even religious people of His day, well read in the Old Testament scriptures, nevertheless had about their God. Everything about Jesus, His healing the sick, His comforting words to the sorrowing, His loving invitation to those burdened with sin, His patience with His disciples and finally His death on the Cross, all showed the loving nature of the heart of God. How often He impressed upon His disciples that their heavenly Father loved them and cared for their every need. How often Jesus rebuked them for doubting their Father. If earthly fathers knew how to provide for their children, how much more would their loving heavenly Father provide for them (Matt. 7:9-11). The parable to the prodigal son was also intended to show them God's great forgiving love towards his wayward, rebellious children. By irresistible logic, by parable and by personal example Jesus sought to correct the erroneous.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2007/7/3 16:25Profile
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 Re: Love - The Basis Of All God's Dealings With Man -poonen

Quote:
Our faith needs to be founded firmly upon this fact that all of God's dealings with us are based upon His love.



This is the question; does God [i]really[/i] love us? Does God desire our best interest? Does God really want what is [i]best[/i] for us? I am not so sure that is truly believed, especially in holiness circles.

Think on this line I recently heard; [i]trust is the fruit of [u]knowing[/u] you are loved[/i]. The moment you sense hostility or hatred from a person- trust ends and suspicion arises. We don't trust our enemies do we? Why? Because we know they don't love us and [i]trust is the fruit of knowing you are loved.[/i] No sense of love- no trust. It is automatic. You can no more will yourself to trust than you can walk on water. Trust is the fruit of knowing you are loved.

Quote:
At any cost God would have a relationship with man that was free. He never wanted slavish service from man. He did not want it then, and He does not want it today.




Actually, not 'any' cost- but the [i]ultimate cost[/i] was the price God paid to have a relationship with us. Does God want fear driven slaves constantly looking over their shoulder and wondering if they are performing well enough to be in that relationship? If God does not want slaves- why does so much repentance preaching seem to drive with the whip of God's wrath rather than lead with His goodness?


[i]He did not want it then, and He does not want it today...[/i] But can we get there from here? I mean, can we convince folk of God's love after terrifying them with His wrath and anger? I mean, I think too often we point people to look at Hell when we should point them to look at the Cross. The Cross was not a picture of how angry God was at man- it was a picture of how much God loved man and wants a relationship with man. Christ took our punishment. We deserved hell- but Christ paid it all.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten SOn... (John 3:16a). When we look at the cross we see what we deserved- but much more we see the love of God in Christ suffering in my place. [i]That[/i] is what brought me to my knees when I got saved. I had a revelation of the cross and the love that God had for me in Christ dying in my place. It is then, I knew that He loved me. I knew what I deserved! But I did not get smitten with visions of an angry God dangling me over the pits of a firey Hell; but a God that loved me enough to pay the price to remove the offense. I deserved Hell- but He wanted a relationship.

And the fruit of my knowing that He loved me? I could [i]trust[/i] Him. Trust is the fruit of [u]knowing[/u] you are loved- we need to trust Christ. But we only trust those that we know love us and desire what is best for us. |And God forbid that I would preach hell and not the cross- God's wrath but not the price paid. God forbid that I should seek and search out every scripture and theology possible to depict God- and color God- as angry as a rabid mad man 10 fold over and not show the people the love of Christ that passes knowledge.


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Robert Wurtz II

 2007/7/3 20:06Profile
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 Re: Love - The Basis Of All God's Dealings With Man -poonen

Received this by way of subscription yesterday and once again that strange wonder at simultaneous musings finding precise expressions elsewhere, such as this ...

There is a slight difference between the one I received and this posting, the last paragraph did not stop at the last word there, 'erroneous' but continued on;

[i]The ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ was very often a
corrective to the false conceptions that even religious
people of His day, well read in the Old Testament
scriptures, nevertheless had about their God. Everything
about Jesus, His healing the sick, His comforting words to
the sorrowing, His loving invitation to those burdened with
sin, His patience with His disciples and finally His death
on the Cross, all showed the loving nature of the heart of
God. How often He impressed upon His disciples that their
heavenly Father loved them and cared for their every need.
How often Jesus rebuked them for doubting their Father. If
earthly fathers knew how to provide for their children, how
much more would their loving heavenly Father provide for
them (Matt. 7:9-11). The parable of the prodigal son was
also intended to show them God's great forgiving love
towards his wayward, rebellious children. By irresistible
logic, by parable and by personal example Jesus sought to
correct the [u]erroneous[/u] views that His generation had about
God. In His final prayer before He went to the cross, He
prayed that the world may know of God's love (John 17:23).
May God imprint deeply and eternally upon our hearts these
assurances from His Word of the truth of His infinite and
unchanging love for us, for faith in God can grow on no
other soil but this.[/i]

http://www.cfcindia.com/web/mainpages/word_for_the_week.php

[i]Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity ...[/i] 1Co 13:1


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Mike Balog

 2007/12/17 9:50Profile





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