This Week's Passage
"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10
Have you ever felt afraid to stand before the Lord God and confess your sin? Perhaps you felt that HE would reject you or that HE would not forgive your sin because it was just too great, too vile, too often, or too obscene. I used to feel this way, My Friend. I once believed that I could not come before the Lord God and pour my heart out before Him because I was so wicked and HE would reject me. I thought that Jesus' blood was a silkscreen and it prevented the Lord God from seeing the "real" me. This lie, and I know it sounds odd, was so ingrained in my belief system that it prevented me from understanding truth and understanding the depth of God's love for me.
I know this may sound strange given that I thought I understand that Christ loved me and gave Himself for me, but I still struggled with the measure of God's love towards me. Through His Word, the Lord began to reveal my heart issue. The problem was that I have tried to define God's love by how much He blesses me or keeps me from suffering. I have also tried to define God's love according to my rationale, my understanding, my beliefs, my standards and my terms. I allowed my ignorance, rebellion, and disbelief to distort God's Word in my heart, mind, soul and life. I have not understood, until now, that God's love is rooted and established in Him.
You see, in our flesh, we are all unable to see truth. It is only by God's allowance that our eyes are opened and we are able to understand and comprehend Scripture and the truth that lies within the Word. God's Word says, "Cursed is the man who trust in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD…The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:5&9) "O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You" (Psalm 69:5). "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9). "For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations." (Psalm 100:5). "…He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Ephesians 1:4). "Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me, with their whole heart" (Jeremiah 24:7).
The truth is I am wicked and vile. I have sinned against the Lord God. And so have you. On our own and in our sin, we have no hope, no salvation, no eternal future with the Lord God. But because God is glorified in saving sinners, HE provided a substitute for sin. HE sent His One and Only Son to become sin for me and for you and to die in our place. Christ's death for our sin was ordained before the foundation of the world and our salvation, our hope, our peace, our holiness, our relationship with the Lord God is all about what Christ did for us before we ever knew Him, loved Him, desired Him, longed for Him, or worshipped Him. My Friend, God gave Himself as a ransom for sin. HE willingly died on the cross and rose again to bridge the gap between our humanness and God's holiness. HE is offering complete forgiveness, complete healing, and an eternal relationship with the Lord God to those who believe. Please do not allow your flesh to convince you that Christ does not love you or that HE did not die to save you. There is nothing too great, too vile, too wicked or too much for His blood to cover, cleanse, remove and restore (Isaiah 61:1-4).
Our focal passage is one of the main passages the Lord has been using to deal with my heart in recent weeks. Look once more at 1 John 4:10"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Propitiation in this verse means "appeasement." I love the way John Piper defines propitiation in his book The Passion of Jesus Christ (aka Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die). John explains that "the meaning of the word "propitiation"…refers to the removal of God's wrath by providing a substitute. The substitute is provided by God himself. The substitute, Jesus Christ, does not just cancel the wrath; he absorbs it and diverts it from us to himself. God's wrath is just, and it was spent, not withdrawn" (p. 21). Take a moment to allow the Truth of 1 John 4:10 wash over you. Do you see what God is promising you and me?
God's Word explains the measure of God's love like this:
"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." (Romans 5:8-11)
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." (John 3:16-17)
God is a holy God and He must judge sin. He knew that man would fall and that without Christ Jesus no one would ever have an intimate relationship with the One True Living God. We would all perish. John Piper explains that "If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore his love is willing to meet the demands of his justice…We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of His wrath against us. But when, by grace, we waken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say, "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that HE loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin" (The Passion of Jesus Christ, pp. 20 & 21). To God be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
