How Can We Make This Assurance Operative In Our Own Lives? Part 3a

Romans 8:28-39

Many people in America, inside and outside of the church, hold to a belief in a loving God. They all say that they believe in a God of love, a God that loves unconditionally and loves you no matter what you do...

But is the assurance changing lives?

This assurance will not change your life when God’s love is simply an abstract, cognitive belief. I believe this assurance can only change your life when it becomes 'personalized.'

I think you have to personalize the love of God in two ways. I will write about the first - the assured love of God in you - today and the second - the assured love of God in Christ - tomorrow.

How do you personalize this assurance in you?

It is fine to talk about how freewill and the sovereignty of God is only an apparent contradiction (I wrote about that yesterday). That is fine but it is only an intellectual exercise. We need to apply this to us and our relationship with God.

Do you have a relationship with God? Have you gone to God through Jesus Christ? What does that look like?

Think of a relationship with God as a door. As you are coming up to the door you see above it Matthew 10:32, “Whosoever will confess me before men I will confess before my Father.” In other words, as you are coming up to a relationship with God you are told you have got to do it. You have to make a decision and a commitment. You cannot be passive.

If you bite and cry out, ‘Lord accept me because of what Jesus has done,’ and you walk through the door, the minute you do you see behind you on the other side of the door John 15:16, “You have not chosen me I have chosen you,” and John 6:44, “no man can come to me except the Father draw him.”

Everybody, I believe, who has moved through that door will someday realize that in spite of all of the work that they did and the sweat it took to make the commitment, when they get in and start looking back they will begin to realize that the reason they are a Christian is not because they were more spiritual, more humble then other people, more of a lover of truth then other people... it was simply because God kept pushing and pressing and persistently seeking to love them until he broke them open to him. Therefore, what makes me a Christian is simply the fact that God comes to the Christian, not because they were smarter, better, more repentant, or spiritual. It is both a free AND a sovereign act.

I wrote about Deuteronomy 7:6-8 one time on this blog after hearing Tim Keller speak on it.

Read that passage. Do you see the circular reasoning? God is saying that He didn't love Israel because they were one of the great nations, in fact they were the one of the smallest and had very little going for them. It was because God loved them that he brought them out of Egypt... God is saying to His people here (the nation of Israel then, and now to His people across all borders) that, 'I love you, just because I love you, just because I love you.'

Dani (my wife) might ask me someday, 'Do you love me?' And I will say, 'Yes!' And then Dani might say, 'Why?' This is where I will have to be very careful. I could truthfully say, "You the smartest girl I have ever known, the prettiest girl I have seen. I love how we can talk for hours, I love the ambition and life spark you have, I love how you want to see everything. I love how we can walk and get lost in a city and have such a great time doing it...’ But that answer will not work. I think the only answer in which you can build an entire LIFE of love is, "I love you just because I love you." And this is not just sweet talk, it is not just pillow-talk nonsense. There is no other way for true love to operate.

If you say to another human being that you love them because of a certain factor then all of the identity shifts to that factor because that is the basis for the love. 'Well, then I better keep my figure! I better stay smart! I better keep in good shape so I can keep on walking through cities... But what happens if I somehow can't walk anymore? What happens if I lose my drive and ambition?'

The basis of the identity, of this person's loveliness, the basis of their value is then shifted to these factors, and then slavery to those factors if they seek to remain in that love... But what if God says, 'I love you just because I love you'. And what if the only way we love him is because he kept after us until he finally broke us open... This reality can transform a life.

Why?

It is because finally with this assurance you don’t have to be smart, sophisticated, fun, good looking, or have a lot of money. Those factors are marginalized now because you are finally loved for yourself! If you know the reason why God, people, or your spouse loves you is because... you have a great career, then you will never be able to handle a reversal of that career... or that you are talented, then you will never be able to truly handle competition and failure...

The divine, sovereign, electing grace of God tells us that He loves you just because He loves you. If that assurance is personalized it can transform you.