What do you mean when...

What do you mean when you say that God is love?  Don Carson in his little book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, says that the love of God is misunderstood.
First, if people believe in God at all today they believe that He is a loving being.  However, what they mean is not what the Bible says.  Because we live in such a self centred world we believe that God loves us because we are lovely.
Second, they are quick to believe one thing about God but not other attributes.  What about the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, etc.  God is not one dimensional.  If He is a God of love, which He is, then He is also sovereign, holy, just, etc.
Third, people believe that the only heresy today is that we believe that there is heresy.  Since God is love then all paths lead to God so to call something heresy is just your opinion and is that any different than anyone else's opinion.  The problem here is that it is what the Bible says.  Jesus said that there is only one way to God and even though God is love He has said that we must believe in truth.
Fourth, though we believe that God is love that does create difficulties when we see the hatred in this world and the sufferings in this world.  As Christians this is where we have difficulty because how can we tie God's love to God's justice?
Finally, the love of God is not the simplistic doctrine we make it out to be.  "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life."  God's love can only be truly understood through the cross.

Why do I love God?

So why do I love God?  John tells us it is simply because He first loved us and by His grace we responded to that love.  So often today we find people thinking that God loves them because they are special.  Moses made that very clear to the Israelites that there was no way that they were special.  God loved them because He loved them.  He set His love on them so that they could show to the rest of the world that God does love them.  However, they failed to do that.  They failed because they thought that God loved them because they were special and the other people were not.  If we think that we are loved because of who we are and not who God is then we will fail to show His love to the rest of the world. 

Connections

Tonight I was talking to a friend of mine and we were talking about Deuteronomy.  He will be covering my class while I am gone and he will do chapters 8 and 9.  Chapter 8 is about being grateful and he told me as he was studying the chapter he suddenly realized where he read all this before.  Jesus covers the same material in the sermon on the mount in Matthew 6.  Sometimes I feel that dispensationalists have robbed us of the riches of the Old Testament.  The OT and particularly Deuteronomy has many of the foundational truths that we read about in the New Testament.  Dispensationalists were not totally wrong but many of the disciples have missed some great truths because of seeing the OT as the dispensation of Law and the NT as the dispensation of grace.  It was always grace and it still is Law.  The one thing we need to remember is that Law follows grace not grace follows the Law.

Being separate

How can God's people be a separate people?  For one thing we are called to be in the world but while we are in the world we are not to be part of the world.  The people of Israel were to be a separate people.  They were going into the land that was polluted by sin but they were called to keep themselves separate.  The only way that they could do this was to totally destroy what was contrary to God.
A friend told me that a mutual friend of ours had become widowed and had set her sights on a widower who was not a believer.  She was convinced that this was the man that God wanted for her so she ended up compromising what she believed and moved in with him without marrying him.  Her rational was that she could speak into his life and lead him to faith in Christ.  His former wife had been a Christian but he had rejected her Christianity.  How could this one think she could lead him to Christ while she lived in disobedience to God's desire for man and woman.
Christians find themselves compromising with the world in the area of sexual sins, money and power.  We are told to come out from them and be separate from them. 

I love you because

Why did God love the Israelites?  Was it because they were special?  Was it because it made Him feel good?  Was it because they were numerous?
No, God loved them because He loved them.  "The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.  But it was because the Lord loved you ..."  Deuteronomy 7:7, 8a
Why does God love us?  Because we are lovable?  No!  Because we are special?  No!  So why does He love us?  The only answer I can give is that He loves us because He loves us.  That is grace.

Raising Children in a Post-Modern World

When I put the question to some young fathers they all told me the same thing, "How much time do you have?"
I would like to make two observations.
First, the family unit is important.  In a world that is tearing down all structures it is important for our children to have a structure they can believe in and that is the family.  The family unit can anchor them to the truth of the Bible as well as help them develop a proper world view.  When post-moderns say that all truth is relative and that there is no absolute truth the family can be that important focal point for truth.
Second, we must insulate our children not isolate them.  By insulating them I mean teaching them the Biblical truths and why we believe them.  We know that the world will want to tell them that all paths lead to God and all lifestyles are acceptable but we need to talk to them about the truth of God's Word.

Problems of prosperity

So why is prosperity a problem for most Christians?  Let me list a few things that I see as problems.
First, prosperity turns our eyes away from God to focus on what we have.  We begin to trust in our abilities rather than in God's gifts.  We don't need to trust God for our daily bread so we can live as practical atheists.
Second, we look for ways to protect our assets rather than ways to trust in God.  It seems I am saying the same thing over again and maybe I am but prosperity undermines our trust in God.  Our prosperity should give us peace of mind rather than anxiety but I see people who have so little trusting God while people who have so much worrying about their investments.
Finally, prosperity makes us feel that we are eentitled to these blessings and that other people should respect that.  So many people who have money, not all but so many, feel that they deserve what they have and therefore they are entitled to things that go along with it.
I am not talking about prosperity gospel which is no gospel at all.  It has its own problems and it idolatry.  I am talking just about being successful and the traps and pitfalls that come with having money.  Having money should make us more generous, more content, more willing to serve but it very seldom, not always, does.  I am so thankful for what I have and what I can give.