The Love of Father God
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August 20, 2017 |
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 Senior Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee
"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 John 4:16).
God sent His only begotten Son to the earth to save all peoples of all nations. Following the will of God, Jesus came to the earth, died on the wooden cross though He is sinless, and thereby opened the way of salvation so that anybody can reach Heaven by believing Him. In this edition, we are going to delve into the love of God for us.
First, God Has Been Patient for Such a Long Time.
God created Adam in order to gain true children whom He can share love with forever. God has let His chosen ones teach people the way of life, but they refused to accept God. But God still did not give up on us.
2 Peter 3:8-9 reads, "But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." God has waited for such a long time.
He waited a thousand years, another thousand years, and another thousand years, for six thousand years He has waited. He kept on earnestly hoping that true sons and daughters who could understand His heart would come forth someday. To be patient in a spiritual sense is to bear with all the aftermaths of being patient and to pay the price until the fruit is finally borne.
God has also been bearing with the aftermaths and He suffered great pain to pay the price. One time He had to punish the whole world with a flood. When He had to punish the world that He had created with so much love, from His heart flowed so many tears like the rains that flooded the Earth.
He had to watch His Elect Israel betray Him and worship idols, and He had to witness their destruction. He had to see His only begotten Son being despised by the people and finally crucified.
It is not that God can take such things easily because He is divine. It's because He also has humanity and feels pain, sorrow, joy, and happiness. And, because He is goodness itself, He feels such feelings even more intensely than any other. Whenever He saw that the world stained by sins and people doing evils, He suffered unbearable pains.
And yet He is still waiting. He has been waiting until this moment for such a long time with the belief that certainly there would be true children by the time human cultivation is over.
When you did not accept the gospel right away and when you could not cast away sins soon enough, if God had given you only a couple of chances and then gave up, what would have happened to you? Most of you probably would not have been saved. I hope you will remember that you are what you are today because of the love of the Father who has been patient with you for such a long time.
Second, God Has Not Forsaken Us but Changed Us.
At the time of the Exodus, the sons of Israel saw so many powerful works of God. They saw the Ten Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the water gushing out from a rock, and ate the manna and quail that came down from the sky.
But the problem is that their hearts did not change even though they had so many experiences. When they saw the glory of God, they rejoiced and praised Him. But when there were hardships, they immediately began to complain, and they continued to disobey again and again. Eventually, God would forsake them, but Moses put up his own life to bring down the forgiveness of God.
At that time, because Moses understood the heart of God very well, he could boldly ask for God to forgive them, even while he saw God's wrath. Namely, the deeper part of God's heart is that He wanted to save them, and Moses knew this heart of God very well. In a sense, it would have been easier for Moses to start all over again, too. It was not an easy task to lead the people who had been slaves for a long time and had become so stiff-necked. It would have been easier to form a whole new group of people, teach them the Law and train them.
Let's consider the following allegory. Suppose you gave birth to a son and raised him with so much care, and later you hear shocking news. He has an innate disability. It is incurable, and the doctor says the majority of such kids die before they become adults. Now, what would you do? Can you just say, "He can't be cured so why should we suffer any longer raising such a child? We can have other children and raise them!" and then just give up on your son? Real parents would never be able to do that. If there is just the least bit of a possibility, and even though you have to spend your entire family fortune, you would want to cure your son.
The same goes for the heart of God. He wants to save and change people by all means within justice. Suppose a person was so slow to change, that people around him felt uncomfortable about him. But God has never forsaken him and He has given him grace until the end so he could change. The love of God is the reason we can still run towards New Jerusalem as well as salvation.
Third, in His Love, God Has Let Us Bear the Fruits of Glory.
John 17:24 says, "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." Jesus did not come to this earth just to save us. Of course we have to be forgiven of our sins, but eventually, He wanted us to become His true children by resembling Him and enjoy glory together with Him.
Of course, we should be so thankful that we can go to even Paradise. How emotional we will be since we will have barely escaped the fires of Hell! But what God wanted to give to us was not Paradise that one of the criminals who were hanged beside Jesus entered (Luke 23:43). He wants us to live in the glory like the sun in New Jerusalem full of the glory of God (Revelation 21:10-11).
God wants us to change into true children who resemble Him and enjoy the glory of New Jerusalem with the Lord. It is the fruit God wants to let us bear. Today there are many believers but the heavenly dwelling places given to each one of them are different from person to person (1 Corinthians 15:41). It is because there are different measures of faith and the dwelling places and the fruit of glory in Heaven will be different according to each one's measure of faith (Romans 12:3).
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the love of God is the love of patience. It is the love that will not forsake us, but waits for our change. I hope you will realize the depth of God's heart, cast away sin and evil quickly, and become God's true children who resemble the Lord. I pray in the name of the Lord that by doing so you will be able to enter the city of New Jerusalem.
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