God's Love ISN'T Unconditional!

     One of the most common statements I hear preachers making is that "God's love is unconditional."  I must admit, I have made that statement several times myself.  Why would I make such a statement?  Well, I heard a lot of other preachers make the statement and have read a lot of stuff in the Bible that seemed to back up that concept.  But is God's love is really unconditional?
     I am grateful that we have come along way from every sermon being "fire and brimstone," "turn or burn," "get right or get left,"  kind of messages.  Most preachers today (popular ones anyway) no longer preach with a "God is mad at you, but if you beg him for forgiveness he might let you into heaven" attitude. It appears that we are getting a more accurate picture of the Love, Grace and Mercy God has for us.
   With that said, I feel like we can go too far with statements like "God's love is unconditional."  First lets define unconditional: "not limited by conditions."  Here is where it gets tricky.  David said that God's love is "as vast as the heavens."  He also said that God's love is "unfailing."  But I believe it has conditions:

#1 God's Character

God's love is unfailing because he is unfailing.  His love is faithful because he is faithful.  David goes on to say that his "faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds."

As humans we fail all the time.  We are extremely unfaithful.  We are incapable of showing "unconditional love."  Human love is limited, because human beings are limited.  Human love has conditions.
God's love is conditioned by his character.
John tells us something about God's character, "God is love."
David tells us that all of God's creation experiences his love to some degree.  "You care for people and animals alike, O Lord."  David also tells us that all humanity experiences God's love to some degree, "All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings."

Does God love every human being regardless of condition? Absolutely!  

I believe that the conditions don't limit the amount of God's love but our experience of that love!

In the Old testament Jews experienced more of God's love than Gentiles because of the condition of the covenant / law.

#2 His Son

In the New Testament followers of Christ experience more of God's love than non-followers because of the condition of Jesus' death on the Cross!  Paul tells us in Romans 11:17 that gentiles can now experience the blessings God promised Abraham and his children. 

#3 Our FAITH

Paul tells us that it is through our faith that we are made right with God.  It is through faith in Jesus Christ that we experience salvation.  It is through faith that we experience relationship with God.  It is through FAITH that we experience more of his Love!

#4 Our OBEDIENCE 

Every time the Bible expresses a promise of blessing (e..g. If you, then God) it is a condition to our experiencing more of the Love of God through his blessings upon obedience. 

I realize that this is a fine line to walk.  Paul also told us that salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done.  God blesses us because of his goodness not ours, but yet he clearly communicates to us that he rewards our obedience.

I feel like I am in the "extreme middle" on this issue.  There are extremes on each end that I believe do not honor God.  The one extreme is a thinking that we are constantly striving to be good enough to "earn" God's love.  The other extreme is thinking that our actions are irrelevant because "God still loves me."

My understanding of God's love is constantly growing.  I challenge you to examine your pre-conceived ideas about his love.

Let me know what you think.  Is God's love unconditional or conditional?        
 

Should we only accept good from God?

     I love being a Dad but their are times when it is much more enjoyable than others.  The times when I really don't enjoy being a Father is when I have to discipline my kids.  I recently had to punish one of my kids because of a string of deceitful and dishonest acts.  If you would have popped into my house at the moment I was disciplining them and would have seen their reaction to the punishment, you might have been tempted to label me an abusive father.

     But before you call and report me for child abuse, you should know that what I did was take away a few of their most prized possessions and privileges, until their changed behavior could earn their redemption.

     My children can tell by the look on my face and the tone of my voice when I am entering their room to administer punishment.  Their reaction is not pleasant at all.  It is quite the opposite reaction that I would receive if I entered their room to give them a gift, say an ice cream cone or a new toy.  They are quite happy to see me in those moments.  But what my children are not able to see because of their immaturity, is that my heart and motivation towards them is exactly the same in both of those moments.  I want to bless them!

     I totally understand why they don't see punishment, discipline and correction as a blessing.  I didn't see those things as blessings either, when they came from my parents.  But I am reminded of a quote from the book of Job: "Should we only accept good things from the hand of God and not bad?"

     We will line up to buy the latest book on "6 easy steps to receiving God's blessings."  But a book on "Making the most of God's correction" probably won't even make it on the shelves.  We love to hear preachers tell us that God wants to fill our pockets with money, our houses with stuff, and our garages with a Lexus and an Escalade.  But we have no desire to hear a message saying that sometimes God allows us to suffer pain.  What preacher wants to preach "God disciplines those he loves?"

     Pain comes into our lives through three different ways.
1. Through our choice.
       I can warn my children that certain actions will result in pain, but they choose whether or not they will listen to me.  God is the same towards us.
     Their are some things that are out of his control!  God chooses not to override our choices: therefore putting it out of his control.

2.  Through another's choice.
     Just as God chooses not to control our choices, he also chooses not to control other people's choices.  Sometimes those choices result in other people causing us pain.

3.  Through God's choice.
     This is the hardest one for me to swallow.  God allows painful circumstances into our lives.  Why?  Sometimes, it is to correct us.  "No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening--it's painful!  But afterward their will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way." Hebrews 12:11

     Sometimes, it is the devil trying to destroy our faith.  Please don't ever pretend to be God and tell someone else that they are going through pain because God is punishing them.  You have no idea!  God wants us to respond out of love and compassion to someone's pain, not judgement and criticism.

The promise that I hold onto when I go through pain is Romans 8:28. (And I fully understand that the pain I have went through in my life is nothing compared to what others have endured!  But God's promises our the same regardless.)  "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

So I challenge you to ask God a couple of questions in the midst of pain, "What do you want to teach me through this?" and "How are you going to work this out for my good?"    

The gift of "finding yourself!"

     Have you ever heard anyone say something like this, "I just need to find myself!"  Or "I just need to figure out who I am!"  It seems like a lot of young people are on this journey of "finding themselves."  I think a lot of older people are on this same journey, they just might not use this same language.  I know that I had to begin this journey of "finding myself"  as a teenager.
     I have looked to find my identity under a lot of different titles, "athlete, scholar, biker, banker, pastor, body-builder, strongman, husband, father, and even missionary."  But it seemed like I could never fully "find myself" in just one of these titles.  I had to "find myself" under a totally different title.
     This journey of "finding yourself" isn't anything new, but is old as time.  I was recently reading in Matthew 16, where Jesus asks the question, "Who do people say that I am?"  His disciples have a myriad  of different answers to what popular opinion is about Jesus, but then he asks a much more difficult question.  "Who do you say that I am?"  Your answer to this question has so much more to do with this "finding yourself" journey than you may think.
     Peter's response is bold, "You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God!"  I love what Jesus says to him.  "Peter, you didn't figure this out on your own."  Or "This wasn't revealed to you by any human source."  "God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am!"  This vision or revelation of Christ's true identity was a gift from God!
     Look at how the Message paraphrase states the rest of the story: "And now I am going to tell you who you are, really are."  Once Peter found out who God really was, he could find out who he really was.  You can read all the Self-help books that you want.   You can "look inside yourself" all you want, but you will never truly "find yourself."  As this passage in Matthew later states, "Self-help is no help at all."
     Vision for your life is not man-made.  It is a gift from God.  The creation cannot tell itself why it was created.  It must ask the creator why it was created.  You must know who God is before you can know who you are.
     My journey of "finding myself"  was ultimately settled at the destination of an entirely different title: "HIS!"          

Everything we know about prayer is wrong!

     I have been blessed to be surrounded by Christ-followers my entire life.  I decided to become a Christ-follower myself at 5 years old.  I will soon be 37 years old.  So after following Christ for 30 plus years, I am still amazed at the glaringly obvious things I and my fellow Christ-followers have missed in the teachings of Jesus!
     Let's take one of the most basic things that most "Christians" do - Praying over our meals.  We typically bow our heads and ask God's blessing over our food.  Nothing wrong with that, right?
     Well, I have always been "that kid" who had to drive both my parents and my teachers crazy by asking that annoying question that no adult wants to constantly hear, "WHY?"
     Why do we bow our heads and ask God's blessing over our food?  Probably because we saw our parents do this, because they saw their parents do this and so on.
     But I was recently reading in Matthew 14:19 "Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples."  It is fascinating to me that Jesus takes the exact opposite posture in prayer that we do.  He lifts his face to heaven, instead of bowing his head.
     I began to ponder what the posture of lifting your face versus bowing your head communicates.  Bowing your head could communicate surrender or humility, but it also could communicate guilt and shame.  Once we repent of our sins and establish relationship with Jesus as our LORD, the Bible says we can now come "boldly to the throne of grace!"  As Christ-followers we can come to God the father as Jesus did, as a son!  If my children come to me with their face down, I suspect they are guilty of something.  We don't have to come to God as lowly peasants, but as loved an accepted children.
     I also love the fact that Jesus by lifting his face to heaven was ignoring the distractions of his current situation and reconnecting with his father.  By lifting his face to heaven he was taking his eyes of the temporary and looking to the seat of order of all things eternal.  He knew that food was a temporary thing but his relationship with the Father was eternal.
     Also this word "blessed" in the text we take to mean that we ask God to bless our food, but the Jewish tradition was for the head of the household to "bless" or give thanks to God for the food.  By bowing our heads we signify our insufficiencies, but by looking to heaven we signify God's abundance.  Here is an example of a Jewish food "blessing": "Blessed art Thou, LORD our God, King of the universe, who by his word brings about all things!"
     I challenge you to try this.  Begin looking to heaven and thanking God for his blessings!              

The Pride of the Homeless!

This morning I was on my way to church and I saw my homeless friend Alex standing by the side of the road begging.  I pulled over and asked him if he wanted to go to church with me.  He looked down at his clothes and said "No I just wouldn't feel comfortable."
"hey don't worry about it I am wearing Jeans and a t-shirt to church today."  
"No I just wouldn't feel comfortable."
"We are having a special day today where we are having a free meal after church."
"No I just wouldn't feel comfortable."
"We are giving a weeks worth of groceries to every family that needs them."
"No I just wouldn't feel comfortable.  If I walk in there looking like this, everyone will look at me."
"Don't worry about it, you can sit next to me, I am a pastor no one will give you a hard time."
  "No I just wouldn't feel comfortable."
I drove away so sad that I couldn't convince Alex to come with me.  I sat through the entire church service sad that I couldn't get Alex to come with me. I was sad that he had this idea that church was a place that he would feel out of place and where people would judge him.
     Most importantly I was taken aback by my realization that it was Alex's pride that kept him from receiving help from the church.  He has nothing but yet he was too proud to humble himself to come to church with me.
     James says that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.  Our pride is the number one thing that will keep us from experiencing God's grace.  Not the ugliness of our sin but the ugliness of our pride.
     My experience with Alex has made me realize that our pride has nothing to do with how rich or poor we are but it is a sickness of our heart.
     I will continue to do what I can to minister to Alex because he is the assignment God has given me and I desperately want him to experience the grace of Jesus Christ, but I realize that just like us, pride is the number one obstacle to him experiencing God's blessings.

Would Jesus Trick or Treat?

     I had an interesting experience yesterday.  I was a chaperone (aka fancy French word for unpaid babysitter) on my son's fifth grade field trip to the Cedar Rapids Art Museum.  The first display that we were taken to was a Mexican "Day of the Dead" Altar.  Our "docent" (aka fancy Latin word for unpaid tour guide) took 20 minutes explaining the altar and taking questions / comments from the fifth grade students.    The altar was covered in pictures of two apparently famous Mexican's.  One a male who I had never heard of and another of a unibrowed female who I also had never heard of.  The altar also had the most random assortment of skeletons, devils, demons, deceased cats, a nude couple making out, ancient aztec warriors and a portrait of Jesus.
     The docent's description of the "Day of the Dead" celebration was basically that this was a day of ancestor worship and a hope that the ancestor's ghost would visit their descendant's celebration.  After the description the Q & A session that followed was quite humorous.  Fifth grader's question, "Why is that part so creepy?"  Highly educated docent's response, "Well, actually it isn't creepy, but quite fascinating."  After many similar exchanges, the final exchange was the most striking.  Wise beyond his years fifth grader's comment, "I don't see how anyone could see this as anything but creepy!"   Highly educated docent's response, "Well, actually I love it and want to set up one in my home!"
     I found this exchange to be so telling of our culture around this time of year.  We encourage children to celebrate something that they are naturally repulsed by . . . DEATH!  I didn't train my 6 year old daughter to be freaked out by Ghosts, witches, skeletons, dead bodies, coffins, zombies and the like.  She just innately is.  Why would I as a highly mature and educated adult try to convince her that these things are actually cute, cuddly and a lot of fun!  It doesn't make any sense.  Just think about how oxymoronic the phrase "Happy Halloween" sounds.  "Happy celebration of fear and death!"
     Historically, Christians have reacted to Halloween in a variety of different ways:  1. Condemn it.  Basically we study the history of halloween, preach against it, tell anyone that has anything to do with halloween that they are going to hell, turn off our lights and hide in a corner on halloween.  2. Sanctify it.  Have a non-Halloween "Hallelujah" Party, have everyone dress up in "Biblical" costumes and play "pin the tail" on Balaam's Donkey.  3. Celebrate it.  This is the ol "If you can't beat em join em" philosophy.  We carve Jack-o-lanterns, dress our kids up as witches, ghosts and zombies, go trick-or-treating, maybe even toilet paper someone's house.
     How you respond to halloween is between you and God.  I have been all over the map on this issue.  I have found myself in all three of the aforementioned Christian camps.  But I have found striking weaknesses in all three.  1. Condemn it.  Are there things about halloween that I don't think God is too crazy about?  Absolutely!  But what good are we doing for our friends and neighbors if all we do is condemn them.  2. Sanctify it.  I think we come across so irrelevant and cheesy when we try to "Christianize" everything.  3. Celebrate it.  As I have already mentioned I think there are many aspects of halloween that as Christ-followers we should be repulsed by.
     So what should we do?  I think that we have a fourth option.  4. Illuminate it.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:14-16 "You are the light of the world--like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden."  "Let your good deeds shine out for all to see."  Jesus doesn't give us the options of hiding or blending in.  He tells us to shine.  So maybe this Halloween is a great opportunity to meet your neighbors.  Maybe it is an opportunity to talk with your kids about how to respond to our culture.  Maybe it is a great opportunity to shine light on the darkest day of the year!  

What about planned parenthood?

     I recently had a lively facebook debate about the necessity of organizations such as planned parenthood.  It started out as a post stating that many people only associate planned parenthood with abortions.  It said that they provide so many other services that many poor people could not afford, such as annual check ups that the facebook poster had personally benefited from.
     Everyone on the facebook thread seemed to be agreeing with the post so I decided to dive in and stir things up with a dissenting viewpoint.  Boy that sure made things fun!  I appreciated the dialog.  It confronted my own stereotypes.
     I must admit when I think of planned parenthood, I imagine images of nefarious doctors walking around in blood covered lab coats with evil laughs rejoicing about all the babies they had killed that day.  I was confronted in this conversation with statements such as "Our local planned parenthood doesn't even perform abortions," and "Abortions are only 3% of what planned parenthood does."  I cannot verify the veracity of such claims but chose to hear things from a differing viewpoint.  Doing so helped me to realize that maybe my stereotypical misunderstandings had to be addressed.
     I want to be crystal clear about what I believe that the Bible teaches about this issue.  Life begins at conception!  Abortion is killing a human being created in the image of God and deeply loved by him!  With that said, this issue is so much more complicated than I would like to admit, and my facebook conversation helped me see just that.
     The bottom line is that people need help and the help they need will not be achieved by sign waving activists telling pregnant teenage girls that they are going to hell.  I firmly believe that government is not the answer.  The church filled with followers of Jesus Christ passionate about helping the poor and fighting injustice is the answer.
     Will I vote for Godly leaders who I hope will fight to end abortion?  Absolutely!  Will that solve all of our problems?  Absolutely not!
     What I will fight against is the assumptions our world seems to be based upon such as:  "Teenagers are going to have sex anyway."  "We need to stop unwanted pregnancies."
     "Teenagers are going to have sex anyway, so lets teach them safe sex," seems like such an insane line of reasoning.  Our current approach to drug prevention is simple "Say No to drugs."  How insane would it be to change to the following policy in educating elementary students: "Students are going to use drugs eventually so lets teach them how to use them safely!"  Has the abstinence from drugs message solved all our problems? No! But what would our country look like if we used the "Safe drug use" approach?
     Is abstaining from sex until marriage easy? No way!  Is it a lofty goal?  Absolutely!  It is something that my wife and I committed to prior to marriage and it was the best decision we ever made.  We made the decision, because we had adults in our lives who believed in us and taught us the value of following God's design for sex.
     So I had several take aways from my facebook conversation:  1.  Maybe I have some stereotypes that need to be addressed.  2. It is refreshing to have a healthy dialogue with someone of an opposing viewpoint.  3.  Lets not argue about surface issues but lets get down to the underlying assumptions.