GOD’s Unconditional Love

Unconditional love on the human level is an impossibility. Every gift we give, every act of love, carries ties more subtle than strands of gossamer.

As donors, we expect gratitude, we expect there to be a pay off in a bettered relationship. When we do not get these responses we grumble, even if it is an inward complaint.

We are surprised when these things do not occur.

As recipients, we feel constrained to reciprocate the love. We feel we have been obligated and we even often resent the obligation placed on us by the loving actions of others.

Some gifts are burdensome because we do not wish to cultivate the relationship that the gift presupposes we have, and the intimacy to which the gift calls us may make impossible demands on an already overloaded schedule!

These gossamer strands form the web of our social interactions. Some are soft and downy and delightful; others are hard and abrasive as razor wire. No action can be free from these considerations.

The problem is then transferred to our relationship with our heavenly Father. We never feel quite comfortable with His love.

We always feel that He requires some performance in return. When we disappoint Him, we usually feel that we can only make it up by some noble act of penance or by going through some rigorous discipline, either self-imposed or inflicted by Him as a punishment.

In order to understand the intense depth of His grace, we have to shake off the shackles of our human interactions and begin each day with the foreign but exhilarating reality: “GOD LOVES ME UNCONDITIONALLY!” My work does not make Him love me more, and my failures do not make Him love me less. He loves me perfectly IN Christ. The key is to be IN CHRIST. That is a gift to be accepted, not a performance that earns His favor.

May He grant you the joy of communion.

May the Holy Spirit cause you to shed the chains that bind you in human relationships, and may He teach you to enjoy the unconditional love of God.

Arctic nights are life in total blackout in freezing temperatures with regular blizzards. For some the Arctic Night is not just one season, life seems to stall in that miserable tent.

Then all that the positive theology of explanation conjures up is a ferocious blizzard that never seems to end. The usual comforts act like salt in the wound.

Biblical examples are plentiful. Job searched for God but the blinding snow of his Arctic Winter blotted out any signs of a caring God.

Elijah descends into the morass and asks for death under a juniper tree.

Isaiah references saints in darkness. His reference is apparently couched in the life of The One who went through the most bitter Arctic expereince, when he cried out of a total eclipse, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me.” Remember, ” My God” in his case was his Father!

There is this reassurance, however, Job states that God knew the way he was taking – he could not find God, but God was fully cogniscant of him. David expands on that in Psalm 139, and points out that God “discerns” our thoughts from afar. That means he goes beyond just being aware that we are in the Arctic, he discerns the inner conflicts that rage like a fierce blizzard in the inner chamber of your heart. And the David adds, “Darkness is no dark to you. The darkness shines like the light.”

Why? What would God do such a thing? More than allow it, promote it.

Two stories:

Ron Filby served as a missionary in Angola. He contracted cancer and had one leg amputated. His recovery took six months, but he returned to his task with love and joy. During the ordeal tormented himself with The Why, he was in a despairing depression. His biography, “This One Thing”, written by one of my mentors, Jimmy Ferguson, references Isaiah 50:10, – walking in darkness. Then the cancer returned with vengeance. Once more he soldiered on. The cancer spread and he spent his last days in the Johannesburg General Hospital. Some years later a hospital survey of staff included a question concerning outstanding patients. Ron Filby was at the top of the list. One Doctor wrote, “When Ron died, it was if a great light left the hospital.” He was unaware that his darkness was light to an entire hospital.

Corrie ten Boom assisted many Jews escape the Nazi net but was eventually sent to a concentration camp. When she and her sister Betsy arrived, the dormitory was like a cage of animals. Gaunt women were stealing food from each other, there was visceral hatred on display. Corrie and Betsy started showing love and compassion. They shared their meagre rations with the weakest, they nursed the dying and cared for everyone. Gradually the whole dormitory was transformed into a sisterhood.

“…for the sake of the Body“

Paul states he rejoices in his suffering because it is in the shadow of Christ’s suffering, and then he adds, it is all for the sake of the Body. The devil would isolate you from God. God exalts you by linking you in a special bond of fellowship, and granting you the privilege of having a special role in his stellar plan for the world through the Body of Christ. None of us are aware of the impact of our lives, and the suffering ones have the greatest role to play.

Rejoicing here does not mean you will expereince peace and joy, it means you will rest in the knowledge that there is a grand overall purpose, and you are an important part of bringing it to pass. We can never gauge our effectiveness, and martyrs seemingly have their effectiveness ended through gruesome deaths. Yet it is these very martyrs who have turned the word “martyr” into metaphor, a metaphor for triumph. The word “martyr” comes originally from the ancient Greek legal term for “witness“, for someone who gives testimony or evidence in a court of law. The witness you give is in the glare of the approval of God.

“… walks in darkness and has no light“

Isaiah asks the question:
“Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of His Servant, that walks in darkness and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” (Isaiah 50:10) “Stay upon his God” means make him the place where you live, When the frail tent is freezing in an Arctic Night and in the teeth of a blizzard, you are anchored in Yahweh.

The next verse counsels against “lighting your own fires.” You would love tokens of his presence in emotions, even if flickering, of joy or peace. So you search for them and try to promote them. Perhaps sparks will ignite, but ultimately, you will “lie down in sorrow.” Rickets is a debilitating deficiency of vitamin D. Symptoms include delayed growth, bow legs, weakness, and pain in the spine, pelvis, and legs. One cure for it is to sit in the sun. Imagine an impatient patient saying, “yes, but what must I do” “Sit in the sun.” “Is there nothing else?” “Just sit in the sun.” O, my heart is wrenched for those in darkness and are looking for a remedy. “Sit in the Son” seems such callous and uncaring advice. We want to experience the tokens of God’s favor and will do anything to overcome the terrifying darkness. We want to light fires to beat back the dark. Sitting in the Son seems like a surrender. Yet, consider it as comfort and a victory. You are holding fast and God remains your dwelling place. You are in the fortress of his loving concern. Find the sun deck and sit down.

An outline sermon of Isaiah 53 “Saints in Darkness” with some reflections for a week of devotions. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TSlT1VJWkfm–Rs9EwiNRAXH1OGwLia0vJ_E8ATscrI/edit?usp=sharing

Christ suffered in a physical body to redeem us

Now we rejoice in our suffering, because it is a subset of His.

We are gifted to God, perfectly blameless and free of guilt. And shame.

All our suffering falls under the shadow of the cross of Christ.

It is therefore filled with significance, albeit a different significance.

Christ is fully identified with us, and we with him, and suffering is the link.

Now ….

…… pause, reflect, and then continue in the light of the preceding.

Practical Applications

Focus on the Big Picture 

“A master instructs his apprentice to fetch a handful of salt and pour it into a glass of water. The apprentice does so and takes a sip, then deems the water  bitter and undrinkable. The master tells his apprentice to sprinkle another handful of salt into a lake, then take a drink from the lake. This time the water is clear and pleasant. “The amount of pain in life is salt; no more no less,” the master says. “The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same, no more and no less. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in.” (Hindu parable quoted by Lost in the Valley of Death, p 189, by Hartley Hustad. Harper Collins, 2022) 

The bitterness of pain is diluted, even absorbed, by the lake. 

Christ is our lake.

Our four year old fell and scraped his knee. He ran in, screaming like a banshee on steroids. I envisioned sirens and the emergency room. There was a large box gift wrapped on the coffee table. He saw it and his face changed from anguish to delight, and he asked in an excited voice, “What’s that?”

Subjective pain was distracted by an objective reality

“NOW – I rejoice in what I am suffering” (Note the link – I left it out last time – “NOW” Col 1:24 (NIV)

   The Past Once you were alienated from God, his enemies.

The Present

But NOW he has reconciled you through the physical death (suffering) of Christ, made you his friend.

The Future To present you holy in his sight, without blemish, free from accusation.

Presented – “to convey to another as a possession,” (carries a note of formality and ceremony)

All our suffering falls under the shadow of the cross of Christ. It is therefore filled with significance, albeit a different significance.

This is of the utmost importance, since the first thought that naturally crosses out minds is “Where is God in all this?”

The devil adds his sinister attack by suggesting it is indicative that God does not love you after all. The devil turns the spotlight on you as a victim. He seeks to DIMINISH YOU! That in turn causes you to feel distant from God, isolated and ignored by God.

All of that is negated by this statement. 

This statement means that God identifies your suffering as deeply meaningful. He does not hide his face, and it is not indicative of his withdrawal.  In fact God turns His floodlight on you and gives you the status of a hero. He EXALTS  you

Correctly understood, it is God drawing you into fellowship of a most unique kind. 

One of the hardest things I have ever done was leading a team to build a clinic for the poor in Demaguette City in the Philippines. Day and night the temperature was over 90 degrees. The humidity was mostly in the 80’s. We were to mix concrete for the floor, only to discover they knew nothing about a garden hose, and the nearest water point was some 200 feet away. There were no wheel barrows. So we carried the sacks of cement, carried buckets of sand, and buckets of stone. Then we carried buckets of water, Then we mixed it all by hand, and then carried buckets of concrete to the place of laying. When any of us get together, or when we communicate, there is a bond between us that anyone who was not on that mission cannot understand, let alone appreciate. 

The hardship formed us into a unique “Band of Brothers”

It is that bond that Paul establishes with none other than Christ!

It underscores the opposite – far from God withdrawing from you, he is calling you to a special place in his heart, for God suffers.

Admiral McCain was given the order to start the bombing of Hanoi. There was just one small detail – he knew his own son John was being held captive in a prison in Hanoi. He had to give the order to start bombing his own son. The Admirals wife says he did not flinch. But every night he disappear every night for two hours. She found him on his knees with his Bible open.

How much more did God not grieve handing his son over? He was not a disinterested bystander. He is the Father.

God suffesr our sins yet. How patient he is with all my foibles and stubbornness.

It is also for the sake of the Body.

When therefore the persecution of the church commences in Acts, it is recorded that the Apostles and first Christians  “Rejoice to consider themselves worthy of suffering.”

.”Now I rejoice in what I am suffering” Paul in Colossians 1:24 (NIV)

It is obscene to link the words “suffering” and “rejoicing”.  Those two words are in direct antithesis. Oil and water not only should not be mixed, but in a certain estimation, cannot be mixed. No word causes greater questions than the issue of suffering. What a small word, but what a universe of meaning.

When Paul uses the phrase, it is not a Professor of Theology in comfortable slippers theorizing in front of a cheery fire, smoking a fragrant (or stinky?) pipe. 

He states: “ I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked”  2 Corinthians 11 : 22 – 27

He really has something to say so – Stay tuned as we explore

I asked my Dermatologist about the red spots, streaks and ruddy cheeks I was experiencing.

“It’s rosacea,” she told me. 

She prescribed some foul smelling ointment to rub on at night.

(I came to bed after applying it, and Chandos said, “I think there is a skunk outside the window.”

“Actually,” I replied, “it’s in our bed.”)

“No one knows for sure what the cause is, and treatment is a hit and miss, trial and error process,” said my Dermatologist

Charming.

Then she handed me a sheet with information on it. It is a disheartening piece of information – it embraces the whole of a normal life. It is a full page of information, so this is a summary.

ROSACEA TRIPWIRES

Factors that may trigger rosacea flare-ups

Foods – 12 different things. 

Beverages – alcohol – wine and liquor, hot drinks,

Emotional influences

Physical exertion

Temperature-related – e.g. avoid the sun

Weather

Drugs (no explanation)

Medical conditions

Skin care products.

(complied by Killjoy, I thought.)

She observed my bewilderment. I mean, why not head to the crematorium right away? ‘What about a hairshirt?” I asked with a twinkle in my dismayed eye.

Then she demonstrated a hint of compassion. She put a large circle around “Alcohol, especially red wine, beer, bourbon, vodka, or champagne.”

Then she circled “vodka” with a circle inside the circle and a line to the margin and the word “OK”.

She explained that for some unknown reason, vodka actually helps alleviate the symptoms.

I asked, “Do I rub it on or drink it?”

She cracked up laughing. I am not sure why.

I forgot to ask for a prescription, but I mulled over the information. I have never had any vodka in my entire existence. So I began to investigate – google really is confusing. Every site I clicked on had different advice so I was left floundering in a sea of information. A few sites mentioned “mid-shelf vodka.” I had never heard of that brand before. Then on paying attention, it appears that on the top shelf are the pricey vodkas. These are for the refined drinkers who happen to billionaires as well.

On the bottom shelf, are the el-cheapos, that will rot your gut.

In the middle are reasonably priced vodkas ($10-$20) that are acceptable if you mix them with tomato juice or with tonic water.

OK!

Off to the mid shelf!

Dismay! The mid shelf feels like it is 20 feet wide with 30 brands of vodka, (A bit of writer’s license to get your attention), so my confusion became more confused.

So I hum and haw and prevaricate to myself, grumbling like a stomach full of beans. I  go to various stores to get some comparisons. 

I see one that is marked down by 50%, from $20 to $9.99. It is borderline billionaires, at the top of acceptable, and in the price range of cheap.. Naturally I rejoice at this providence.

So off I go hoping I do not bump into someone I know. I mean walking out with a red face and a bottle of vodka is rather telling.

Anyhow, I mixed 2 oz of vodka with 6 oz of tomato juice, added a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice and a squirt of worcester sauce, all on the rocks.

That guaranteed that a single one would last all evening. . 

Amazingly enough, the rosacea definitely subsided! Next time I see my Dermatologist I will ask why no one is isolating what it is in Vodka that works. 

I am raising funds and asking for volunteers to run a trial with all the proper parameters. I will refuse sponsorships from Vodka producers. 

Then I am going to open a clinic and get on the lecture circuit. There will be various levels of accomodation for clients to stay in. (Minimum of one wee: $1000 day a day for classy vodka, a “mid shelf” wing at $500, and park benches and cardboard for the cheapos at $100. Rosacea is a nasty skin condition. (I have opened a waiting list- better hurry, it is filling up fast.)

I am looking for partners, an “angel” to get me going. (Apply for Prospectus)

Here are some of the phrases they use – all in the guise of loving you, as in: “I am only doing this for your own good.”

These are examples taken from the article recommended below.

• “That’s not what I said.” … 
• “You shouldn’t feel that way.” … 
• “You’re overreacting!” … 
• “You made me do this.” … 
• “I said I was sorry! … 
• “You’re too sensitive.” … 
• “You’d do it if you loved me.” … 
• “You’re paranoid.”

C.S. Lewis addressed this issue in his “Till We Have Faces”, and concluded, “You are indeed teaching me about kinds of love I did not know, It is like looking into a deep pit. I like your kind better than hatred.” What does he mean? Some kinds of hatred are better than control masked as love. 

Hmmm.

An excellent article on this topic https://www.happierhuman.com/manipulative-sentences/

I read a description of something that I have long struggled to put into words. I have had moments of being drawn into a sense of total harmony, at one with the universe, an exhilarating sense of complete peace, contentment, joy and love. I call them Transcendent Moments, for it feels like I transcend the material state of my life and realize with astonishment that I am more than a physical being, that life is much more than having a beating heart and a functioning brain, that there is a spiritual dimension to my existence, and that God has just touched my face with the gentleness of a Father for his newborn child. 

Here is what I read, it is contained in an article in Plough, by Ian Marcus Corbin. https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/literature/the-abyss-of-beauty 

The Polish poet, philosopher and future Prime Minister, Vaclec Havel, was imprisoned for resisting the Communist Regime. One day he was in the exercise yard, sitting on a pile of old rusty junk metal when, as he wrote to his wife Olga, I “… gazed into the crown of an enormous tree that stretched, with dignified repose, up and over all the fences, wires, bars, and watchtowers that separated me from it.” He is overcome by “a sensation that is difficult to describe: all at once, I seemed to rise above the coordinates of my momentary existence into a kind of state outside time in which all the beautiful things  I have ever seen and experienced existed in a total “co-present” … I was flooded with a sense of ultimate happiness and harmony with the world and with myself, with moments I could call up, and with everything invisible that lies behind it and has meaning. I would even say that I was somehow “struck by love,” though I don’t know precisely for whom or what.” 

The First Time

The first such experience occurred soon after I surrendered my life to Christ. I walked home from the evening worship and sat under the night sky where stars were scattered like diamonds on a vast velvet cushion. I shivered, not with cold, for it was a warm subtropical evening – I can only describe it as shivering with delight. The Transcendent Moment arrived and I knew, in something beyond words, the reality of God, the Creator, therefore logically necessarily outside of the universe, as my Father, loving me with infinite love. Earthly love is delicious beyond description – consider all the poetry and music that attempts to describe it, yet can only touch on one or another aspect of it. It is so vast that a complete description is beyond expression. The sensation of that love that night is unlike any love I have ever known, different as a candle when compared to the sun. The feeble lumen of my life was connected to the immense luminosity of the entire universe in dizzying reality, my chest cavity expanded to fill with the heavens, and my heart pulsed to the rhythm of the stars. The hymn we sang that night in worship probably prepped me, and in His infinite grace, God granted me the delight of going beyond the singing of it to the superb joy of the actuality of it.

My song is love unknown,

  My Savior’s love to me;

Love to the loveless shown,

  That they might lovely be.

I an unable to recall how long I sat ashiver with joy in the radiance of a Radiant God under that sparkle-studded sky. Eternity, outside of time, is where a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.  The hymn captured the wistful longing of my heart –

Here might I stay and sing,

  No story so divine;

Never was love, dear King,

  Never was grief like Thine.

    This is my Friend,

   In whose sweet praise

    I all my days

    Could gladly spend.

It was not to be. I live as a physical being in a material body, created by God and therefore just as important as the spiritual dimension of my being. 

The Christian focus is on the resurrection of the material body. Who has not known such a transcendent moment? Falling in love, holding your newborn child, being filled with awe at some majestic scene, floating in the joy of family, gaining an important insight – an “aha moment” when something suddenly made sense. All these are examples of transcendent moments informing you there is more to life than just the material, and beckons you to explore the spiritual dimension to enjoy being a full-orbed person.

Is this your “aha Moment”?

The BBC has a video entitled: “How to counter Scrupulosity: the obsessive fear of not being good enough.” It set me thinking about how scrupulosity makes a person miserable and steals all joy.

The question about not being “good enough” is filtered through a lens, who is it you are trying to please? The ultimate question is, how do I please God without scrupulosity? 

A little girl, when asked, “What must you do to have a friendship with God?” responded, “I must be good.”  

“How good must you be?” asked the questioner.

“Awful good.” she said.

“And just how awfully good must you be?” persisted the questioner.

Her eyes widened with alarm, and she replied with amazing perception. “Awful, awful good.” That is a wonderful definition of scrupulosity.

If I am trying to please God, the standard is perfection. That is not God being “difficult”, it is a requirement of His character. Heaven, by definition, is a perfect place. If I entered as less than perfect, it would cease to be heaven.

That is the human dilemma.

The Good News (Gospel) is that a metaphor for faith in Christ is marriage. He has a perfect record and a bountiful estate. Faith is a marriage “in community of property and of identity”. I no longer write illegal checks from my bank account, I have an ATM card with access to His account. I no longer cringe about my imperfection, I go into heaven leaning on His arm, relying on His perfection, united to Him in marriage.

Does that mean I no longer have to be concerned about being good? Of course not! The marriage is not arranged, it is a love affair. To please the one I love is my delight. Displeasing him upsets me, but does not paralyze me nor end the relationship. Goodness is thus not legalistic or contrived with a fearful scrupulosity. (A new word for me, and I love how expressive it is!). It is promoted and enjoyed as a response to my Spouse’s generous love, free of guilt and shame, allowing me to develop into my full potential, in a marriage of delights.

Christ asks you, “May I have your hand in marriage?”

The Lance Armstrong (et al) Fiasco ad nauseum – A Biblical Evaluation that Pierces the Heart

Another celebrity takes a nose dive. Yawn. All who rub their hands in glee and/or cluck in horror really do not know themselves. Arthur Conan Doyle once played a practical joke, the story goes, and sent ten prominent British people a telegram with the words, “All is known.” By the next morning six of them had fled across the channel to France. Acknowledge, then, that a shadowy figure stares from your mirror when you focus with complete honesty on your own sins.

More interesting is the debate about whether the confession had any substance to it. Substance in two ways: did it actually reveal information we are curious about, that is to say, did it satisfy our need to gloat; was it actually a ruse to manipulate, that is to say, is the confessor sincere enough for my satisfaction.

Sin arouses anger. The closer I am to the perpetrator, the deeper the pain and as a result, the more intense the anger. Celebrities going awry arouse the desire for juicy details and the puckering of lips in prim self righteousness. A spouse being unfaithful is a different reality. Here the anger lies marinating in the brine of pain and mistrust; then it stews as a brew of stinking resentment.

Tormenting questions haunt the wronged person: “Why did you do this? Was the confession driven by genuine remorse or was it a matter of saving face because the sin came to the light of day? How do I know you are not going to do it again?” The confession is suspect. “Sorry” seldom quells the disquiet.

These questions linger even if forgiveness is extended. Some may find it impossible to move on, and the bible sanctions divorce when adultery is involved.

The bible explores these themes of our sin and confession in Psalm 130 (ESV):

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
²     O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

³ If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
⁴ But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

⁵ I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
⁶ my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
⁸ And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

The Psalmist had to wait for the Lord, not in casual nonchalance, but with the intensity of watchmen straining against the inclination to doze off through the night hours. The forgiveness is withheld for a good reason, v 4 states, “that you (Lord) may be feared.” Sin involves irreverence toward the person wronged. The perpetrator is magnified through gratification.

The Psalmist then proceeds to the core of the issue in v7 and v8, namely redemption. Now the confession moves beyond admitting my sins, to turning away and discovering the remedy for the sin; and forgiveness moves beyond merely hiding the volcano of irritation that yet tends to spew poisonous gas and ash, and even, on occasion, spill molten lava.

The way of the Lord is to hold out on intimacy, to distance and isolate, until the perpetrator understands the fearful consequences of disloyalty. When the isolation registers, the heart begins to tremble and then pine. Now there is a cry out of the depths.  Now redemption is offered, not just forgiveness, but all things made new. A fresh start, as darkness yields to the dawn. Redemption involves a new creation, where the former things have passed away.

The Lord shows us the way of life and offers the energy to walk the way:

• His love is not fickle but steadfast (v 7);
• His redemption is not meted out in a miserly fashion, it is plentiful (v 7);
• He redeems, not just the isolated sin and its terrible consequences, but untangles the entire iniquitous snarl-up, weaving a thing of beauty in its place (v 8).

The dynamics are complex because even the simplest relationships are layered with complexity; the solution is both easy and impossible. The sin is a symptom of a crippling disease. Symptomatic confession leaves the heart unaltered. It is the disease that must be treated. The cure is manifested daily in actual behavior. Now no records of the wrong are kept. (V 3  If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?)

Divine intervention is needed to move beyond shallow confession that is mere manipulation.

Divine intervention is required to extend steadfast love that leads to manifold redemption.

Insightful confession and creative forgiveness are necessary for redemption, and both come from God, who is never tight fisted.

“O Israel! Put your hope in the Lord.”