Reflections: God in love.

If you’re familiar with the text of scripture, you probably know the “love chapter” ( just in case you don’t, I’ll tell you😅 1Corinthians 13). Its a very definitive work on love. Yet when we talk about God in love, its hard to know where to start or end. “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell,” says one writer. But we can focus on one that has been my experience. Let’s reflect.😊

So no, this one is not going to be all rosy, or looking like some honeymoon in the Maldives. No. And some of us (some of us is me😅) are sometimes not comfortable with this part of love. So this is my/our reflection text today:

KJV Revelation 3
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

God in love, can look like a sunny day, an answered prayer, good health, a blossoming flower. And it also look like a stern rebuke, a delayed prayer, a rainy day. And these are not in tension.

I wanted to sound really fairytale-like today. I asked God to help me show you(and me), you know, the narrative of how we are undeserving and how He’s awesome in taking us up and loving us. But all I got was this. Yet He is a Master at giving treasure out of darkness. So how do we deal with rebuke.

Many of us have the babygirl syndrome. (Many of us again is me😅). How you ask? How did/do you like it when you have to face the rod after a mistake. I have this saying that goes, you can never get used to pain. Personally, pain is always pain and always painful and I don’t think I was made for pain. Yet God is said to reveal His love through chastenings and rebukes. Why? Let’s go to the “Love chapter.”

KJV 1 Corinthians 13
6 Love Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

And sometimes, the truth about us is not always cute. Sometimes we are unreasonable, selfish, vain, petty, disrespectful etc.

But think about it. Do you go around rebuking, confronting and calling out strangers for their mistakes? I think not. I think, most of the time confrontation occurs after a certain level of intimacy. That is why, the context of the text we’re reflecting on is God’s message to the church/His people.

So God in love can look like Psalm 103:

KJV Psalms 103
11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
13 Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
Go read the whole of it.

And God in love also looks like Psalm 50

KJV Psalms 50
16 But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?
17 Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.
18 When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.
19 Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit.
20 Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son.(Go read all of it)

God speaks to us in blessings bestowed, but when these are slighted He speaks to us in blessings withdrawn. His love is revealed in His rebukes. When He entrusts His chastenings upon us, it is because He has already revealed love so magnificent that based on that, we may receive rebukes, as from a Fathers hand. His love can never leave us as we are.

I finish with the words of Timothy Keller that;

Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it.

#Godfortakeaway.