God works with the real you

Our ¹unfaithfulness to God is often the primary way we come to appreciate the value and importance of faithfulness. If we have ²experienced the love and presense of God to any significant degree, unfaithfulness leaves us with a sense of isolation and separation from God and missing His presence.

Though unfaithfulness definitely separates us from God, it is not on God's side, but ours. We have wandered from God; not Him from us. As God's children, he never leaves us and is always working in our unfaithfulness as well as our faithfulness. He, in fact, uses that sense of separation -- along with other consequences -- to call and draw us back to himself.

In this, we can relax, knowing he's ultimately using even our unfaithfulness for our good and his glory and not be concerned about our unfaithfulness in ³this sense. In a significant way, who we are, is who we should be i.e. we should not pretend to be something we are not because we think we are fooling God somehow -- though we might fool ourselves and others -- into thinking we are someone other or better than who we really are OR because we think we will somehow impress God with some feigned faithfulness. We simply need to be our honest, real, and true selves so we can identify and learn from those hidden areas of brokenness and distrust in God. God uses our mistakes to help better see where we need to grow. 

And maybe the most critical point is we will not turn away (repent) from something we deny exists and aren't aware of. If we are always masking our true self with some pretend self, we will never see what needs to be fixed i.e. where we need to let God's love shine and our trust needs to grow. You won't turn away from what you don't think is broken. 

Does this mean we are to deliberately indulge in unfaithfulness so that we will learn? No, it simply means we are who we are and will be who we will be and need to be honest with who we are before we can truly change. Pretending doesn't promote honesty and without honestly there is no true change/repentance. A performance-based approach to God verse a grace-based approach prevents us from seeing the true level of our unbelief/unfaithfulness. We can not turn away from destructive behavior unless we see its destructiveness.

We need to recognize God meets us where we are in all our distrust and brokenness, and works to advance His good purpose in us. We need to allow God to show us who we truly are in our unfaithfulness so we see the real us, in order to truly turn from our brokenness. If we don't see, experience, and feel our true brokenness and the emptiness of our unfaithfulness, we will never sincerely turn. We may make some external changes, but this is not a true change of heart empowered by God's Spirit/grace. Any change that is not Spirit/grace-driven is superficial and ***performance-oriented.

***by performance I mean acting in order to impress either God or others... seeking to earn or gain their acceptance and approval.

On the other side of this, we should also be aware that unfaithfulness always has consequences. Not only does it cause us to lose a sense of God's presence, but it also results in harm to others and ourselves -- not to mention it dishonors God. So for these reasons we should always be alert and seek to become more aware of our unfaithfulness and more diligent in our faithful pursuit of God. 

The point is we should not beat ourselves up over this. This simply is who we are and to recognize Christ already took our beating. The consequences of our unfaithfulness, in themselves, actually become a vital means of our seeing the need to abandon unfaithfulness.

When we come to the place that we clearly and honestly see the importance and value of faithfulness we will not depart from it. It will be our real, lasting, conscious, and deliberate pursuit of God, not superficial and some pretense of pursuing him.

When we do, this too will be who we really are.

For a further discussion on being real click here. 
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*unfaithfulness being our lack of trust in God displayed by a lack of diligence pursuit of i.e. obedience to God. Lack of trust in God is the essence of sin.

**If you don't experience that sense of loss in your unfaithfulness, you may have never experienced anything significant enough to feel a loss, to begin with i.e. you can't miss what you never had.

However I would also argue we all experience a sense of loss of God, whether we are his children or not, we just don't know it's God we are missing.  All we know is we long for love and when we experience it we want more; the more love we experience the more we long for it.  

The reason we want more is that God is more than anything we can experience through the things and relationships in this life. Whatever little tastes of love we experience in this world can never be enough because we were designed for eternal, infinite love, not temporal finite love. Only infinite, eternal love can fulfill that infinite eternal desire for love built into all of us as God's image-bearers. 

***We should be concerned from the standpoint that we will suffer loss/consequences for our unfaithfulness. But again, this is as it should be and how we learn to be faithful. It is not something to be "uptight" about. God uses all things for our good, including our unfaithfulness. 

Why God is desirable

What makes God desirable?

1. He lacks nothing and needs nothing. 

Nothing we have or can offer Him meets any need of, in or for God. He has none. He is completely whole, other-oriented and self-sufficient. This removes any pressure we might feel to give God anything.

2. He is everything we need and desire. 

All things we seek and desire are ultimately a desire for God. We simply use other things as God substitutes to fill the void of God's absence due to our distrust of him.

3. He truly delights and finds joy in our delighting in Him.

We are created by God and are like Him - in his image - so we might enter into and participate in the joy God has within the eternal, blissful, and all-sufficient community of Father, Son, and Spirit. In short, he overflows in love and desires to share the joy of who he is with us.

This makes him both perfect and beautiful. In a word, desirable. This, in main part, is what makes God beautiful and glorious, full of wonder, worthy of all our worship and praise.

As we come to see God as he truly is, we increasingly come to love and trust him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves.

"Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! 

How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 

"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" 

"Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. - A doxology of praise by the apostle Paul. Rom 11:32-36

Love at it's source

Love can only come from God's image bearers (you and I) in response to God's love for and to them first.

Though we have the capacity to *love, it is only a capacity. In other words we are able to receive or be loved and respond in love if and when loved by God but absent His love we are unable to give love i.e. we can not initiate love. Any true love we are able to give is only the fruit of being loved. We are not the Source, God is...love.

We were never designed or intended to be the source of love but rather recipients and responders to love that in turn can be conduits (vessels) of love.

And very good ones at that. In fact we alone, of all God's creatures, can consciously and deliberately respond to his love in a way no other of God's creatures/creation can. Though we are not hard wired to initiate love, we are hard wired to receive love, than respond back to God in love and also out to others with His love.

We will not (and can not) love others as God has designed us to (sacrificially), unless we first are loved (sacrificially) i.e. unless we are fully connected to God through Christ, the Source of love, life and all things.

Why? Simply stated, God is love, we are not.

But we are like God in that we can participate in the love that God is. We can enter into the union/fellowship of love between the Father, Son, and Spirit as image bearers of God.  But God alone is the source of love and life and all things. We are image bearers that participate in and reflect that love if and when we receive it.

If we are loving others as God loves us, it is only because we are *experiencing - by believing and trusting in - God's love for us first. We can only love others as God loves us, and will when we do.

If you are wondering if any of this is true, try giving sacrificially, none stop for an extended period and see what happens (such as parents of very young children or an infant). You won't last long. We must retreat to "recharge our batteries." The more we are engaged in sacrificial love and the more frequently we must recharge. We simply can not love without receiving it first to "fill our tank" or we will burn out.

Yes but...

Some may argue,"what about someone throwing themselves on a grenade to save others or a parent sacrificing themselves to save their child etc." First, this impulse is an expression of being in the image of God. We are designed not just to be loved but to give love. 

But note the order of the greatest commandment. We are called to love God first and than our neighbors. Why? Because true God inspired neighbor love flows out of God's love i.e. it comes from God. To say it another way, we would have no neighbor love if it wasn't for God, who is love i.e. it's hard wired into our spiritual/emotional DNA. 

So what is going on when someone who does not profess to know/trust in God, yet sacrifices themselves to save another? Because we are in God's image we can derive a sense of significance in giving up our lives for another. This is unlike God who demonstrates his significance in sacrificing himself [as the Son] for others. God is totally complete within himself as Father, Son and Spirit. We are complete only when in perfect union with Him. 

Without God driving our action, it is our need for significance that drives it i.e. doing a sacrificial act is an act of validating me, my significance, my importance, not honoring God i.e. it is not driven by a desire to honor God but to honor self; for self to be honored and praised by others. Though the very impulse we have to give our self for another comes from how we are wired by God, if we do not acknowledge and act for this reason (to honor God), at it's core, it is ultimately an act for ourselves no matter how much it is also for another. 

If we fully understood our ultimate demise in sacrificing ourselves this way without God being a deliberate and conscious part of the act - i.e. doing it for his honor - I propose we would not do the act i.e. we would not act if we knew our action would usher us into eternity resulting in our ultimate and eternal separation from God, His love and all good things. We act because we either believe our act will cause us to be remembered as a loving person or ultimately save ourselves by winning the favor of God (or Karma or whatever).

If we do not consciously and explicitly act for God's honor in our sacrifice, folks would likely say, "what a noble act and person" after our passing; they would not say, "what a great God they must worship for them to be willing to sacrificially give their life for the benefit of another" i.e. to not act for God's honor first and foremost brings praise and approval to ourselves, not to God.

So there are two parts to our truly loving others in the way God loves. 

1. Being like God. We act like him because we are like him...in his image -- which can happen with anyone, whether consciously connected to God or not.

2. Being loved by God **personally - which in turn empowers us to love others because He loves us. This happens only when we are fully and **deliberately connected to the source of love. 

It is the second part that distinguishes us from those who do not look to God for love and desire to honor God out of that love.
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*When referring to love I am not talking about the warm and fuzzy feelings we all experience when things go our way. This is getting love or being loved. I am talking about extending (giving) kindness, care, thoughtfulness even and especially when it costs us something i.e. sacrificial love. We are not willing nor can we give to others in this way unless we have first received the resources to love in this way i.e. we can not give what we do not have and we do not have God honoring sacrificial love unless we received it first. To love in this way, we must be "plugged in" to the bottomless, infinite source of love...and that isn't us.

**God values all his image bearers generally but unless we recognize our need for God, and deliberately trust in and receive his love we will not partake of it personally. We must turn to Him for this to occur.

#love  

Trinity - the importance and necessity

The essence of God is relationship. Without the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit, there is no God (or love). The oneness of God is a oneness of relationship; a union of three. Even though each of the three persons of the Godhead is God, they are God together and not God separately or independently and individually without or outside of relationship i.e., God is one being. 

None of the persons of the Godhead stands alone, independent of each other, by virtue of the fact that to be fully the God He is, He must be God in relationship, making all three persons necessary for "Godness" to exist.

When the Bible says that God is love it is because He is relationship. And not just any kind of relationship but one defined by love i.e. the giving and receiving of glory/value/worth/honor. A relationship in which each is equally and mutually valued/loved/honored by the other.

Because the Son issues forth from the Father and the Spirit issues forth from the Father and the Son, they are all God. So in this sense everything issues forth from only one God as Father, yet God cannot be Father without the Son, and the relationship between the Father and the Son is bound together and expressed in, by, and through the Spirit, who is love. There is no relationship between the Father and the Son without the Spirit. 

God is Spirit, and God is Love. And He is all these because He is relationship. And because He is relationship, He is all these.

For a much fuller discussion of this click here

For a discussion on the source of love, click here

For a discussion on the "dependence" of God, click here. 

A heart loved is a mind and will freed

We cannot see clearly or choose wisely until we trust we are ¹fully loved. To the degree we trust we are, is the degree to which we will see clearly and choose wisely.

In order to best get on in life we usually think what we need most is right understanding, facts, knowledge, and right choices. That knowledge and choice are the most important things. However, these can not occur until things are first addressed at a much more fundamental level; the level of our heart-spirit.

We are primarily relational beings, not just rational and willful. By that I mean we are designed to be in relationship first and foremost. We are created in the image of our Creator to receive love via relationship in the same way our Creator does. Thinking and choosing only work correctly when the core defining aspect of who we are is intact. 

To illustrate, think of

those times you went to the grocery store when you were starving versus when you were full. Did this affect what was most appealing to you and the choices you made while shopping? Wasn't it easier to rationalize buying more processed food that could be consumed quickly versus something more healthy that took time to prepare; something that required delayed gratification? 

Just like with physical hunger, our reasoning and choices are affected and driven by our emotional and spiritual state as well. When we are spiritually and emotionally starved we make poor choices vs when we are spiritually and emotionally full. 

And what kind of relationship do we need - for not just any relationship works and gives us what we most need spiritually and emotionally. 

Because we were created for infinite love from the Source, inconsistent love from others, including self-love, alone doesn't work because it doesn't fully give us what we are designed for and must have. 

Why is this? Because we were designed to be in a relationship with a ²being that is infinite, constant, never failing, and never-ending love. In short, we were designed for a relationship with the God of infinite love. Therefore only a relationship with this God will do i.e. it fits who we are; who God made us to be. 

Right knowledge and right choices are certainly important but occur only when we are in an unobstructed relationship with someone who can give us infinite love i.e. we can not make right choices and obtain true understanding without being freely loved first. As long as we are not loved fully, our knowledge, choices, desires, etc are skewed towards that which we think (believe) works best at satisfying our need to feel worthwhile, important, significant... in a word, loved.

This raises the question of why we do not always feel fully loved if we are a child of God. Well, in fact, we are fully loved. Love has been fully displayed and extended to us in Christ, but if we do not receive but reject this love (Jn 3:17-18) by not believing in it, we will not partake of it. Why? 

We are in such deep (and hidden) pain we will not entrust ourselves to the love of another but prefer to take care of ourselves, "thank you very much." To fully engage in this infinite love, we have to give up our attempts at "self-love" and must entrust ourselves to another instead. But not just anyone but to our all-wise all-powerful and all-loving Creator. For now that occurs by faith i.e. we see God through a glass dimly.

And that other person is not someone we can control. Which is our challenge. Control is the opposite of trust. 

Christ himself told us that His Father so loved us that he sent me (Christ) to this broken world of pain and suffering to bring you (or anyone who trusts him) everlasting life. You're not believing this (trusting what Christ said and did) in itself proves you refuse to entrust yourself to (and actually reject) the source of all love and life?

If you, by faith, do not accept the proof of his love, you will not experience this love that is offered and demonstrated by Christ in what he did on your behalf.

And what he did was remove the barrier our (your) rejection of God put between us (you) and Him so that he might restore you back to a right standing and you might experience his infinite love again. Until then, everything is skewed; all knowledge, all choices, all desires, all perceptions (remember the grocery store analogy) etc. 

For a discussion on what enables us to deny ourselves, click here. 

For a discussion on being transformed by God's glory, click here. 

For a discussion on the necessity of judgment click here.

_________________________________________Footnotes:

¹Even though we are fully loved in and by Christ objectively, our trust in that love (i.e. our subjective involvement/ participation) does not equal and match the strength of that love (i.e. the objective reality of it), so we might experience it fully.

²God doesn't just love this way, He is this way by virtue of his being a relational being within the Father, Son, and Spirit. This is why both God and Christ described themselves as "I AM" i.e. infinite, self-existent, and self-sustaining. And we are made in God's image, i.e. designed for that infinite love/ relationship.

What made America great?

Unity amidst diversity is what has made America unique.

The unifying factor has been the common fundamental ¹values that drove men and women to leave their homeland and establish a new country. Ever since America's founding, these same values have drawn men and women here over the years from every part of the world. The same values ²embodied in our founding documents.

The diversity has been the richness of our various cultural backgrounds.

So while we are different (described as a melting pot) culturally, we have also been the same i.e. had the same basic common values. On the great seal of the United States is the phrase "E Pluribus Unum" which is Latin and means "out of many, one." Many nations and cultures, but one united by the same values and a common goal -  freedom to carry out our lives as we see fit under God's guidance and direction. 

Both unity and diversity made America great and strong. We all marched to the same drummer (i.e. had the same common values/goals) while bringing a richness and variety of resources, cultures, and skills in pursuit of this common cause. All of which blended to show the richness and diversity of God himself and how each of us uniquely reflects his image.

Both are necessary for America to continue to be great and strong. However, we have drifted from our common values over time, which has been the glue that has held us together in all our diversity.

Freedom was the primary common value that moved our forefathers to come. The main one among the very earliest settlers was being free to worship and serve God as they believed he had called them to, without government interference. And not just any God, but the God who says loving Him with all our heart first is the most important thing, and out of this loving our neighbor. According to the bible (often derided in today's culture), the pursuit of this is good and right; not pursuing it is destructive. All other freedoms flowed from this.

In all that America has offered, we have never guaranteed happiness, only the freedom to pursue happiness. (Think of the movie "The Pursuit of Happiness" starring Will Smith).

This is not theory but our history. Yet some today -- not the vast majority but a tireless, driven and loud minority (politically, not ethnically) -- want to throw away the common values our country was founded on that have proven to make us the bastion of liberty and flourishing over the years.

The foundational value that made America great is that we recognized God is great. This was the primary value held by the vast majority of Americans. It should be mentioned that the "Great Awakening" had occurred only 30 years prior to the Declaration of Independence. The fundamental values of that awakening were still fresh in the hearts and minds of many Americans. 

A free people must be self-governed to remain free. The governing principle/values of loving God with all we are and have, and our neighbor as ourselves, is what keeps and makes us free. These internal governing principles/values minimized the need for external governing, allowing maximum freedom. Our need to return to greatness is not rooted in a political, economic, or cultural solution but a spiritual one. We can not love God and others -- treat others with value -- as we are designed to until we know the love of God ourselves, individually and as a nation i.e. we won't and can't value others unless we understand how God values/loves us, demonstrated in Him sending His Son to restore us back to Him. 

If we, as a people, are to continue to be the country where men and women are free to develop their abilities to the maximum of their potential for the glory of God, we must return to those common values of loving God and neighbor that made us strong from the beginning. In short, we need a spiritual awakening, not just a political or moral change. Change comes on the outside when our values (loving God and neighbor) on the inside are correct. Political and moral change is the fruit of loving God with all we are and have. This starts with God's people - i.e. the "church" universal - first. 

¹For a further discussion on values, culture, and racism, click here. 

²Though racism was a part of our society in the beginning, it was the founding principle that all men are created equal that eventually led to the black man being recognized as someone with the same rights and dignity as every other citizen. The HBO series on John Adams is an excellent recounting of how the compromise of this principle was an unfortunate, destructive, and unwanted part of our beginning for many.  

Knowing God's word… A matter of the heart

Depending on how awakened our hearts are to God and his great love will determine how we interpret and read his word(s). 

If we have experienced none of His love, we will see scripture as a bunch of rules and regulations given to us to win his love. It will be more of an owners manual than a love letter. 

This results either in:

• Guilt, shame, and condemnation because it reminds us of our failure to live by (obey) His word(s) or
• Self-righteousness because we think superficial/external conformity is true obedience - hint, it is not.

If we have truly seen/experienced God's love to any degree, we will see scripture as his loving guidance and direction to the degree we have seen/experienced His love. 

How we view scripture is more a matter of the heart than the mind.

The more of his love we experience, the more this will be true, and the more God's word/Commandments will bring us joy and be embraced with delight. 

Psa 119:14,16,24,35,47,70,77,92,143,174

In short, legalism and the misunderstanding of God's Commandments/words/direction are nothing more than the fruit of not believing, knowing, and experiencing the goodness of God and the greatness of His personal and infinite love for us.

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." - John the apostle of Jesus 1Jn 5:3