God's Love

This may be a bit rough.  I have done things and said some things at times under the notion, that nothing is too big for God to straighten out in due time.  I can be a bit blunt.  I know most people are not used to this approach, but to be honest I am not mostly worried about the silly human pride thing. I realize that a blog really is not an avenue for communication.  For me it is just a place to hold thoughts for a moment.  All of these thoughts need development.

I want to share a bit of the impression that I am getting.  My gut feeling is that we are heading into a time of great trial.  It is my impression that we will be being sifted as wheat.  This may have already started in some of our lives.  God is making something according to His design.  It is His work.  He will only be using that which is sifted and found to be of worth for His purposes.  Our hearts are what He is sifting.  He sifts us not to discover who we are, but so that we can discover who we are and how we can allow Him to make us in His image. Can He use our hearts?  Will we allow Him to change us into the design He has in mind?  Will we being the created thing take our own hands off of our own lives?  No doubt that He can use us in any state we are in but to be used with a resistant heart will mean we will not receive a reward for it.  In 1 Corinthians it states that all of the works of God in our lives are useless to us if we do not have love.  It does not say that these works are useless to others.  God will accomplish His purposes. We will not slow Him down by our foolish living.

I must say that I am personally very nervous about the proposition about being sifted like wheat.  I don't feel particularly righteous.  When God breaks me I always come running.  I run to Him when He breaks me because it hurts.  I know He is the only one who can bring peace.  I don't always hold strong when I am not broken.  I guess like David, God has an appreciation for those who incline their ear to Him in times of hardship.  I would love to be one who is always in God's face seeking my fulfillment in His presence.   I have my own deep fears and I have been inclined to submit to them just like anyone else.  I hate the thought of being alone and feeling alone.  I don't mind being alone, I just hate the feeling of being alone.  If i see a glimmer of what I desire in a woman's eyes I tend to jump in head first.  This is not wisdom.  I am firmly aware that God never intended being a man's all.  In fact, I feel this is part of the message that I am here for, but I know for sure that God in all cases at all times is far superior to the gifts that He gives us.  For us to put His gifts to us before Him is idolatry.  I have been an idolater.  I have given my power to a created thing.  This has caused much pain in my life.  The good news, I am alive!  I have survived the foolishness of my own ways because when God breaks me He gets me in His face looking for consolation.  I want my life to be full in Him.  I get no joy by the fickle heart of man's acceptance.  I do get a bit, but when it is gone all I have is loss.  I know that He wants us to be in community and to trust each other and many times we treat each other unfairly and it hurts.

Back to the sifting.  Here is the idea.  God is!  What He is must be recognized!  He has made Himself perfectly clear and there is no excuse for not acknowledging Him.  We feign ourselves to have some particular relevance in our free will just because we exist.  Not so.  God is a Lover.  He loves a humble heart.  He will resist everything else.  Do not be fooled.  He will resist you. He is completely able to keep us from enjoying the things that we put before Him.  In fact, our prayers should be that all things that are not of Him will produce a bitter taste in our mouths, that our hearts would not be captured by the deception of sin.  All things that are not of Him would dry up.  If our decisions and thoughts do not humble us and cause us to walk softly before men it is not God.  Our enemy wants us to inflate the image of our own righteousness, then he wants to help us fall from our conceptions of our own righteousness, and then he wants to condemn us so that we feel guilty.  Guilt is a function of a conception of self righteousness.  

Last Friday I had an experience.  I walked towards the time clock and swiped my card at 5:00 pm and I had this feeling rise up.  It was the feeling of being single.  I did not feel alone at all.  I felt single.  The feeling was one that said, "Its Friday, I can do whatever I want!"  I imagined my freedom and it made me feel strong.  I can go out and entertain whoever I want to entertain.  I can sleep next to whomever I want...Utter foolishness!!!  God will judge that attitude with great judgement.  He resists the proud!  That feeling is called the pride of life.  God has a destiny for us.  This destiny is that we would love Him and that we would follow Him.  His destiny for us is that we would walk in the ways of His heart.  In no case is God's desire for me to feel like I can sleep next to the person of my choice on any given Friday night.  This is complete foolishness.  God expects us to live by what He has made very clear.  We will be judged by our actions if we do not.

God has never changed!  God has changed His covenants with man.  In all cases He has replaced one covenant with one that is superior.  All of these covenants have been covenants of faith.  In fact, the Law (Torah) was a law of love.  God so loved his people that He put in place a law to protect the integrity of the individual within community.   For instance:

Exodus 21

And if a man hits the eye of his servant or the eye of his maid so that it is destroyed, he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake.  And if he knocks out his manservant’s tooth or his maidservant’s tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake. 

God cares about His people.  He cares about people.

(1)If a man leaves a pit open or digs a pit and does not cover it and an ox or a donkey falls into it, The owner of the pit shall make it good; he shall give money to the animal’s owner, but the dead beast shall be his. 

(2)If fire breaks out and catches so that the stacked grain or standing grain or the field be consumed, he who kindled the fire shall make full restitution. 

(3)If a man delivers to his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep or any beast to keep and it dies or is hurt or driven away, no man seeing it, Then an oath before the Lord shall be required between the two that the man has not taken his neighbor’s property; and the owner of it shall accept his word and not require him to make good the loss.  But if it is stolen when in his care, he shall make restitution to its owner

(4)And if a man borrows anything of his neighbor and it gets hurt or dies without its owner being with it, the borrower shall make full restitution. 

(5)If a man seduces a virgin not betrothed and lies with her, he shall surely pay a dowry for her to become his wife.  If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equivalent to the dowry of virgins. 

God loves people.  

(6)if you ever take your neighbor’s garment in pledge, you shall give it back to him before the sun goes down;  For that is his only covering, his clothing for his body. In what shall he sleep? When he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am gracious and merciful. 

In the 1st example, for the sake of an eye taken in anger God grants freedom for the eye.  God so carefully protects His people that He put forth significant value on a man or woman's eye. 

In the 2nd example, God is suggesting that a man's irresponsibility to be aware of his own actions be accounted for.  If he is being lax and starts a fire, then He must pay for his lack of awareness of the consequence of His actions.  He is responsible for his lack of regard for his affect on others. 

The 3rd example is a matter of happenstance when no one is guilty of action but possibly inaction.  In this case to preserve peace they are required to be honest before God and trust the word of the oath.  If the man had accepted responsibility for the object, by an acknowledgement of words, then he must pay even though it may not have been a direct result of his action, but is bound by his own words to accept responsibility in the exchange of words between neighbors.

The 4th example is like the third except that the request was made by the neighbor to allow him to be responsible for the protection of the object for the benefit of his own while in his use.  In this case a conscientious individual asks another for an extension of grace and that grace is given to help the one who asked.  When it dies, if the owner is not with it, the borrower must pay.  

The 5th example is like the 4th in that a conscientious individual has a desire for something that he desires and by conscious decision uses his faculties to seduce a virgin that he is not betrothed to and she obliges.  In this case, it then becomes his responsibility to perform the duty that is required from those who seduce, to accept the one whom he chose and to provide and protect them.  Of course to protect the one seduced, he allows for input of the father.  If her father says no on all cases, presuming that the man is unfit for the task of loving and protecting his beloved daughter, then he must still pay.  This is a bit like the irresponsibility of starting a fire and allowing the things of value to burn due to one's lack of awareness in example 2.  

In example 6 it seems to really tie it all together.  If someone comes to you in need, asking for something of value to borrow and one agrees to extend grace but requires something of value in return because of the risk involved for the gracious one, that he realize that he is also a man a man in need and that he return the collateral as a symbol of God's provision for them both.  In this scenario, the thing of value that was lent was of great value to both individuals.  Both of these men were in need.  The one who was in the position to lend was then responsible to let go of the fear of loss and trust God so as to protect the integrity and honor of the man in need.  

This last example is so powerful.  God cares about all men and in all cases is fair.  He expects us to look after each other and the things that are valuable to humanity.  An eye is an eye. We all value our eyes.  We all value the things we work for.  We all value our  pride.  We value the things that we have held as treasures.  When are lazy and live our lives as if none of these things matter God holds us responsible.  If I feel, the pride of life, that I can sleep with someone because I need something of value (acceptance, love, physical validation) then God requires that I pay.  If I start a fire and it burn's another, then I must pay.  If my neighbor leaves something of value to them in my protection, then I am responsible for honoring the agreement, even if there were not a real contract made.  It is the social contract....the contract of the heart that God protects.  None of these transactions above were contracts of pen and paper.  God cares about the heart.  He cares about the integrity and honor of individuals. We cannot expect to come before God and be accepted by Him if we do not honor His heart.  We must celebrate His love.  We must have courage and trust Him that following Him that He will bless us. 

We cannot rewrite God's heart.  We cannot spin things to fit our lax notion of what Grace is.  Yes, we are all failed in our attempt to love God and to love others, but this is not an excuse to keep trying to make a blank slate.  He will wash away our sins.  He already has.  It is because He has that He expects us to live by a higher standard.  We are to love one another now because He has loved us and forgiven us.  This life is not set up where we can treat each other with disrespect and then expect to be welcomed into the Kingdom with open arms.  If we are stealing from others to get what we need because we are aware of our debt then all of the gain we bring to pay our debt will be refused.  God is not mocked.  He is very aware of our lives and actions.  He will not be made a fool.  We must in all cases come before Him with nothing and be willing to listen to His words to us.  "The wounds of a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses"

These are examples within the 1st chapter of Exodus after Moses presented the 10 commandments. Theses scriptures are commentaries on the 10.  What does it mean to Love?  What it means to love is that if you make a pledge that you will honor it.  In all of the above cases there is an offender and an offended.  God's aim is to bring peace between the two.  This is not a Kingdom of personal choice.  We get to chose whom we will serve.  If we serve ourselves we will not be accepted or acknowledged other than with a "depart from me I never knew you!"  I can only imagine what that would be like to have a desire to connect with the one you love and be rejected for eternity because of something that could be prevented by a humble heart.  God will forgive us all if we will humble ourselves before Him and accept His demand for more humility.  No act of love has any value to those without humility.  It does not matter if we give up our lives to be burned, without Love it values us nothing.