Our Relentlessly Loving God

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. – 1 John 4:7-8 ESV

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. – 1 John 4:9 NLT

3 “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
    With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” – Jeremiah 31:3 NLT

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints' and angels' song – Frederick M. Lehman, The Love of God, 1917

God doesn’t just express love, He is love. It is His very nature. Love is not some feeling or outward expression that he conjures up in response to something or someone that is lovely or loveable. No, what sets God apart from humanity is His lovingness (if that is even a word).

God is the very definition of love. And all His other attributes are infused and closely intertwined with His love. His power is always displayed in love. And His love never lacks the strength or energy to express itself. God’s holiness is directly linked to His love. Without love, His holiness or set-apartness could make God unapproachable and unknowable. But because God is love, He has made Himself available to and knowable by mankind.

For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse… – Romans 1:20 NLT

Luke supports Paul’s conclusion when he writes that God “did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17 ESV). And he goes on to describe how God, the all-powerful creator of the universe, has lovingly and graciously made Himself known to mankind.

From one man He made every nation of men, to inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.

God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. – Acts 17:26-27 BSB

God desires that men might know Him. Why? Because it is through a knowledge of God that men recognize His love for them. It is the love of this all-powerful, holy, and transcendent God that caused Him to send His Son as the payment for mankind’s sin.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 ESV

Jesus, the Son of God, was the greatest expression of His Father’s love, having taken on human flesh and come to earth that He might be Immanuel – God with us.

No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us. – John 1:18 NLT

Jesus even made the bold claim, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!” (John 14:9 NLT). God’s love was manifested or made visible through the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. – Ephesians 1:4 NLT

Love is invisible to the human eye, but that doesn’t mean it is unperceivable. And while God Himself cannot be seen, His love can be experienced and appreciated. It can be felt, enjoyed, relished, and returned. When we understand just how much God loves us, it creates in us a desire to love Him in return.

This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. – 1 John 4:10 NLT

And it is when we understand that the God of the universe loves us that we are able to express love to the rest of humanity, whom He has made.

We love each other because he loved us first. – 1 John 4:19 ESV

But our love will always pale in comparison to that of God. His love is infinite and holy, while ours is limited and marred by selfishness and self-centeredness. We tend to love, expecting love in return. Ours is a conditional kind of love, while His is unconditional, demanding nothing from us in return.

No tongue can fully express the infinitude of God’s love, or any mind comprehend it: it “passeth knowledge” (Eph 3:19). The most extensive ideas that a finite mind can frame about divine love, are infinitely below its true nature. The heaven is not so far above the earth as the goodness of God is beyond the most raised conceptions which we are able to form of it. It is an ocean which swells higher than all the mountains of opposition in such as are the objects of it. It is a fountain from which flows all necessary good to all those who are interested in it. – John Brine, 1743

What makes God’s love so remarkable is that He showered it on us in spite of us. He didn’t demand that we get our spiritual act together. He didn’t require that we stop sinning and start living righteous lives before He would love us. No, according to the apostle Paul, God loved us while we were mired in the midst of our sinfulness and rebellion against Him.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. – Romans 5:6-8 NLT

We have a difficult time relating to that kind of love because we tend to love the lovely and loveable. We put conditions on our love. And we demand that those we love show us love in return. But, fortunately for mankind, that is not how God operates. God’s love is a purely holy love. “God’s love is not regulated by caprice, passion, or sentiment, but by principle. Just as His grace reigns not at the expense of it, but “through righteousness” (Rom 5:21), so His love never conflicts with His holiness” (A. W. Tozer, The Attributes of God).

God’s love is always sacrificial and constantly beneficial. And while it may sometimes take the form of tough love, it always results in our good. As the proverbs states, “the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” (Proverbs 3:12 NLT). His love is never smothering or manipulative. It is not a controlling kind of love. At no time does God preface His love with the thought, “What am I going to get out of this?”

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul lists the qualities associated with godly love. “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT).

That is the love of God spelled out in terms we can understand and even emulate. But unlike God, we are incapable of expressing this kind of love perfectly and selflessly this side of heaven.  Yet, as we grow to understand the incredible nature of His divine love for us, we can better appreciate how undeserving we are and turn that unmerited affection into tangible expressions of love for others.

God loves you. How much? He sent His Son to die for you. And there are not enough words in the human vocabulary or days on the calendar to fully describe just how great His love truly is. Frederick M. Lehman put it so eloquently in his great old hymn, The Love of God.

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

“You Will Be Safe!”

Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say,

“Blow the trumpet through the land;
    cry aloud and say,
‘Assemble, and let us go
    into the fortified cities!’
Raise a standard toward Zion,
    flee for safety, stay not,
for I bring disaster from the north,
    and great destruction.
A lion has gone up from his thicket,
    a destroyer of nations has set out;
    he has gone out from his place
to make your land a waste;
    your cities will be ruins
    without inhabitant.
For this put on sackcloth,
    lament and wail,
for the fierce anger of the Lord
    has not turned back from us.”

“In that day, declares the Lord, courage shall fail both king and officials. The priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ whereas the sword has reached their very life.”

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A hot wind from the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, a wind too full for this comes for me. Now it is I who speak in judgment upon them.” – Jeremiah 4:5-12 ESV

Back in chapter one, God gave Jeremiah a vision of a boiling cauldron that was spilling over. And He told Jeremiah:

“Out of the north disaster shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the Lord, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah.” – Jeremiah 1:14-15 ESV

Now God is going to give Jeremiah a much more detailed description of what is going to happen, and Jeremiah is to share this less-than-comforting news with the people of Judah. God tells Jeremiah to metaphorically “blow the trumpet.” He was to issue an alarm to the people, warning them to send signals to the entire nation to seek shelter in the fortified cities. Disaster was coming. A destroyer of nations was coming out of the north “to make your land a waste; your cities will be ruins without inhabitant” (Jeremiah 4:7 ESV). And all the people could do was wait for the inevitable and unavoidable outcome. All they could do was mourn their fate and regret the folly of their ways.

So put on sackcloth!
Mourn and wail, saying,
‘The fierce anger of the Lord
has not turned away from us!’” – Jeremiah 4:8 NET

But before we go on, let’s take a minute to consider something that is often overlooked. First of all, how do you think Jeremiah felt about having to deliver this message? Talk about being the bearer of bad news. What a difficult task it must have been for Jeremiah to obey God and speak these words to people he knew and loved. And how do you think Jeremiah was received? What kind of reception did the prophet encounter when he gave his message of doom and gloom to the people of Judah? He was ,undoubtedly, a very unpopular person. It is unlikely that he was invited to a lot of dinner parties. People probably avoided him on the street. No one wanted to be seen with Jeremiah. And no one wanted to be around when Jeremiah went on one of his rants.

We sometimes forget that the prophets of God were mere men. And yet, they had been called by God to deliver very difficult news to the people of God. They were human and had feelings just like anybody else. They didn’t enjoy being despised and rejected. But they put a higher priority on obedience to God’s will than they did on being liked by the people. God’s words were difficult to deliver, and even more difficult for the people to receive. But they knew God was speaking truth the people needed to hear. So they spoke – faithfully and fearlessly.

But back to God’s message. He also told Jeremiah to tell the people:

“When this happens,” says the Lord,
“the king and his officials will lose their courage.
The priests will be struck with horror,
and the prophets will be speechless in astonishment.” – Jeremiah 4:9 NET

The leadership of Judah would find themselves in a state of shock. Responsible for the well-being of the nation, they will be unprepared to deal with the enormity of the problem when it comes. The king and his court won’t know what to do. The priests won’t know where to turn. After all, they had a plethora of gods they worshiped, so they had do decide which one was going to help them? The false prophets, who had been predicting ongoing peace, would be tongue-tied, unable to explain how they had gotten it so wrong. And Jeremiah alludes to the deceptive message of these false prophets when he responds to God:

“Ah, Lord God, you have surely allowed the people of Judah and Jerusalem to be deceived by those who say, ‘You will be safe!’ But in fact a sword is already at our throats.” – Jeremiah 4:10 NET

While God had not raised up these false prophets, He had allowed them to present their deceptive messages promising safety and security. He had let the people be lulled into a false sense of comfort, all the while knowing that their unrepentant state was going to lead to their destruction. But the time had come for God to speak and to bring an end to Judah’s overconfident, unrepentant attitude.

“At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem will be told,
‘A scorching wind will sweep down
from the hilltops in the desert on my dear people.
It will not be a gentle breeze
for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff.
No, a wind too strong for that will come at my bidding.
Yes, even now I, myself, am calling down judgment on them.’” – Jeremiah 4:11-12 NET

Judgement was coming. The party was over. The fake gods, false prophets, faithless priests, godless officials, and adulterous people were going to find themselves facing the wrath of the God they had taken for granted and treated with disdain. He would no longer tolerate their blatant disregard for His will and His ways. And He makes it clear that He will be the one who calls down judgment on them. This will not just be a case of fate. God will be the one who sends the Babylonians. This coming destruction will be the direct result of God’s sovereign will and providential plan.

There is a not-so-subtle message in these verses for those of us who consider themselves God’s chosen people in this day. We who claim to be Christ-followers and lovers of God must take heart God’s words of warning. While our sins are forgiven and our right standing with God has been fully taken care of by Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, we must not take our secure standing lightly or treat the glory of God flippantly. He is still a holy God who expects His people to live in accordance with His will. He not only expects us to be holy, He has given us His Spirit in order that we might BE holy. But the greatest danger we face is that of complacency and a false sense of comfort. Just because we know where we’re going when we die doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want while we’re alive. The fact that we have forgiveness available to us when we sin is not to be an incentive to continue to live in sin. And Paul makes the absurdity of this kind of thinking quite clear in his letter to the Romans.

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. – Romans 6:1-4 NLT

God has called us to live new lives, and He has provided us with the power to make it possible. But how easy it is for us to reject God’s call to live holy lives and to choose to live slightly improved versions of our old selves. That is NOT what He has called us to. That is NOT what His Son died to make possible. We have been redeemed from captivity to sin and set free to live Spirit-empowered lives of holiness and spiritual wholesomeness. We are to be faithful to God and committed to His will and His ways. We are to be His representatives on this earth, providing living proof that His Son’s death truly does provide new life – both here and in the hereafter. We must never become complacent or overly comfortable with our status as God’s children. God will discipline us. Why? Because He loves us too much to allow us to continue to live in sin. But we must always remember that His love for us, even in the form of His discipline of us, will be for our good. The author of Hebrews reminds us:

And have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, “My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline, and don’t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.” As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. – Hebrews 12:5-7 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Dead Plant and a Dead Heart.

Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” – Jonah 4:5-11 ESV

Having spoken his mind with God, Jonah left the city and made himself a temporary lean-too under which he could rest. But he also anticipated being able to watch something happen back in the city. The text says that he wanted to “see what would become of the city” (Jonah 4:65 ESV). Perhaps Jonah believed that he had persuaded God to change His mind and destroy the city after all, because God had not taken him up on his request to kill him. Jonah was still alive and so he probably had hopes that their destruction might still come true. Or he could have been waiting to see if the Ninevites’ repentance would run its course and they would for right back to their evil ways. If that happened, he probably assumed God would either destroy them or send him back with another message of impending doom. Either way, Jonah was wanting to see God bring down His wrath on the people of Nineveh. But as before, Jonah was to learn some things about the God he thought he knew so well.

God created a plant to grow up around Jonah’s little shelter, to provide him with shade from the intense heat of the day. In the Hebrew, the word for “plant” is very specific. It refers to a gourd or cucumber-like plant that begins very small, but grows very quickly. According to Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon, it was “a tall biennial plant, beautiful and quick-growing, with a soft and succulent stalk, a slight injury of which would cause the plant to die.” In what was probably a miraculously short period of time, the plant had grown to such a degree that it provided Jonah with shade and what is described as salvation “from his discomfort.” What is interesting to note is that the word translated “discomfort” is actually the Hebrew word, ra`, which can be translated, “evil” or “wickedness”. The plant, small and insignificant as it started out to be, had become a source of God-ordained salvation from wickedness for Jonah. This point should not be overlooked. This was going to be part of God’s divine lesson for the stubborn, hate-filled prophet. 

But what was the wickedness or evil from which the plant rescued Jonah? His own anger and hate. Jonah despised the Ninevites. He had from the very beginning and I believe it was for this very reason that God called Jonah to be the one to take the message to them. God knew full well the condition of Jonah’s heart when He commissioned him. He was aware of Jonah’s feelings for the people of Nineveh and the nation of Assyria in general. And it is just like God to take someone like Jonah and make him the messenger to a people he can’t stand. In a similar way, God took Paul, who had begun his career as a persecutor of the followers of Christ and made him the primary messenger of the good news of Jesus Christ. Paul had been a faithful Jew committed to the Hebrew faith and commissioned by the high priest to hunt down and arrest Christians. But God would convert Paul and recommission him, giving him a new job to perform: Taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to Jews and Gentiles alike. God saved Paul from his wickedness and gave him a new heart and a new mission in life.

So, God sent the plant for Jonah, and he was very glad. But Jonah’s pleasure was based on his relief from physical discomfort alone. He was happy to have the shade and a break from the scorching heat. But Jonah was still oblivious to his real problem: His own evil attitude. Jonah had been guilty of accusing God of evil. Verse one of this chapter tells us of Jonah’s anger with God over His sparing of the people of Nineveh, and that verse could actually be translated, “It was evil to Jonah, a great evil.” According to Jonah, what God had done was wicked. And yet, God is trying to show Jonah that he is the one with the evil, wicked heart. God’s decision to spare Nineveh had left Jonah “exceedingly angry”. The arrival of the plant had made Jonah “exceedingly glad”. What an interesting and insightful contrast.

And when God sends a worm to attack the plant and destroy it, Jonah loses his shade and his will to live. We’re told that “he asked that he might die and said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live’” (Jonah 4:8 ESV). This would be the third time for Jonah to have a death wish. He had commanded the sailors to throw him overboard in order that he might die. When God had spared the Ninevites, he had asked God to take his life. And once again, he sees death as preferable to living with what he deems as unacceptable conditions. Jonah was a man who didn’t like it when things failed to go his way. I don’t think Jonah had a death wish, it is just that he had a strong aversion to having his will resisted or his desires fulfilled. 

So, God asks him a question that is very similar to one He had asked before: “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” (Jonah 4:9 ESV). The New Living Translation puts it this way: “Is it right for you to be angry about this?” He is once again asking Jonah if his anger is justified. Did he have a right to be angry about the plant? And Jonah responded, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die” (Jonah 4:9 ESV). Jonah had lost his shade and he was ready to die because of it. I would say that is a bit of an overreaction. Yes, he was suffering from the scorching wind and sun, sent by God, and he was feint from the experience, but was it enough reason to prefer death over life?

And God cuts to the chase, exposing Jonah’s real problem. He says, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly” (Jonah 4:10 NLT). Most likely, Jonah had been staring at the withered plant, his former protector from the sun, and was troubled with its demise. He lamented its untimely destruction. And God reveals to Jonah the absurdity of his emotions. Jonah was more upset over a dead plant than he would have been about the destruction of hundreds of thousands of people. He would have rejoiced at their deaths, but he mourned over the withering of a simple plant. And God puts it all in perspective for Jonah, telling him:

“But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” – Jonah 4:11 NLT

God confronted Jonah about the condition of his evil heart. He had no compassion for the people of Nineveh. In fact, Jonah didn’t even care about all the livestock within the walls of the city that would have died as a result of any destruction God had brought. It is as if God was saying, “You didn’t care about the people of Nineveh, but couldn’t you have at least asked for the livestock to be spared?” No, Jonah wanted everyone and everything within the walls of Nineveh destroyed. He wanted the entire city wiped out. He had no pity, mercy, or love for them. But God did. The people of Nineveh didn’t know their right hand from their left. In other words, they were morally ignorant. They were not the people of God. They didn’t know any better. They had not been given the laws of God. They had no Levitical priesthood or sacrificial system. They were pagans who were ignorant of the ways of God, and yet, they had believed God and repented of their wickedness. And God had showed them mercy.

Jonah had been willing to weep over the death of a plant, but had no problem wishing for the deaths of more than 100,000 people. He had a wrong perspective. He had a wicked and evil heart. He was not seeing things as God does. And yet, Jonah was the one who had admitted that God was “a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people” (Jonah 4:2 NLT). Jonah just wanted to be the one to decide who would be the beneficiaries of God’s mercy, compassion and kindness. He wanted to be the one who determined who got saved and who got destroyed. But that was God’s job. It was God who had told Moses, “For I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose” (Exodus 33:19 NLT). And the apostle Paul would quote from that very same passage, when he wrote, “For God said to Moses, ‘I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.’ So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it” (Romans 9:15-16 NLT). It is up to God to decide who will receive His mercy. It is not earned or deserved. Jonah had done nothing to deserve the plant that had provided him with shade. In fact, what he had deserved was the wrath of God for his rebellion, insubordination and accusations of evil against God. But God had shown Him mercy. And God had shown mercy to the undeserving people of Nineveh.

The real message of the book of Jonah is not the repentance of the people of Nineveh. That was really an object lesson for Jonah and the people of Israel. They had been reluctant to listen to the prophets of God, refusing their warnings of coming destruction and calls to repentance. And yet, the wicked Assyrians, including their king, had heard the message of God, repented of their wickedness and mourned before Him in sorrow and fear. The people of Israel were no less deserving of God’s judgment, but they somehow felt they were immune from destruction. They were God’s chosen people. But God will show mercy on whom He will show mercy. He will spare those whom He chooses to spare. What He is looking for are repentant, broken hearts. As the great king, David, wrote after his sin with Bathsheba:

“The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” – Psalm 51:17 NLT

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Never Forget.

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. – 2 Thessalonians 3:6 ESV

Living life on this planet can be difficult at times. As followers of Christ, it can be especially so, because we have been called to live lives worthy of God in the midst of a culture that is diametrically opposed to us. It can be easy to lose our focus, grow impatient, feel scared, or become angry. Paul knew that. That is why he prayed this short little prayer on behalf of the believers in Thessalonica. For the most part, they were former pagans who had come to know Christ and were now struggling with everything from persecution to the influence of false teaching. Paul referred to these false teachers as “perverse and evil people” (2 Thessalonians 3:2 NET). The believers to whom Paul wrote and for whom he prayed were struggling with trying to love the Christian life while constantly having to deal with the attacks of the enemy and the daily reality of their own sin natures. So what was Paul's prayer for them? That God would direct their hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. Notice that he does not pray that God would remove them from their difficulties. He doesn't ask God to remove the false teachers or stop the persecution. His request of God isn't that He give them joy. No, he asks God to direct their hearts. He wants God to gently, kindly guide their hearts into a better understanding of just how much they are loved by God. Not only that, Paul's request includes that they fully comprehend the degree to which Jesus suffered in order that they might have a right relationship with God. The writer of Hebrews emphasizes the suffering of Jesus and our need to fully comprehend what He endured in order that we might have eternal life – “let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin” ( Hebrews 12:1-4 NLT). Those two things – the love of God and the endurance of Christ – should provide us with the motivation we need to keep on keeping on. But our natural tendency will be to take them both for granted. It is so easy for us to forget just how amazing it is that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die in our place. And that He expressed that love “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 ESV). When we deserved the worst, He gave us His best. And we also tend to overlook the incredible reality that Jesus willingly and humbly took on human flesh, lived life as a man, was tortured and hung on a cross, and died so that we might be restored to a right relationship with God the Father. Paul puts it this way: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-8 ESV).

When we find ourselves suffering and struggling in this life, we need to be reminded of the love of God as expressed in the suffering and death of His Son. God's love for us is directly tied to the gift of His Son for us. God sent His Son because He loved us. Jesus came and died because He loved us. Jesus was willing to suffer humiliation, persecution, rejection, false accusations, and a death He didn't deserve – all out of love for us. With all that that in mind, Peter tells us, “In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation” (1 Peter 5:10 NLT). We need to keep life in perspective. Along with Paul, we need to constantly remember that “what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later” (Romans 8:18 NLT). We are loved by God. He gave us His greatest gift – His own Son – as proof of that love. And His Son suffered in ways that we will never be able to comprehend, as proof of His love for us. We must never lose sight of those two realities. But because Paul knew that the tendency of all believers would be to do just that, he prayed that God would guide their hearts back to those two incredible truths: the love of God and the faithful, loving endurance of Jesus. I can't think of a better way to wrap this up than with the words of Paul found in his letter to the believers in Rome.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8:31-39 ESV

Love Is Of God.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. – 1 John 4:16 ESV

1 John 4:7-21

Love is a feeling. Love makes the world go round. All you need is love. Love is a many splendid thing. There are as many sayings about love as there are definitions as to what it is. But John wants us to understand that love is of God. In fact, God is love. Everything about love emanates from God. And because man was made in the image of God, all men have the capacity to love. It is a part of God's common grace bestowed upon all mankind. But only those who truly understand the love of God as expressed in the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, can even begin to grasp the true nature of what love really is. Left to our own devices, we will tend to redefine love in our own terms, focusing on ourselves and seeing love as something designed to fulfill us or bring us satisfaction. Which is why we tend to fall in and out of love. We have turned loved into little more than a feeling that can come and go based on whether we have the motivation to love the other person or the persuasion that they are loving us in the way we demand. Like everything else God has so graciously given us, we can somehow find a way to make it all about us. But true love is about God. Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His Son. Yes, God loved us while we were yet sinners. But what we have to remember is that God's love had nothing to do with our loveliness or lovableness. We did not deserve His love. We had not earned His love. Yes, we were the recipients of His love, but for no reason whatsoever on our part. And until we understand the significance of that reality, we will never understand the love of God.

John ties loving others and knowing God together. He writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7 ESV). Our capacity to love others the way God commands is directly tied to our knowledge of God. And what is it we are to know about God? His love. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have a unique perspective on the love of God because we have experienced it firsthand. At one point in our lives we were told about the love of God manifested or shown through the arrival of His Son here on this earth. Jesus was God in human flesh, sent by His Father to bring salvation to man by His death on the cross. “God sent his only Son into the world” (1 John 4:9 ESV), “to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10 ESV), and “to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14 ESV). And John sums it all up with the words, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16 ESV). We have come to know and believe in Jesus. It is through our acceptance of God's love as expressed through Jesus that we truly come to know who God is and what love is. Even as an old man, John was blown away by this kind of love. “What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are.” (1 John 3:1 MSG).

I love how the apostle Paul puts difficult concepts into language most of us can understand. Speaking of God's amazing love, he writes, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation” (Romans 5:6-9 NLT). You and I might be willing to sacrifice our lives for someone especially good. We might take a bullet for our spouse or one of our children, but we'd probably have to think long and hard about anyone else. Yet God loved us enough when we were at our worst to send His own Son to die in our place. Jesus took the bullet for us. D. A. Carson has this to say about the love of God: “Do you wish to see God's love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God's wrath? Look at the cross.” The love of God shines brightest when seen against the dark backdrop of the cross. The cross was and is a symbol of man's sin, guilt and just condemnation. It represents what we so justly deserved as usurpers of God's authority and rebels against His will. And yet, it is at the cross that we truly come to know God. We see His justice, wrath, righteousness, patience, mercy, grace, and love on display through the life of His Son. Because of His love, we are His children. Because of His love, we are forgiven. Because of His love, we abide in Him and in His love – constantly. Because of His love, we have His Spirit within us. Because of His love, we have our future determined for us. Because of His love, we can love others. But only as long as we remember how He has loved us. If we don't love, we don't know Him. That doesn't necessarily mean we aren't saved. It can simply mean we don't recognize and appreciate the unbelievable nature of the love with which He has loved us. To know God is to know God's love for us. Whenever we forget, all we need to do is look at the cross.

When Love Gets Lost.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. – 1 John 2:19 ESV

They had left, vacated the premises, taken their football and gone home. An undetermined number of members of the local church there in Ephesus had walked out and their departure had left those who remained behind confused and hurt. But John wanted them to know that these so-called brothers and sisters in Christ were not what they had appeared to be. There was one very important ingredient missing: Love. Oh, they loved their opinions and had a strong affection for their beliefs about Jesus. So much so, that they were willing to walk out on the rest of the fellowship when they refused to see things their way. John made it very clear that they had never really been a part of the body of Christ there in Ephesus. But no one had known it until they finally decided to part ways. Their departure had been the thing that exposed their true nature. By leaving they had exposed their lack of love. There is no doubt that their doctrinal beliefs concerning the deity of Christ, their refusal to accept that He was the Son of God, and their denial of their own personal sins were major factors in the split, but it was their willingness to walk away from the family of God that exposed their real problem. They did not have the love of God within them. John made this point perfectly clear when he raised the issue regarding the new commandment. This was a not-so-subtle reminder of the words of Jesus Himself. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13:34 ESV). But John accused the recently departed faction of failing to keep this commandment. “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness” (1 John 2:9 ESV). “But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:11 ESV). These people had allowed their false doctrine to turn into hate. It wasn't enough to claim to know God and have a relationship with Him. “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected” (1 John 2:4-5 ESV). They had failed to love one another. But their problem was that they did not have the capacity to love. The love of God could not be perfected or completed in them because it did not reside in them. By rejecting the deity of Jesus and refusing to accept Him as God in human flesh and their Savior from sin, they had rejected the love of God altogether. God's love for the world had been expressed through the giving of His own Son as the sacrifice for the sins of man (John 3:16). But that love must be accepted by receiving His Son as Savior. By denying that Jesus was the Christ, they had refused God's gift of love. And without it, they were incapable of keeping Jesus' command to love others as He had loved them.

John had made it clear that “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7 ESV). God is light, and to walk in the light is to walk in His presence. To walk in His presence we must have accepted the gift of His Son, which is the only means by which sinful man can gain access into the presence of a holy and righteous God. “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Colossians 1:21-22 ESV). One of the benefits of being able to walk in the light of God is a new capacity to live in fellowship with one another. Our capacity to get along with one another and express love to one another comes from God. His love is perfected in us and through us. But it all begins with our acceptance of His love for us. Which requires that we believe His Son was who he claimed to be. John will make this point again a little bit further into his letter. “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19-21 ESV). How do you love God and not accept the gift of love He gave? How do you love others unless you have allowed His love to permeate your life by accepting the gift of His Son? Our ability to love one another comes from God. It is His love being expressed through us.

By walking out, the individuals of whom John is referring, revealed their true nature. They didn't love because they had never experienced the love of God by accepting His Son as their Savior. And the absence of that love within their lives had left a vacuum of hate. They loved their false doctrine more than they loved God or others. Jesus had said, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35 NLT). And it all begins with accepting God's love as expressed through the gift of His Son's incarnation, death, and resurrection.

Our Faithful, Loving God.

 Isaiah 53-54, Revelation 10

“For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. – Isaiah 54:10 ESV

What is the response of a holy, righteous God to the persistent sin and rebellion of His people? He gives us the answer Himself. “‘For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord, your Redeemer” (Isaiah 54:7-8 ESV). It would appear as if God had deserted them. From a human perspective, it would feel like God's anger had caused him to abandon them. But His compassion and everlasting love for them never diminished or truly disappeared. Even His punishment was an act of love. “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:19 ESV). “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6 ESV). And the greatest expression of God's incredible love would come in the form of His own Son. In order to effectively deal with man's ongoing sin problem, God would send His Son as the permanent payment for the penalty due. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son…” (John 3:16a ESV). “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 ESV). “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all…” (Romans 8:32a ESV). Amazingly, God's plan for man's redemption has always included His Son. His first coming was designed to provide intercession – His death in our place. It was intended to make propitiation for our sins, satisfying the just demands of a holy God. It was meant to provide salvation from the condemnation we deserved and replace our sentence of eternal separation from God with eternal life in His presence.

What does this passage reveal about God?

Hundreds of years before Jesus Christ appeared on the scene, God gave Isaiah a detailed account of what His earthly life and ministry would look like. In chapter 53 of Isaiah's book, we have an amazing description of the Servant of God who was to come. In this passage we see the painstakingly clear picture of the suffering Savior who was to come to the earth and take all of the sins of mankind upon Himself. We are told that He would be unattractive and unimpressive in appearance. He would be despised and rejected. He would be intimately familiar with sorrow, grief and suffering. He would be wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. He would take on all the sins of mankind and suffer the punishment of God's wrath on our behalf. And He would do all this willingly, out of obedience to His Father's will and out of love for mankind. God makes it clear that the suffering and death of Jesus was His divine will. “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10 ESV). Yes, God fully intended for His Son to die a criminal's death and be buried in a borrowed tomb, so that the sins of mankind could be fully atoned for once and for all. And God did all this out of love. The result of this amazing display of sacrificial love is truly incredible. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities” (Isaiah 53:11 ESV). Jesus would suffer and die, but also be raised again and see the fruit of His sacrificial love in the form of redeemed, justified sons and daughters of God.

What does this passage reveal about man?

How easy it is for us to overlook and under-appreciate the love of God. Just like the people of Israel, we can find ourselves taking for granted His incredible mercy, grace and love. We can underplay our own sinfulness and in so doing, diminish the price that God paid for our sins: the life of His own Son. The biggest problem we all face as human beings is our own sin and guilt. Every man or woman who has ever lived has had the same problem: Their inherent sin nature and incapacity to do anything about it. Isaiah would later write: “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind” (Isaiah 64:6 NLT). Solomon wrote, “Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20 NLT). All stand before God as guilty and He is fully justified in meting out the punishment of death for our sin. But instead, God came up with a plan of salvation that provided a way for His wrath to be satisfied and His love to be displayed justly and rightly. God couldn't ignore or overlook man's sin. He couldn't turn a blind eye to man's inherent sinfulness and guilt. To do so would have been unjust and unrighteous. It was out of His character as God. So He came up with a solution that made man's salvation and His own satisfaction possible. And even though the people of Israel rejected His Son the first time He came, rejecting the very idea of a suffering Servant, God is still going to display His love to them a second time. The book of Revelation provides us with an end-of-the-story account of just how God will display His steadfast, unfailing love to His chosen people. He will keep and fulfill His covenant promises He made to them. “‘…my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:10 ESV).

How would I apply what I’ve read to my own life?

God IS love. It is not just a character quality He displays. It is His very nature. He is love all the time – in all that He does. His disciplines are an act of love. His sacrifice of His own Son on my behalf was the ultimate act of love. When He sends His Son again, it will be the consummate act of love. It will be an expression of His steadfast, unfailing love for His creation, and will display His unfailing love for His chosen people – the Jews. For a brief moment, it appears as if God has deserted them. To our limited understanding it would seem as if God's anger with Israel has resulted in His rejection of them. But God would have us understand otherwise. He WILL show them compassion. He WILL display His everlasting love for them. His steadfast love WILL NOT depart from them. His covenant of peace WILL NOT be removed.  “This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 54:17 ESV). In the book of Revelation, John is given a scroll to eat. He is told, “it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey” (Revelation 10:9 ESV). On that scroll was contained “the mystery of God.” It was an account of the final plan of God for the world. There would be further punishments involved. There would be more judgments to come. But in the end, the love of God would be displayed as His Son faithfully fulfilled His role as the King of kings and Lord of lords. Sin and death would be dealt their final blow. Satan would be eliminated once and for all. Righteousness would reign on earth. God's people, the nation of Israel, would be restored to favor in His eyes. All as a display of God's unwavering, matchless, unfathomable love. The very same love He showered on me when He offered me the gift of His Son's death on the cross in my place.

Father, thank You for Your love. I take it for granted far too often. I don't fully appreciate it or understand it. I don't think about it or thank You for it enough. Sometimes I just flat out miss it in all the busyness of life. When things don't go quite the way I want them to, I can feel unloved by You. But Your love does not exist to make me happy. It exists to make me holy. You love me so that I might be like Your Son. You loved me so much that You sent Him to die for me and so that I might have His righteousness in exchange for my sinfulness. There is no greater display of love I need from You. Amen

A Love That Cost, And Lasts.

Romans 8:31-39

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. – Romans 8:39 NLT

How great is God's love for you? This seems to be the gist of Paul's point in the closing section of chapter eight. He reminds us, "If God is for us, who can ever be against us?" (Romans 8:31b NLT). God is on our side. He has chosen us, sent His Son to die for us and, as a result of Christ's substitionary death of the cross, restored us to a right relationship with Himself. All as an expression of His great love for us. So if God loved us that much, what could ever stand in His way when it comes to Him finishing what He has begun in our lives? "Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?" (Romans 8:32 NLT). In other words, won't God complete His ongoing act of transformation in our lives? Peter assures us that the answer to this question is a resounding, "Yes!"

"By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires" (2 Peter 1:3-4 NLT). God loves us too much to leave us like we are. He loves us too much to allow us to try and live the Christian life in our own power and at the mercy of a host of enemies who would love nothing better than to destroy and defeat us. They can accuse and condemn us all they want, but their efforts are in vain. Because God loves us and His Son sits at His right hand interceding and pleading with God for us.

Nothing and no one can ever separate us from the love of our Father and our Savior. But the problem is that we tend to view God's love based on what is going on around us. We judge His love according to how well things are going for us. If life is going well, we assume that God must be pleased with us. But let something go wrong in our lives, and we automatically assume that God is upset with us – in other words, He has fallen out of love with us. But Paul would argue against such a conclusion. "Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?" (Romans 8:35 NLT). Paul answers his own question: "No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us" (Romans 8:36 NLT). Paul was convinced that absolutely NOTHING could ever separate God's children from His love. God's love for us is unlimited. It transcends time and space. He loves us just as much in life as He will love us after death. His love for us is as great today as it will be in eternity. Our location can't diminish or influence God's love. Our circumstances can't determine God's love for us. The presence of opposition or the reality of difficulties are not determiners of God's love for us. Paul reminds us, "not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love" (Romans 8:38 NLT). And here's the really amazing thing. We can't separate ourselves from God's love either! You cannot cause God to fall out of love for you. His love is not fickle and fleeting like ours. He doesn't love you one day and not the next. His love is constant and unchanging.

As we live out our lives on this earth, we must constantly remind ourselves of God's unwavering love for us. Even as we progress toward Christ-likeness, we will fail and at times, fall away. We will continue to struggle with sin and sometimes give in to the desires of our sin nature. But at no point will God fall out of love for us. The degree of His love was reflected in the death of His Son. He loved us so much that He sent His own Son to die for us. But He raised His Son back to life as a vivid reminder of the kind of power He has at His disposal to finish His complete transformation of our lives. God's love encompasses our salvation as well as our ultimate glorification. But is also includes our current sanctification. He is loving us even as we live out our lives in this fallen world. We may not always recognize it or feel it, but His love is there nonetheless. And nothing we encounter in this life has the capacity to ever separate us from that love. God will complete what He began. He will love us all the way to the end. "Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us" (Romans 8:37 NLT).

Father, it is so hard to imagine the kind of love Paul is talking about. I tend to judge Your love based on human standards. I fall in and out of love with people all the time. My love is fickle and fleeting. But Yours is constant and unwavering. You love me in spite of me. You love me consistently and constantly. You love me all the time and my circumstances are not an indicator or barometer of that love. Give me the capacity to recognize and appreciate Your love regardless of what is going on around me. Help me to rest in Your love, even when I have done something that I believe might cause You to "un-love" me. I want to live in Your love. I want to rest in Your love. I want to rejoice in Your love – every day of my life. Amen.

Prone To Wander.

Proverbs 7

"Don't let your hearts stray away toward her. Don't wander down her wayward path." – Proverbs 7:25 NET

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Those are the lyrics from one of my favorite old hymns and they go well with today's topic. Prone to wander. That's a big problem for all of us as Christians today. We have happy feet. We just can't stand still. Constantly on the move, because we grow quickly dissatisfied and discontent, we find ourselves prone to leave the God we say we love. We stray off the path and start to pursue other temptations, other delights that promise us more and offer to satisfy our passion for pleasure. This proverb is a warning from a father to his son regarding the danger of sexual promiscuity and immorality. It was a problem then, and it remains a problem today. And the enemy knows that we still can't seem to control our most basic urges and animal instincts. We are far too often driven by the desires of the flesh. If not for sex, then for some other sensual pleasure, whether for food, a good buzz, a momentary thrill, sleep, entertainment, or our insatiable need for acceptance.

It's interesting that the young men in this proverb are described as naive. They are lacking in common sense and good judgment. They are in the wrong spot at the wrong time. They have put themselves at risk by being where they had no business being. They're in the wrong neighborhood and after dark. Not a good combination. Spotting her prey, the immoral woman approaches one of them and begins to ply her craft. She is "seductively dressed and sly or heart." She's a pro. In her day, before she went professional, she was "the brash, rebellious type, never content to stay at home" (Proverbs 7:11 NLT). On other words, she was a wanderer as well. Now she plies the young man with all kinds of tempting tools of the trade, appealing to his sensual side. She applies false flattery and butters him up with offers of sensual pleasures and forbidden fruit. And before he knows it, he's hooked, like a striped bass to a lure.

And it all began with a simple step off the path. He wandered away from the truth. He took a dangerous detour and it led to a dead end. But isn't that always the way sin works. The problem is that it almost always begins with a wandering heart. We find ourselves somehow dissatisfied with life as it is. Unhappy or discontented with our lot in life, we begin to look around. We get off the path. It could be as simple as surfing the Internet while in a state of boredom or mild depression. Or what about channel surfing late at night while everyone else is in bed. Your guard is down. Your sensual side is on high alert. Your body tells you it needs more. It is unhappy and dissatisfied. Pretty soon, you find yourself somewhere you don't need to be – off the path and in for an attack from the enemy. And he will use all the subtle, seductive and yet sinister resources at his disposal to lure you in and trap you.

So what are we to do? Simple. Don't wander. Recognize the fact that you are prone to wander and ask God to bind your heart to Him. You see, it's always a heart issue. It's about love and misplaced affections. When we begin to fall out of love for God or doubt His love for us, we wander. We start to look for love in other places and from other people. And we all do it. We turn on the TV to anesthetize and numb us, or simply take our mind off our problems by distracting us for a few minutes. Some feel unloved or unwanted, so they turn to the false allure of pornography or sex outside of marriage. Some attempt to shop their way to satisfaction and happiness, or they work themselves to death in an effort to feel a sense of worth and accomplishment. But in the end, all these things turn out to be wrong turns that lead to dead ends and disappointment. Don't let your hearts stray. Don't wander. Let the goodness of God bind your wandering heart to Him.

Father, I am prone to wander. I tend to forget all that You have done and are doing in my life and begin to think that something is missing. Then I begin to look elsewhere for something or someone to provide what I think I need to have. But You are all I need. You are sufficient. Bind my heart to You, Father. Continually remind me of just how much You love me. Keep me from wandering off the path and away from Your love. Ame