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GOD'S LOVE IN ACTION
Most every reader will be familiar with
John 3:16 which tells of God's love for the world and how it caused Him to
give His only son up to death. The disagreement comes as to the meaning of
the word world since John uses it in seven different ways in his gospel. But
that is not our subject in this little article.
The Word of God to Jeremiah was this:
“The LORD hath appeared of old unto me,
saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with
lovingkindness have I drawn thee,”
(Jeremiah 31:3). Notice that God loves with an everlasting or never-ending
love. God never ceases loving those whom He loves for if He did so He would
change.
And change is unknown to Him. Notice also
that because God loved those of whom He spoke, He had drawn them. God's love
is not static! God's love is seen in His actions. The Lord Jesus said,
“No man can come to me, except the Father
which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day,”
(John 6:44). So we may rightly conclude
that those whom God loves He draws to Christ in a saving way, promising them
a blessed resurrection.
Not only does God draw all those whom He
loves, He also chastens or child-trains them. Christ, in His message to the
church of the Laodiceans, said, “As many
as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent,”
(Revelation 3:19). We may say that God does not spank the neighborhood
children, but He spanks His own because He loves them. When one whom God
loves receives a rebuke or a 'spanking' from the Lord, he or she knows it.
To avoid severe child-training (unpleasant as it is) the child of God needs
to repent: to change his direction: his way of living.
Another passage that tells us much the
same thing is Hebrews 12:6-9: “For whom
the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If
ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he
whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof
all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have
had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence:
shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and
live?” Again we are assured that those
whom God loves He chastens – 'spanks' – and deals with as His sons. We learn
that God child-trains all His children and that those people who are not
chastened by the Father are not true sons. Thus believers are encouraged to
subject themselves unto God as a son to a Father. In this way they shall
avoid severe 'spankings' from their Father.
In these verses we learn that God in love
continues to deal with those whom He loves.
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