Jews,
Christians and Moslems all believe that there is
one God who is the Creator and Ruler of the
Universe, to whom we owe our existence and to
whom we are accountable.
Though
the monotheistic religions have this great belief
in common, they are divided by their understanding
of what the nature and character of God is. Jews
and Christians have a different understanding
of God’s nature
thanMoslems. Moslems believe that Godis
totally singular and separate from us. He does whatever
He wills without man’s cooperation. For
them an immense chasm exists between Him and us. If
we submit to Him (they believe) there is a good
possibility (but no guarantee)
of being promoted to
Paradise after death.
The Bible, and especially the New Testament,
reveals a very different portrait of God. It
recognizes the chasm that sin has created between
us and God but reveals how God in His love too
the initiative to bridge that chasm. Here we see
God not as remote and distant, but as One whose
nature is love and who desires relationship with
us. He seeks our cooperation and partnership with
Him. He does not force His love on us but gives
us the freedom to receive or reject His love and
care.
Jesus Revealed The True Nature of God
God revealed
Himself through the prophets “in many and
various ways’. Yet the revelation of His
nature and character remained incomplete. Jesus
revealed the heart and character of God fully.
“GOD, who gave to our forefathers many
different glimpses of the truth in the words of
the prophets, has now, at the and of the present
age, given us the truth in the Son. Through the
Son God made the whole universe, and to the Son
he has ordained that all creation shall
ultimately belong. This Son, radiance of the
glory of God, flawless expression of the nature
of God, himself the upholding power of all that
is, having effected in person the cleansing of
men’s sin, took his seat at the right hand
of the majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3)
Jesus
is the full expression of God’s nature. His
death for us on the cross perfectly and
completely expresses that loving nature. He
emptied Himself and took our shame so that we
could be reconciled and restored to Father God’s
favor and blessings. God seeing the chasm that
our sin had created in His love sent His Son
Jesus to submit to death and shame that the chasm
could be bridged. “God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing
their trespasses to them, and putting the word of
reconciliation in us.” (2 Cor. 5.19)Religion
has clouded man’s understanding of who God
is. “God is love and the one who lives in
God lives in love”. (1 John 4:16)
A
Loving God Cannot Be Totally Singular
If
God is love, then the Islamic view of God as
being totally singular cannot be correct. If His
nature is love, He cannot live in isolation and cannot
be merely singular. He must have an object of His
love, because love cannot exist in isolation. The
Hebrew word for God ‘Elohim’ gives an
indication of this because it is always in a
plural form. “Who hath established all
the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what
is his son’s name, if you know?”
(Pv. 30:4) The Bible is clear that God is not
singular but plural, and He has a Son. “Hear,
O, Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.”
(Deut. 6:4) The word “one” here does
not mean that God is singular, but that He is
perfectly unified. The Hebrew word “echad”
translated here as “one” is the same
word that is used in Genesis when it says “the
two shall become one.” The word here means
perfect unity. (Genesis 2:24)
The
Biblical view of God is as follows: The Father
(whose nature is love) poured out all His love
upon His Son in all eternity. The energy and bond
of that Love is the Holy Spirit, who is God in
communicable form. And so Father, Son and Holy
Spirit lived in all eternity before time began in
their wonderful glory of the bliss of love and
total completeness.
God Decided To Enlarge The
Family
At
some point God decided to extend His love even
further. He decided to create man, so that man
too could enjoy the love and glory of the Father.
The creation of man came about because God in His
love (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) decided to enlarge
the family and include us in the divine
family. “Let us make man in our own image
and likeness.” (Gn. 1:26)
Relationship with God is therefore the defining
thing about us, because we were made to be part
of the family of God. We were made to receive and
transmit God’s love and to live on earth in
the glory of heaven’s bliss and
completeness. “He chose us in him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and blameless before him. He destined us in
love to be his sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of His will.”
(Eph. 1:4-5)
The events of the ‘Fall’ describe how
man went his own way, separated Himself from God’s
glory and brought oppression upon himself. The
redemption is the
work of God to
provide a way back for all to come to the love,
blessing and care of God’s rule through
Jesus. The purpose of the redemption wasn’t
just to deal with sin but to restore us to
relationship in the eternal family of love that
existed before time began.
•
The humanist tries to define man apart from reference
to God.
•
The Moslem tries to define man apart from relationship
with God.
•
The Bible makes relationship with God the
defining thing about who we are.
Our
understanding of who God is - is the key
factor in understanding that we are.
Define life without God and life becomes
meaningless and relative. Present a distorted
view of God and we develop a distorted view of
who we are. Man is not just a rational animal. He
is one who can receive communication and love
from God. He is destined for glory, destined to
participate in the divine nature. Any definition
of God or man that is short of that clouds the
face of God and robs man of His dignity and
destiny.
Our
long road upward from the pit of darkness
requires a fuller revelation of who God is and
who we are. The gospel in all of its richness
will be seen not just as a covering for sin but
as a message which invites all men everywhere
back to their destiny in the family and love of
God through the open door - Jesus. God wanted to
enlarge His family and He made you and me. What a
destiny! Neither God nor man can be defined apart
from this family relationship.
Experiencing The Love Of
God
What
is the most important thing in life? What is the
greatest thing we can do on earth?
Once
Jesus was asked a similar question. “Which
is the greatest commandment?” He answered, “‘You
shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart
and all your soul and with all your mind.’
This is the first and the greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘You shall love
you neighbor as yourself.’ On these two
commandments hang all the law and the Prophets.”
(Matt. 22:37-40) He reduced the whole of man's
responsibility to God and to man to these two
commandments.
Religion
tends to complicate things but real faith always
simplifies. Today as religious people divide and
subdivide themselves along the lines of the
minutest doctrinal distinctions the words of
Jesus were never more relevant. He reduces true
faith and true religion to its most essential
elements. The measure of godliness is not
measured by denominational affiliation, your
style of worship, the way you dress, the size of
your ministry etc., but by your love for God and
your love of neighbor. We were made to receive
and transmit God’s love.
The
goal of every human being is laid out in these
two verses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus quoted
here by Jesus: “To love God with all our
hearts mind and strength and our neighbor as
ourselves.” Every other aspect of faith and
religion is merely trimming. Every other
spiritual exercise individually or collectively
is simply a means of expressing or entering into
this great reality. We have been placed here on
this planet to love God and our neighbors as
ourselves. We exist to love God and love others.
Notice
that there are three loves referred to in these
two verses.
·
Love for God
·
Love for ones self
·
Love for others.
Each of these loves is ‘agape ‘ love
i.e. the God kind of love the love that is part
of the nature of God and not part of the nature
of man. It is as impossible for human beings to
produce agape love as it is for pigs to fly. It
is simply not a part of our nature. And yet God
requires it of us. God asks us to do what we
cannot do! This seems unfair. It would be if God
Himself did not offer to help us to do what we
cannot do naturally. He has “fixed us up”
to be incapable of doing what He wants us to do
apart from His direct supply.
The
Love commandment cannot be fulfilled without God’s
help, God’s life and God’s supply. It
cannot be lived without faith. “For
without faith it is impossible to please God”
as without faith we cannot draw from the
resources of God.” (Heb 11:2)
And so the law and the
prophets that gave us the love commandment also
revealed our incapacity to live by these
commandments. They reveal the barrier of sin,
which exists between us and God’s love and
supply. "The law came through Moses and the
prophet’s grace and truth came through Jesus
Christ." (John 1:17) Since these
commandments command us to love with a love we
are incapable of they bring us to the awareness
of the bankruptcy of our own resources and the
threshold of faith.
How can we who fail to live to God’s
standard access His resources? The answer is
through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus who, as we
have seen, took on Himself all our guilt, blame,
sin and shame that we could have accesses to the
Father’s love. “Justified by faith
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ though whom also we have access by faith
into this grace in which we stand and …
the love of God has been poured into our hearts
by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
(Romans 5: 1,2 & 5) This passage gives us
insight into the mechanics of how the love of God
works. Not only are we acquitted of our sins but
we also have access to the grace and resources of
God our Father. Some believers stop short with
the acquittal of sin, but God wants us to access
His love. He wants us to access His love and
resources just as the prodigal son coming home
from His self-induced misery received not only
pardon but also access to the resources of His
Father and access to His love.
Since the fall of man we have become estranged
from God’s resources and life. This means
that we are incapable of loving Him, our selves
and others like we ought. Now through the cross
of Jesus we can access that love and be equipped
to love God, love ourselves and love others. We
access this love of God through faith and will.
We can ask Him to pour His love into our heart
through the Holy Spirit. We ask God to pour into
our hearts
•
agape love from God for God;
•
agape love from God for ourselves and
•
agape love from God for others.
The
Love Pipeline.
Faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus sets up a
wonderful pipeline of love between us and God.
God begins, through the Holy Spirit, to pour love
from Him for Him, love from Him for ourselves and
love from Him for others into our hearts.
This becomes a spiritual ‘pipeline’
between God and us with three parts to it
·
God’s love coming from Him to us
·
God’s love circulating around our own
innermost being
·
God’ love coming out of us to others.
In
the pipeline we see three cut-off valves or taps
that we control. If any of the taps are cut
off it reduces the flow of God’s love to us
in us and from us.
God’s Love
Through Us
If
we have bitterness or unforgiveness towards
others it stops the flow of God’s love from
us towards others. This simultaneously blocks the
flow of love throughout the whole pipeline. This
is why Jesus said if we have anything against
anyone our relationship with God is blocked. “And
whenever you stand praying, if you have anything
against any one, forgive him that your Father in
heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But
if you do not forgive, neither will your Father
in heaven forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark
11:25; 26)
Paul
reinforces this thought when He writes: “Pursue
peace with all men, and holiness without which no
one will see the Lord, looking diligently lest
anyone come short of the grace of God; lest any
root of bitterness springing up cause trouble and
by this many become defiled.” (Heb.
12:14-15)
It
is up to us to keep the three parts of the
pipeline open. We may have many people we
disagree with, but we must ensure that while we
disagree with them we harbor no unforgiveness or
bitterness towards them so that our ‘pipeline’
remains open. When we disagree with people we
must also forgive them, release them into God’s
care and ask Him to bless them and change them in
whatever area He wants to change them. Secondly
we keep this part of the pipeline open by
devoting ourselves to actively living for,
helping and encouraging others as God directs us,
in accordance with our individual gifts and
callings.
Love For Ourselves
If we have self-hatred, self-rejection
inferiority, we also cut off the flow of God’s
love within us and this causes the flow of
His love to us and though us to be blocked. All
of us have picked up some patterns of
self-rejection before the love of God was poured
so wonderfully into our hearts through the Holy
Spirit. We have to recognize the negative images
or words (planted in our hearts and heads through
'the father of lies') we have entertained in the
past about ourselves. We then replace them with
the Lord's total acceptance and love (His agape)
poured into our hearts for ourselves
- the unique person He made created and formed to
lavish His love on. We now must continue to
‘abide in’ God’s love, allowing
His love to circulate within us and put away all
patterns of self-hatred and self-rejection.
Acceptance by God brings us peace with Him, peace
with ourselves, and peace with others. When we
don’t have this peace with ourselves and
love for ourselves we are prone to depression,
insecurity anxiety, envy, depression, anger etc.
In our confusion we can compound our problems by
seeking love and affirmation in the wrong way or
in the wrong places. We can succumb to
work-aholism, materialism, sexual disorder,
driven-ness etc.
God’s
Love To Us
As we have seen the atoning sacrifice opens a way
for all to come and receive the love of God
though faith. This flow of love from God to us
must be maintained by constantly drawing from it
and by believing in it. The greatest difference
between human beings and animals is not in our
intelligence or speech. The difference is that
only we have a capacity for a relationship with
God. We were made for relationship with God and
with each other. The atoning sacrifice restores
us into a personal loving relationship with God
and God’s love is communicated to us
directly through the Holy Spirit. "And
because you are sons, god has sent forth the
spirit of His Son into your hearts crying out
“Abba Father.”' (Galatians 4:6)
This love satisfies man’s
deepest needs. Being in relationship with God we
can now trust Him with our present our past and
our future. We can live without fear and anxiety
and in great hope.
Spiritual
Warfare
The devil, or accuser, tries to suggest to us
directly by thoughts injected into our
consciousness or through the words or behavior of
others towards us that God does not really love
us or care for us. He came to Jesus to make Him
doubt that He was in special relationship with
God the Father “If you are the Son of
God" he said to Jesus. Immediately Jesus
silenced Him saying: “Get behind me
Satan!”
We too can silence the devil's voice when he
tries to make us doubt God’s love for us. In
the past we may have agreed with the thoughts and
suggestions of 'the father of lies' (John 8:44).
We can now cancel any agreement we have made with
him when we agreed with his assessment of us. We
can resist him now and stand boldly in the full
sunshine of the Father’s love for us. (We
know we do not deserve this love, which He freely
gives us, but we gladly and boldly accept it).
A Prayer
Father
Thank you that through the Blood of Jesus my sins
are atoned for I now come to you to stand in your
grace and in your love. Through the Holy spirit
pour into my heart your love for me, love from
you for me, love from me for you, love from you
for myself and love from you for all men. Help me
to love you love myself and love others in a
complete and full way all the days of my life.
The
revelation of the loving Fatherly God whose care
is available to all through Jesus is the only one
that can unite our fractured world. It is the
great unifying reality - it is the kingdom of
God.
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