The Gospel in Ten Words (4 page)

God is
not mad with you. He loves you with an everlasting love. Though
the mountains be
shaken and the hills depart, his unfailing love for you will not be removed (Isaiah
54:10).

You
may ask, “But what about those verses on God’s anger?”

Do
you mean the ones that say his anger is momentary but his love is everlasting?
[8]
I love them. They are a great comfort to me.

God
was angry at your sin, in the same way I might get angry at the sicknesses that
afflict my children, but he dealt with your sin once and for all 2,000 years
ago. On the cross the One who knew no sin became sin on your behalf so that sin
might be utterly condemned in him (Romans 8:3). Taking the sin of the world
into his body, Jesus drank from the cup of God’s wrath and he drank that cup
dry. His grace is greater than your sin.

The
cross is a picture of spent anger and furious love. The cross is God shouting,
“Let my children go!” We can barely fathom this. We had done nothing to merit
his favor. From the very beginning we had rejected his overtures and sold our
love to a slaver. And when he showed up to help us we killed him. But on the
cross our True Love ransomed us and set us free.

But God demonstrates
his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans
5:8)

God
showed us his great love while we were sinners. He did not wait for us to get
cleaned up or repent or make a fresh start. While we were in the filth of our
sin and self-righteousness he came and hugged us.

How
can you qualify such relentless love? How can you say, “God loves you but …”?
There are no buts. The love of God is not buttressed by buts. It is measureless
and so incomprehensibly vast our minds cannot grasp it. We can’t apprehend it
because human love is unlike divine love.

Earthly,
human love is a response to loveliness, but divine love is spontaneous, arising
in and of itself. God does not love us because we are lovely but because he is
love. It is his nature to love us. Since God always acts in accordance with his
nature, his wrath, along with everything else he does, should be seen as an
expression of his love. Why does God do what he does? Because he is love and he
loves us. Love is his motive for everything.

Human love bears the
marks of the fall but God’s love is untainted, unfailing,
and unconditional. Through the prophet Jeremiah he assures
us:

I’ve
never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!
(Jeremiah 31:3b, The Message)

Unlike brittle human love, God’s love “bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7, NKJV).
His love will never wear out or die. Human love is fickle but God’s love is
constant. It
is
the bedrock of the universe and the reason you are here. It is no exaggeration
to say that God loves you with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. Just
look at the night sky. He put those stars there to impress you with the astronomical
extravagance of his love. God loved you into existence and he loved you when
you were a sinner. His heart’s desire is for you to know and enjoy his love for
eternity.

Do
these words move you? When you reflect on his love does it fill your soul with
sunshine? Many people get it but only a little bit. In their minds the love of
God is like the weather on Alpha Centauri. “Yes, I’m sure it’s amazing, I’m
just not aware of it.” To them, the love of God is like the love of a king for
his subjects—formal, distant, and aloof. Like Job, they are ignorant of God’s
love:

Oh, Job, don’t you
see how God’s wooing you from the jaws of danger? How he’s drawing you into
wide-open places—inviting you to feast at a table laden with blessings? (Job
36:16, The Message)

Job
was a pious and decent man but he was also a fearful believer in karma. He made
a habit of buying spiritual insurance through his frequent sacrifices and
offerings in the hope that his good deeds would ameliorate any bad deeds done
by his family. When things went well Job took the credit. “My good deeds must
be paying off.” But when things went pear-shaped he was lost and perplexed.
“What have I done to deserve this?”

Job
was so focused on himself and his merits he was oblivious to the love of God.
If Job and his sacrifices are a picture of superstitious religion, then his
friend Elihu is the gospel preacher: “Stop what you are doing and consider the
wonders of God” (see Job 37:14). See the stars. Hear the rolling thunder. Walk
through the woods and look down from lofty mountain grandeur. The universe
declares that God is good and that he cares for you.

For
us on this side of Calvary there is no greater wonder than the cross. Job’s
religion of sacrifices and offerings says you must do this and that to merit
God’s love, but the cross demolishes all such nonsense at a stroke. The cross
declares that God is good and that he cares for you. The cross is the cure for
any doubts you may have about the love of God.

To
the modern-day Job, Elihu might say:

Stop and consider the
wonder of the cross. Don’t you see how God is wooing you from trouble into
security, from the impoverished famine of your own life to the rich feast of
his? This is not a reward for your sacrifices and offerings; this is the good
news of his grace and favor.

Religious types get
nervy whenever the gospel of grace is brought up. They worry that this “latest
fad,” this “new teaching,” will lead people into dangerous places. Well, if the
love of God is a dangerous place, there is no better place to be because that
is exactly where grace will take you.

God
is love and love that stoops is called grace. The gospel of grace is really the
gospel of his love. Grace is what God’s love looks like from our side. Grace is
love come down.

An
illustration may help. I love my kids with all my heart but I live in a
different world to them. The things I enjoy are above their understanding. So
if they are to know my love, one of two things must happen: either they must
come up, or I must go down. Since I am their father, I take the initiative. I
go down. I choose to engage with them at their level: to get on the floor and
wrestle with them; to read them stories I would never read myself; to play and
tickle and push their trikes until I’m spent. This is love in action and every
parent knows it.

This
is exactly how God loves us. He does not love us like a king but a father. This
is the supreme revelation of Jesus who is grace personified. God came down that
we might go up. Jesus became like us so that we might become like him—whole,
healthy, blessed, and completely secure in his Father’s love.

In
the greatest parable ever told, Jesus revealed that God is like a father
watching for your return, who runs when he sees you coming, and who falls on
you with hugs and kisses. You may come with your prepared speech, your good
intentions, and a desire to serve but he’s not interested in any of that. He
just wants you.

Love
looks like grace. When you receive his grace you receive his love. There is no
difference. This means if you have no time for grace, perhaps because you are
striving to please the Lord with your sacrifices and offerings, then you have
no time for love. Reject grace and you reject love.

Learning
to walk in the love of God means learning to walk in his grace. It’s following
Jesus instead of Job. It’s no longer trying to impress God with your sacrifices
but being impressed with his.

God
will never make you jump through hoops to earn his love. He won’t love you any
more if you succeed and he won’t love you any less if you fail. If you lead
millions to Christ or none at all, he will love you just the same. God loved
you while you were dead in sin and he didn’t stop loving you when you got
saved. His love endures forever.
[9]

The
gospel of grace is no new teaching or passing fad. It is as ancient and eternal
as the love of God itself.

So much for Job; what
about Moses? Under the old covenant you loved God because you had to; it was
the law. But love doesn’t work that way. Love cannot be legislated; that was
the whole point of the command. The law was not given to manufacture love among
the loveless but to reveal our need for a Lover.

From
the beginning, God desired a relationship with us but we preferred rules. God
told the Israelites that he wanted them to be his treasured people but they
weren’t interested. Their attitude was, “Just tell us what to do and we’ll do
it.”

The
reason some prefer the clear-cut rules of religion to the confusing freedom of
relationship is because they do not know they are God’s dearly loved children.
They are fearful and look to the rules to give them the security and identity
we all need. The religious spirit panders to this fear by saying, “Do this and
don’t do that and just maybe God will be pleased with you.” This message may be
sold as “Four keys to pleasing God” or “Seven steps to intimacy,” but it’s
actually child abuse. It is putting a price tag on the affection that is
already ours by right of sonship.

A
preference for the rules is a surefire sign that one is not standing secure in
the love of God. Consider the Pharisees; they were big on rules. They preached
religious duty and obligation and were keen missionaries who would travel over
land and sea to win a single convert. Yet Jesus said to them, “You do not have
the love of God in your hearts” (John 5:42). This is why we must never listen
to the lies religion teaches about love. Religion cannot give you what religion
does not have.

The
Israelites’ preference for rules over relationship is one of history’s great
tragedies. Yet their choice is repeated every day by sincere people who think
they have to keep the commandments to be loved, saved, or blessed. Although the
law covenant went out the window 2,000 years ago they didn’t get the memo.
They are trying to love God because they think they are
supposed to. Instead of basking in the light of his divine love they are trying
to produce light on their own. The problem is they can’t do it. They are like a
moon trying to be a sun.

I am reminded of the
Ephesians who left their first love. The Ephesian believers had faith and they
had deeds, and if you had asked them I’m sure they would have boldly declared
their love
for
Christ. Yet Paul prayed they would know the love
of
Christ
(Ephesians 3:14–19). See the difference? Our love goes up but more important is
the love that comes down. We love because he first loved us, and he loved us
because he is love. Love is a noun before it’s a verb.

When you know the love of God
,
when you begin to realize just
Who loves you and how committed he is to your success
,
it gives
you confidence. Your faith is energized and you begin to release his love to
those around you. Life becomes a supernatural adventure. But lose sight of his
love and faith is diminished. You become what Paul would call a “mere man” (1
Corinthians 3:4). When that happens, anything that requires love
—
marriage,
parenting, working with people
—
becomes a chore.

Something like this happened to the Ephesians. They got so busy
with their church work they drifted from their first love. Jesus had to come
and correct them (Revelation 2:1
–
7). Who is our first love? It’s
him! He is the light. He is the source. He is the Sun that rides above all
shadows.

The
Ephesians were famous for their deeds yet Jesus basically said to them, “Stop
what you’re doing. Remember the height from which you have fallen and do the
things you did at first.” What were the things they did at first? Probably not
much. I led a church for ten years and at the beginning we did little. We had
no programs to keep us busy, no teams to manage, no leaders to train, no
battles to fight, no website to maintain, and no vision to implement. What did
we do with all our free time? We lived loved; we loved God, we loved each
other, and we looked for ways to love our neighbors. True, my understanding of
God’s grace was a little mixed up, but we knew how to sit at the feet of Jesus
and receive his love. Later, as the church began to grow, we got busy sometimes
to the point of distraction. But in the beginning we were more Mary than
Martha.

Mary’s
choice is the key to successful living. Unlike busy Martha, Mary chose the one
thing that is needed: receiving from Jesus the love that looks like grace.

Most
of us know the Mary and Martha
story as told in Luke
10, but we don’t know what happened next. I like to think Mary went on to
accomplish great things. Just as children who are raised in loving homes tend
to succeed in life, I’ll bet Mary did great exploits. Maybe
she raised
healthy kids or planted a church or became a seven-term mayor. I have no idea.
But the odds of success were high. God had come into her living room, looked
her in the eye and loved on her. How could she fail?

Be imitators of God,
therefore, as dearly loved children. (Ephesians 5:1)

Like
Mary, Paul also knew a thing or two about the love of God. He understood there
is no such thing as success outside of his love. “If I move mountains but have
not love, I am nothing” (see 1 Corinthians 13:2). Yes, there is work to be done
and a harvest to be gathered. But we do none of these things to earn God’s
affection or approval. We do it because we are his dearly loved children and we
want to be about our Daddy’s business.