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God is love – all the time! There is never a time – past, present, or future – where God is anything other than love! And Love is “not self seeking” (1Cor13) – all the time! There is never a time when love seeks itself. There is never a time when God seeks self.
- For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotton son… (John 3:16)
- This is how we know what love is that Chirst gave his life for us and we ought to give our lives for your brothers (1John 3:16)
- Greater love has no man than he give his life for his friends (John 15:13)
God is the creator and as creator He built and constructed everything in harmony with His own nature/character of love. He gave of Himself to create. He gives of Himself to sustain all that He created. This design template, this code upon which nature is built, is called God’s law. God’s law is love.
- Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:37-40)
- Love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:10)
What happens to a person if they deviate from the law upon which life was constructed to operate? What happens if a person chooses to stop drinking, eating or breathing? Will God be forced, by their disobedience to His laws of health, to exact a penalty and kill them, or will death be the inevitable outcome to those who remain out of harmony with God’s design for life (law)?
This is exactly what the Bible teaches. In the Bible, deviations from God’s design, breaking the law upon which He constructed life to operate, is called “sin.” So when you read “sin” think “breaking God’s construction protocols for life.” And the Bible is clear, just as breaking the laws of health naturally result in death, likewise breaking God’s moral law naturally results in death, unless Someone intervenes to save:
- The wages (the payment from sin) of sin is death (Romans 6:23)
- Sin when full grown brings death (James 1:15)
The Bible says we are “born in sin conceived in iniquity” (Psalms 51:5)
This means we are born in a condition which is out of harmony with the way God built life to operate. He built life to operate upon the law of love, the principle of selfless giving. But we are born selfish, egocentric, me-first, survival-of-the-fittest. In the Bible this condition of selfishness is called “sinfulness” or “carnal nature” and because this condition is out of harmony with God’s design for life, it is a terminal condition. Without remedy, without divine intervention we will all die – FROM THIS CONDITION. Because life can only exist in harmony with the way God built it to run.
We are born “dead in our transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1, Col 2:13). In other words we are born in a terminal condition.
This is why Jesus came. To bring us back to trust in God and to provide remedy to our condition, to overcome fear and selfishness, to restore in humanity God’s perfect law of love, to rebuild humanity back into God’s original ideal. Christ Jesus overcame where Adam failed!
In Christ Jesus we have a Savior, a remedy, a new heart, mind, character, motive, attitude that all may receive freely. When we trust Him the Holy Spirit is sent and takes all Christ has achieved and reproduces it in us. Our fears are removed, our need to protect self is eroded and our desire to love others grows. We get a “new heart and right spirit” (PS 51). We have the “law written on the heart and mind (Heb 8:11). We “become partakers of the divine nature” (2Pet 2:14). We become like Jesus in heart and mind, loving God and others more than self!
This is what God wants for us and this is what Satan wants to prevent. Therefore Satan has created an elaborate counterfeit, a counterfeit which deceived angels, a counterfeit which deceived millions, a counterfeit which caused God’s chosen people to put Christ on the cross. We face that same counterfeit today. A counterfeit that makes God out to be the source of pain, suffering and death rather than the protector, redeemer and healer.
I have found it fascinating that some people resist this God of love and are offended at the idea that sin kills, whereas God saves. Instead, such persons argue for a God who tortures and kills. A friend in Singapore emailed me yesterday and referred me to a website which criticizes me by name. The very first criticism states:
“In short, Dr. Jennings believes that God takes no initiative in causing prolonged pain during the destruction of the wicked, and that to prolong or cause punitive suffering is torture and that such a view of God (that he would cause prolonged pain as part of punishment) destroys love and trust.”
Wow, people arguing for a God who will use His power to inflict pain on His creatures, arguing for a God who will actually cause a miracle to torture His children. What do you think? Which version of God do you believe is true? What Jesus said, “if you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father, the Father and I are one.” (When did Jesus torture anyone?) Or what Satan alleges that God must torture His children? Do you prefer a God who is above earthly pettiness, above human passion, above selfish vengeance? Or do you prefer a God who is less like Jesus and more like some earthly ruler?
According to Scripture we are in a war over the “knowledge of God” (2Cor 10:5) and we have before us two God concepts – one in which God is the cosmic inflictor of pain, suffering and death. The other in which God is love, the great creator who built His universe to run only in harmony with His own nature of love. And in this universe sin, deviations from God’s design, is what causes pain, suffering and death while God our creator has poured out all heaven to stop sin and “fix”/heal His creation!
The real issue is who do you understand God to be? Is God love – all the time, or is God something other than love – a being or tortures and kills? This is the question, what answer will you choose?
For those who are confused because of passages in the Bible which describe God using His power to destroy, or threatening to destroy, please see these blogs:
- The question of Punishment part [ I ] [ II ] [ III ]
- She Bears and Stones What Does it Say About God?
- Seven Last Plagues – Why?
- God’s Judgment part [ I ] & [ II ]
- The Sword of God
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