Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Everlasting Covenant”. On the first page of this week’s lesson, the quarterly makes a statement that needs further explanation. Here is the quote…“God out of His saving grace and love offers you a salvation that you do not deserve and cannot possibly earn; and you, in response, love Him back ‘with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30 KJV).” So when I often read “absolute” statements like this, I ask myself, “Is that true?” or “Is that all?” Maybe the question is more about “love”? What does it mean to “love” in the manner just enjoined? Because this is really the point here. Loving God is not an option in terms of our healing (salvation). “Loving God” writes in bold letters the relationship (or lack thereof) we are to have with our Father that IS THE HEALING!!!
The free gift of healing (salvation), as quoted in the quarterly, is an “offer”. Yet this healing of heart and mind is a process. A long and often arduous process. Forgiveness, love you do not earn nor deserve, is the stance/ the attitude God has for each of us. He forgives each of us, He loves each of us, He sustains each of us, He disciplines each of us, He dies our death with each of us. Yet all this is not the healing (salvation). Because the deadly disease we need healed is only healed as we yield ourselves to His love. The deadly disease we need healed is the way we think and feel (mind) and the way we are motivated (heart). We need a change of mind and heart. Or as Jesus said to Nicodemus, we need to be “born again” (John 3: 3,7). And the only way for this new birth is to come into intimate relationship with our Creator Father who alone can birth us anew. His loving and forgiving attitude to us does nothing if we do not come home to Him and love him in return.
How simple this is. As simple as a child. Coming home to Dad and the restoration of this loving relationship allows our all-wise and all-loving Dad to heal all the sin-damage (the only true definition of “salvation”). But if we are merely agreeing with God out of a desire to save self or to gain reward, then are we really coming-into a love relationship with Him? And if not, then no salvation (healing). Just a self-delusion based on some legal finagling with our “Judge”.
But God is not our judge. He is our Father. If our relationship with Him is as “Judge”, we will never really come into a love relationship with Him, but hold Him at arm’s length. Recognizing God in any way, even as “Judge” is a start (like the Children of Israel at the foot of Mt. Sinai). But we must not be content to keep our relationship with God as “Judge” and “plaintiff”. It must start moving toward “Father” and “child”. Else we will never, ever experience salvation (healing). Our Father God must “touch” the damage. Must “touch” our minds and hearts. We must experience the love-healing in order to respond in love to Him. A love response that reciprocates His love for each of us. A love response that is like His love… in-kind.
This is the only salvation, the only healing. To come into intimate relationship with Him who is love, so that love can heal the damage to our minds and hearts. Love is the healing agent. As EGW so wisely states in Mount of Blessing pg. 76, “love is the agent which He uses to expel sin from the heart. By it He changes pride into humility, and enmity and unbelief into love and faith”. Without God’s love experienced deep in our minds and hearts, and without reciprocating that love we have “pride”, “enmity” and “unbelief” (as just quoted). Experiential love alone (personally experiencing His love) is what changes you and me.
So the quarterly is right about reciprocal love. But let us not confuse selfishness (fear of punishment/ hope of reward) with love. Selfishness is really about fear. Fear for your security and your eternal destiny. Fear is also an indicator that you really don’t know God as He is. He is all love… all perfect love. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18). If you fear, it is because you do not really know Him as He is. So get to know Him… exercise the big three… Bible study (God talks to you), prayer (you talk to Him) and obedience (you go places and do things together). This is a recipe for relationship, too. Aha! A love relationship… how love grows.
With brotherly love,
Jim