Skip to main content

Precious Love

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains of God;
your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O Lord.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge
in the shadow of your wings.
Psalm 36:5-7

God continues to show me just how incredible His love really is.

Consider this with me:
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6-8

God’s steadfast love was displayed in Jesus Christ for all of creation to see and experience. It is a love that was offered freely to sinful, hateful people. It is a love that saves us through unimaginable grace (Ephesians 2:8, 9). It is a love that never changes or falters because God Himself is called the Father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17). It is perfect love that casts out fear (1 John 4:18). It is a love that allows us to love (1 John 4:19). It is a love that spared no expense (John 3:16). It is unmerited. It is without clause. It is final. It is God.

Notice how David doesn’t stop at talking about God’s love. He goes on to describe God’s faithfulness, righteousness, justice, and saving power. These attributes are not able to be separated or ignored. We cannot accept a few of them and discard the ones that we don’t like. We can’t assume that we know what the character of God entails and what it does not. We must trust His Word that He is good, just, and righteous. All of these attributes fall underneath love’s umbrella. However, without justice, grace loses its character. Without punishment for evil, what good is righteousness?

What is God’s love? Putting every living thing in subjection under Jesus Christ because He is the authority on life. He is the perfect One. He knows what is best for us far more than we do. He extends His arms to us like the father of the prodigal son just waiting for us to come home. He gave His very life and took my sins to the Cross. He made me a new creation. He will come again and call me home.

How precious is God’s steadfast love? I’ve only scratched the surface. I can’t wait to dig deeper!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

  “Where grace exists, it reigns.”   C. H. Spurgeon I’m scared of grace.   And this realization comes in the midst of a journey I’ve been on that has the fingerprints of God all over it.   If we were to gather 50 Christians in the same room and invite people to share adjectives that come to mind when trying to describe “grace,” I doubt “scary” would be anyone’s answer.   (It probably wouldn’t be mine either, in case anyone is thinking I’m exalting this term in some sort of holier-than-thou way.)   We’d hear things like amazing, undeserved, free, kind, love.   Of course, it’s inevitable that the crucifixion of Jesus is vocalized in some way.   Essentially, we’d have a huge list of very positive and affirming adjectives that rightly depict the wonderful activity and riches of God’s grace.   What if we asked a slightly different question?   How would we answer, “how does a person obtain grace?”   I’m guessing we’d start throwing out an...

Suffering Without Joy is Dead

This essay is dedicated to Adam who always asks challenging questions and makes me search Scripture to find the answers. I was asked a question Friday night about suffering that made me stop and rethink a lot of what I had come to understanding about the necessary, yet unpleasant, aspect of the Christian life. How are we really suffering if we are rejoicing? Doesn’t joy overcome suffering and replace it? Fortunately for Adam, he asked a guy who has been pouring over Philippians for the better part of three months and has been thinking a lot about what it looks like to suffer for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Fortunately for me, Adam’s question brought me to a deeper understanding of what suffering should look like in the Christian life and what it shouldn’t look like as well. I’d like to consider the suffering of Christ, our call to suffer, and our attitude in suffering. For it was fitting that He [God the Father] , for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glor...

The Awesomeness of God

"For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 I find this truth amazing . When I think about the men Jesus chose to be the first church leaders, this truth rings true. Who were Jesus' twelve? Ordinary men who made their livings by fishing or even collecting taxes. They were not extraordinarily smart or wealthy, yet they became incredibly wise and confident by the power of God. The power of the Holy Spirit working through them caused the early church to explode in thousands of passionate Christians. How great is the confidence that we are in Christ not bec...