Deuteronomy 6:5 “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” And from the Apostle’s Creed: “There is “One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and all things visible and invisible.” Deuteronomy 10:12 “What does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul.
In studying the holiness of God, I found A.W. Tozer's writing that our God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is eternal. He antedates time and is wholly independent of it. Time begins and will end in Him. He pays no tribute and from it He suffers no change. He is immutable. God has never changed and can never change in any smallest measure. To change He would need to go from perfect to less than perfect, and if He were to become less perfect He would be less than God. God is omniscient. He knows in one free and effortless act, all matter, all spirit, all relationships, and all events. Love and mercy and righteousness are His, and holiness so ineffable that no comparisons or figures will avail to express it. Only fire can give even a remote conception of it. God created the heavens and the earth, all the elements of the universe, the hosts of heaven and everything that lives and breathes. God is omnipresent. God is spirit and the limits of space, though established by Him, provide no boundary for the Creator. God is almighty. All powerful in all that is natural and supernatural.
Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Read Job 38:1-40:4 for details we need to thnk about.
America’s first public school textbook asked every student in this nation the same question proposed at the 1646 Westminster Assembly: “What is the chief end of man; the purpose of our life?” The answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Why is it important that we esteem this our highest lesson to glorify God? Is it not the fruit of love? The great American Theologian, Jonathon Edwards writes: “For a man must first love God and be one with Him in heart before he will esteem God’s good as his own. It is the contemplation and enjoyment of God’s perfection that motivates someone to apprehend intrinsically the beauty, glory and supreme good in God’s nature, in a heart united to God in love. The basis of a true love for God is His intrinsic worth, for He is worthy to be loved for His own sake. The exercise of true and holy love in the saints is not primarily that they first see that God loves them and therefore He is to be loved, but rather that they first see that God Himself is lovely. God is the ultimate foundation in the love of true saints. Everything else is built upon this foundation. True gratitude or thankfulness to God for His kindness to us arises from a love for God, based on who He is in Himself. Natural gratitude has no such basis. The gracious stirrings of natural affections to God for kindness received always spring from the primary love already in the heart, which is for God’s own excellence. Because of this love that already exists, prepared the way and laid the foundation, the affections are disposed to flow out on occasions of God’s kindness.
1 John 4:6-12 “We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.”
Edwards continues that Love of God makes a man desire to honor God and to please Him. A natural man’s love for his friend makes him desire to honor and please him. Yet the saint’s knowledge of the loveliness of God and his delight in Him for that are distinctive in holy affection. The desire is not the same. One has acquired the sweet taste of honey but the other has never tasted honey. Therefore their tastes are quite different. A spiritual application of an invitation of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ consists in the giving the soul a spiritual sense and relish of the holy and divine blessings offered, and the sweet and wonderful grace of the offerer. Relishing in total trust in the holy excellence of the Promiser and His faithfulness to fulfill what He offers, and in His glorious sufficiency, the heart embraces the offer and embraces the Promiser. Thus they are enabled to see their grace and their title to the promise." We are His children.
Genesis 17:1 “The LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.”
Deuteronomy 7:8-9 “Because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.”
I’ll pick up right here in the next post. Wow, praise God! In Christ, Brian
3 comments:
Thanks Brian. Distinctions that make sense to some believers and yet are seemingly out of the conceptual grasp of many whom (I’ve found) seem to have a more simplistic view of responding to blessings in specific instances of gratitude. Paul
Agreed Paul. People come to faith in the Lord by different directions and manners, by the Holy Spirit. All Christians have the great joy of their salvation through a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ & His gospel of redemption. Gratitude for salvation only comes in believing faith that the Savior is able to truly save. Without a love of God for who He is in Himself (i.e. Heavenly Father, Creator of Heaven & Earth, All-knowing, All-seeing, All-Mighty in power, Ever-present, Love in essence, etc.), we have some that (like rice or consumer Christians) have a false foundation based on receiving alone, perception of ”when the gracious gifts” leave and are not constantly there (health, wealth, favor, prosparity, etc.), the gratitude stops. This is a huge problem with the kids in the Youth groups and schools today. Not to mention those who, due to their fear of Hell because of their sinful lifestyle, want a Savior & want to go to Heaven, but do not want a Lord telling them what is “right or wrong” to do because they want to continue to do what is sin in the eyes of God. Who is really God in that case. We, at our church, are dealing with this mentalitysocially & spiritually today. So this teaching of Edwards from the American Great Awakening is relevant now as it was in his time. The complete foundation must be set. God is God.Thanks for the comments.
My son deals with this with a least one of his roommates. He used to attend a Christian High School and attend church regularly. Today, he avoids any contact with the church, people who attend church or prayer/study groups. All of this to avoid the feeling that he gets for exercising his decision to drink to excess and pursue a self-focused lifestyle. Intellectually, he knows he isn’t following the right path, but by avoiding what I refer to as ‘the spiritual mirror’- he avoids the depressing feelings of guilt simply by avoiding looking in that mirror. It is a huge problem on campuses, in the general population and even among members of congregations. So long as for those who believe that ‘being a Christian’ is different than striving to live a Christian lifestyle, there will be that disconnect. It is frustrating because for those who just can’t or won’t open themselves up to the message, it is about a difficult as explaining a color. Paul
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