Blueridge Believer
Puritan Board Professor
"I Will Love Them Freely" -- I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely . . . (Hosea 14:4)
I rejoice that God's love for me is not conditioned upon any fitness or desirability in myself. His love is sovereign, eternal, unchangeable, unmerited and unconditional. My perseverance and assurance does not depend upon my worthiness or service to Him, but upon God's constant sustaining love and power. We rest each and every day in the same pure grace by which He called us into His family. I do not love my son because he is good looking, or even because he obeys me, but because he is my son; I love him and I do all within my power to make him attractive and see that he obeys
me.
Those who believe that a sinner can be an object of God's affection and yet fall away from the fellowship and favor of God are strangers to this kind of love. If I were an absolute wretch in God's sight when He saved me (and no doubt I was), then what could I ever do to cause Him to leave me? (Romans 5:10). For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. If God loved me, saved me and put me in His Son when I was a God-hating rebel, will He ever cease to love me now that I am in His Son?
God knew before He saved me that I wasn't worth having. I was ungrateful, hateful, unfaithful, selfish, proud and foolish when He chose me (Romans 5:8). But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why then would my sinfulness today cause Him to cast me off? God knew that I would sin as His child, and though He may certainly chastise me for it, if He did not intend to bear with me and forgive me in the Lord Jesus Christ, He would not have chosen me to begin with.
Does the freeness of this love encourage you to sin? If it does, then you are certainly not an object of it! My children do not obey me only because I spank them. Punishment without love would only cause further rebellion. Though I might force them to conform outwardly to my wishes, they would curse me in their hearts. Nor do God's children obey Him only because the law requires it. We are motivated by His almighty love to adore, serve and worship Him.
Spurgeon said, "The believer, like a man on shipboard, may fall again and again on the deck, but he will never fall overboard." God will not allow it! I can't explain to you why God ever did love this worm, but I know that because He does, He must have me with Him forever (John 17:23,24). Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (I John 4:10) -- Pastor Chris Cunningham, Franklin, Tennessee
I rejoice that God's love for me is not conditioned upon any fitness or desirability in myself. His love is sovereign, eternal, unchangeable, unmerited and unconditional. My perseverance and assurance does not depend upon my worthiness or service to Him, but upon God's constant sustaining love and power. We rest each and every day in the same pure grace by which He called us into His family. I do not love my son because he is good looking, or even because he obeys me, but because he is my son; I love him and I do all within my power to make him attractive and see that he obeys
me.
Those who believe that a sinner can be an object of God's affection and yet fall away from the fellowship and favor of God are strangers to this kind of love. If I were an absolute wretch in God's sight when He saved me (and no doubt I was), then what could I ever do to cause Him to leave me? (Romans 5:10). For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. If God loved me, saved me and put me in His Son when I was a God-hating rebel, will He ever cease to love me now that I am in His Son?
God knew before He saved me that I wasn't worth having. I was ungrateful, hateful, unfaithful, selfish, proud and foolish when He chose me (Romans 5:8). But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why then would my sinfulness today cause Him to cast me off? God knew that I would sin as His child, and though He may certainly chastise me for it, if He did not intend to bear with me and forgive me in the Lord Jesus Christ, He would not have chosen me to begin with.
Does the freeness of this love encourage you to sin? If it does, then you are certainly not an object of it! My children do not obey me only because I spank them. Punishment without love would only cause further rebellion. Though I might force them to conform outwardly to my wishes, they would curse me in their hearts. Nor do God's children obey Him only because the law requires it. We are motivated by His almighty love to adore, serve and worship Him.
Spurgeon said, "The believer, like a man on shipboard, may fall again and again on the deck, but he will never fall overboard." God will not allow it! I can't explain to you why God ever did love this worm, but I know that because He does, He must have me with Him forever (John 17:23,24). Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (I John 4:10) -- Pastor Chris Cunningham, Franklin, Tennessee
