Unbelief diminishs us

Because of our rebellious distrust of God and our subtle but passionate desire to make life work without him, we are no longer in a relationship with Him (as we were meant to be) and experiencing His infinite love (the necessary spiritual nourishment we were created and designed to have) with all the delight, bliss, and strength that comes from being connected to Him. As a result, we are stunted in our abilities and ¹never develop to our full God given potential. We are ¹far less than we were created to be. 

This is true not only spiritually and emotionally, but physically. As our health declines with age, we experience disease and eventually die. None of this was part of our original design. 

As well, our senses and abilities are only a fraction of what they were meant to be and we have the potential for (and will one day be if we are in Christ. In Christ, all of this will one day ultimately be reversed and eliminated).

If we are not restored to God, our diminishing abilities and the negative results will continue beyond our present existence and only increase. We will become even more fragmented, diminished and entrenched in the negative dispositions we now have and display, e.g. frustration, anger, fear, anxiety, depression, indifference to or even hatred of God, etc. 

Without connection and union with the Source of love and life we are like spiritual and emotional black holes collapsing in on ourselves from the void left by God's absence. We will only increase in our sense of emptiness. This will become even more acute over time with no chance of relief.

In our current existence we at least experience occasional temporary relief through the use of the various gifts that God gives us - both internal and external - but always with a constant search and hope for more (this drives all our actions when we are not connected and in union with God). 

In our next existence, without our Creator or access to His creation, we will be fully given over to our own devices and have no such experience or hope of love. We will have no access to the external gifts or the ability to exercise the internal ones, but only an perpetual longing and thirst for love - now masked by the use of God's gifts. This will be our hell.

So what is our problem? 

In this life, we try to build our sense of identity, meaning, purpose, and value trhrough ²everything but God. He is not our focus, His creation is - with access to and use of all the gifts this life brings us. 

However, created things are finite. We were created for the infinite.

If we refuse God's offer (again our choice) to restore us back to Him and our ³true identity, we will go into eternity continuing on this current trajectory. The difference is we won't have all the resources, blessings, and gifts we now enjoy and use to maintain our independence from God. 

Absent God, we attempt to use all things to maintain our sense of identity, meaning, value, and purpose. We are like rebellious children using all the good things our parents give us to avoid the very ones who gave them to us i.e. our parents.

If we return to God and abandon our rebellious attempts to make life work without Him, we will be restored to the true purpose of our existence, and experience our greatest potential, fulfillment, and the delight He longs to give us (you) in Him. Will you return?

"The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.' And let the one who hears say, 'Come.' And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price." - Rev 22:17

Are we truly rebels against God? For more click here.

Does God love rebels? Click here and find out. 

For a further discussion on why hell is our choice click here.
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¹Not unlike a malnourished child genetically encoded to be a genius or an exceptional athlete who never developed to their full potential. As a result, they developed with less than average intelligence or become wheelchair-bound because they never received the proper nourishment they needed and were designed to have.

²We use all the good gifts of God - meant to show us his love - to maintain our independence from God. Not unlike a rebellious child using the good things his parent provides to betray his parents.

³His beloved image bearers who are designed to partake in the community of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit - and all the delight that comes with and in it - in the same way they do (because we are like Him).

Full of grace and truth

When Christ walked among us He was characterized as being full of two qualities...

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth..." John 1:14

To describe him in this way indicates that both grace and truth define him and are central to his character.

At first glance these qualities may appear at odds and in tension with each other. Are they?

Truth points out the right way of doing things and exposes error. It is the opposite of a lie and can feel harsh on occasion e.g. to discover we are living a lie or a not being honest is unpleasant - i.e. it doesn't feel very gracious. But if we are living according to a lie this causes harm to others as well as ourselves. Lies have real consequences that must be addressed if we are to be loving to those negatively impacted.

Grace extends to us kindness we do not deserve (even when we are occasionally less than truthful and honest). This can appear to promote the opposite of living according to truth i.e. that it's ok to not be truthful when it isn't.

What makes Christ so unique and glorious is he did not back off the truth; that our rejection of truth (and His Son who declared himself to be the truth) causes harm and must be addressed (to allow lies to go unaddressed is not fair to those who are harmed by them). 

But he also didn't let the destructive consequences of our dishonesty or deception fall on us. He fully addressed it by taking those consequences onto Himself so we might not have to. That is grace. 

In doing so He did not compromise truth or abandon love but was faithful to both i.e. he was full of grace and truth.

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law (truth) was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he (Jesus) has made him (the Father) known. - John 1:16‭-‬18 ESV

The fullness of Christ is that he manifests the full spectrum of who God is. He is a God of truth but also a God of love.

...he has made him known...  

Christ being full of grace as well as truth showed us the loving nature of God i.e. He is not just a God of justice and judgment for our rebellion to and violation of His design (Gods will-truth - i.e. the true nature of how things are and were designed to operate) but He is also the God of love, compassion, kindness and grace.

Christ died to address the consequences of our rebellious distrust (because of truth i.e. violation of God's design-truth matters and the harm it causes must be addressed and because of His compassion-love). He provided a solution to our rebellion from His design without comproming the value and importance of that design, while at the same time taking action that prevents our rebellion from destroying us i.e. He also died because of love. He now leaves it up to us to accept His offer and provision to be in right standing (righteous) before God, but as a gift, not something we earn or can achieve. 

This is not only talking about God's faithfulness to us in our rebellion (grace) but His faithfulness to righteousness and truth.

We are also told Christ is a King and priest after the order of Melchizedek. Who this character is, is not as important as what he represents. 

1 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. 3 He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever. - Hebrews 7:1-3

Christ came declaring the good news of the Kingdom of God; the good news of His reign (rule) as King. But His is not just a righteous rule of justice (truth) but of love (grace, compassion).

There are even hints of this in the Old Testament before Christ came to us as a man.

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. - Psalm 85:10 ESV

God still demands faithfullness to what is right (truth) but he also meets those demands himself. Christ is both the Judge and the one who is judged (who took our judgment upon himself) within the same person. And that for our sake i.e. for love. Do you accept His offer?

For a discussion on why our rebellions distrust matters click here

For a discussion on why judgment is necessary click here

For a discussion on the value of tension and paradox click here.

God loves rebels, not rebellion

God loved us in our rebellion from the very beginning. Why? 

Because: 

1. He is love and 

2. He also seeks to honor us - as bearers of His image - and our freedom to choose (even if it results in us not choosing Him and causing harm to ourselves and others). 

But what is the significance of this kind of embrace and pursuit of us?

By ¹pursuing and loving us in our rebellion (i.e. as sinners) God wins us back to himself while still allowing us to maintain the dignity of ²our choice (we freely rebel but also freely turn to Him in trust and away from that rebellion). In this way God - over time - wins us over to submitting to Him freely, out of love, gratitude, and trust (vs obligation - which can never satisfy anyway), while also allowing us to retain the dignity of choosing Him as dignified and glorious bearers of His image.

But The Bible tells us that God chooses us, not the other way around. How does that work? 

Though God ³chooses to awaken us to his love, it is still us doing the choosing after we are awakened and see that love - i.e. we are spiritually dead and blind due to our rebellious unbelief - and in His mercy and love He opens our eyes and reveals Himself as He truly is; glorious, beautiful, and trustworthy in every way. 

In doing so, He does (did) not override our will but opens (opened) our eyes to see his love. Once we see it, we willingly, gladly, and freely choose to pursue Him.

Our problem isn't our wills but our blindness. Our eyes must be opened to see Him (and ourselves) ⁴truly as He is (and we are).

When we pray for God to change us we should not pray he overrides our will but enlivens it by revealing his love to us more fully so we might fall more in love with Him and freely, willingly and gladly pursue him more faithfully.

Love and trust are tied together. The more we see his relentless pursuit, love, and commitment to us regardless of our ongoing rebellious distrust (even as His children) the more we trust in and pursue his directions (will) for us.

In this same way, God calls us to also love others - to love them as He has faithfully loved us in our

ongoing rebellious distrust of His love. Without seeing and basking in His love for us it is impossible to love others in this way.

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¹In order for God to do so, our rebellion and all its destructive consequences had to be addressed. God can not simply ignore destructive behavior. It must be accounted for. 

But God perfectly addressed this Himself - in and through Christ - so that when we accept His solution and provision, He is free to now pursue us only out of love - as if we never rebelled (or are now rebellious). Once we are in Christ, He only has love for us, not condemnation and contempt. He approaches and embraces us completely and only with love and total acceptance.  He looks upon us as righteous in the same way he looks upon his Son. 

He still addresses our rebellious unbelief, but as a loving Father does an immature child and not as our judge seeking justice for an injured party. Christ became the injured party so we no longer have to pay for the injuries we cause others (though we still may experience negative consequences of our poor behavior and choices).

²If it is to be genuine love on our part, it must be free and not coerced or programmed. Love that is coerced is not love at all. Programmed love is a contradiction of terms.

We draw closer to God because we choose to but we choose to because He reveals His beauty (attractiveness) to us which stirs in us a desire to pursue Him. If we are not attracted to Him, we can simply ask Him (a choice we are responsible for) to more clearly reveal Himself to us as He truly is. That is a prayer He always says yes to if we are sincere.

³We may bristle at the idea of God choosing some to follow Him, but not others. However, did he not choose Abraham and his household among all other peoples and only him? And after this, he also only chose Noah and his family to enter the ark and be saved from the flood. We do not bristle at these stories or consider them unfair, but see them as God showing mercy to the ones he called to obey. 

Was God being unfair to those he did not choose? No. He simply allowed others to continue on the path they were already on and had freely chosen. God was not being unfair to others by choosing Abraham and Noah. He was being gracious to Abraham and Noah. So it is with everyone he calls to Himself. None of us deserves His mercy and kindness, yet He extends these to some of us rebels nevertheless. But we are no less rebels.

I propose that a reason God does not choose to open everyone's eyes to see His love is it causes those he does awaken to appreciate His love more, i.e. if God had not opened my eyes I would have gone into eternity without Him. 

This isn't a theory, it actually happens, and if not for the grace of God, there I also go. This realization causes me (you) to appreciate His love in a way I (you) would not have if eternal separation from God - the very Source of love and life - wasn't a very real possibility. This results in those He awakens to experience His love to the greatest possible extent. 

To most fully appreciate good, the possibility of evil must also exist and be a real threat.

⁴And who are we? We are rebellious and broken image bearers of God, whom He loves, values and seeks to restore - like an old, very rusted and corroded machine that got lost and left to the elements. We no longer functions properly (if at all) because of all the dirt, corrosion, and rust. God knows the true value of this machine and that all it needs is to be taken apart, cleaned, grinded, filed, sanded, buffed, polished and reassembled to operate as good as new again.