God's Way Works

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God's Love

Be Patient with Yourself, Love Yourself

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love yourself by gwenwasleyA few weeks ago, we started looking at God’s love for us and noted that if God loves us, we are allowed to love ourselves. In fact, we noted from Matthew 22:39, that God didn’t command us to do this, He simply expected it. 

 

The problem, of course, is we have been so warned against self-centeredness that hearing this shocks us a bit. We aren’t allowed to love ourselves, we think, because that is narcissism. That would be selfish. Besides, II Timothy 3:2 warns that the sinners of this age will be lovers of self. Clearly, there is a way in which we are allowed to love ourselves and a way in which we aren’t. I think the best explanation of how to love ourselves biblically can be found in I Corinthians 13:4-7. If we pursue God’s definition of love for others, and are supposed to love them as we do ourselves, then this will help us love ourselves properly.

 

Love Is Patient

 

The first thing Paul said is, “Love is patient.”

 

Be patient with yourself. If you’re like me, you are a mess. You don’t want anyone else to know it and you do your best to put on a great face so no one else will ever know it, but you know exactly what a mess you are. You know every flaw, every mistake, every failure, every sin. In fact, you know the little bitty things that no one else would recognize as bad, but you know for you it is. 

 

With every mistake, you can begin to beat yourself up, shame yourself, throw your hands in the air and claim there just isn’t any reason to keep going on. “Why bother,” you tell yourself, “I’m never going to make it.” 

 

But love is patient. Be patient with yourself. God is patient with you. II Peter 3:9 says the Lord is not slow about His promises, He is simply patient, not wishing any of us to perish. A few verses later, he says we should count this patience as our salvation (II Peter 3:15). God is waiting on us. 

 

However, there is an even better reason to be patient with yourself than simply God is patient with you.

 

God is Working On You

Not only is God waiting on us, God is working on us. Philippians 2:12-13 encourages us to keep working on ourselves, not because we are doing such a great job, not because we are perfect, not because we make no mistakes. We should keep working on ourselves because God is working on us and in us. 

 

Romans 8:28-30 explains that God is going to bring us to conformity with Jesus. He is working on us and He will get us there. When we mess up, there is no need to throw our hands up and quit. Rather, be patient. God is working on us. We just need to keep working.

 

Let’s face it, we are all like toddlers struggling to walk in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ. As we start to pull up on the furniture, we are going to fall. We may even fall a lot. However, eventually, just as sure as little children eventually learn how to walk, we will to. Not because we’re such great walkers, but because we aren’t alone. God is holding our hand. 

 

Even after we’ve been walking for a while, we may have a big fall. In fact, just this morning, I fell down the stairs (again). However, God is still working on us. He still loves us and is patient with us. We can be patient with ourselves as well.

 

Patient, not Permissive

Now, please don’t misunderstand. Romans 6:1-2 says, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” Being patient with ourselves when we sin, doesn’t mean we are granted permission to sin. God’s patience with us is not a license to sin. Neither should our own patience be. 

 

The point is simply that since we are growing and are not perfect yet (Philippians 3:12), we will stumble and fall. When we do, patience doesn’t tell us not to care and just stay on the ground wallowing in the mud. Patience says to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, pick up our cross and keep walking. Or rather, it tells us to let God pick us up, clean us off, give us our cross, and keep walking with Him.

 

I don’t know what has been happening in your life. I don’t know what struggles you have or what failures you’ve made. All I know is this, if you love God, He is working on you. Be patient with Him. Be patient with yourself. Love is patient. Why not love yourself today, cut yourself some slack. Be patient. You’ll make it. God has promised you will.

 

Come back next week, we’ll learn about being kind to ourselves.

We Don’t Have to Earn God’s Love

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love by Shanissinha_A few weeks ago, we started what I think is an extremely important and yet misunderstood topic: Loving Ourselves. We are allowed to do that. Two weeks ago, we noticed that as unlovable as we may see ourselves, we need to simply trust God who looks at us and loves us.

 

Having heard that God really does love us, we can easily start running through the mental gymnastics of the devil as he tries to convince us that God does not love us, in fact could not love us because we are so bad. With that mindset, we often start trying to earn God’s love. We decide that in order to get God to love us we need to read our Bibles more, pray more, sin less, teach more, attend congregational assemblies more, and on and on the list may go. We seem to think that if we make ourselves better, then we might become worthy of God’s love.

 

I John 4:7-9 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

 

Consider what this says. That love of God is not based on anything we do. God doesn’t love us because of anything we’ve done, but because He is love. That means God won’t stop loving us because of anything we do, because He is love. He manifested that love eternally by sending His Son to die for us. He died for us even while we were sinners and doing nothing worthy of that love. 

 

What does that mean for us? It means there is not one single thing we can do today to make God love us any more. At the same time, it means there is not one single thing we can do today to make God love us any less. We don’t have to try to earn it. We don’t have to fear losing that love. 

 

Once we recognize that, how can we not love God ourselves? Because of that love we will want to draw closer to Him through Bible reading, prayer, spending time with God’s children, avoiding sin, etc. If we do sin, we can recognize God still loves us and instead of running from God, we can run to God, confessing our sin and accepting the forgiveness He has promised.

 

If God would love us like this despite all we’ve done, we can love us too.

 

Keep coming back. Next week, we’ll start looking at I Corinthians 13:4-7 to see what it means to love ourselves properly according to God’s will.

God Loves You Today, So Should You

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love by Shanissinha_Last Monday, I introduced a topic about loving ourselves. That doesn’t seem to be as hot of a topic as what I’ve said about Christians and politics, but I think it is a great deal more needed.


Even having seen a biblical basis for loving ourselves, we can still believe we are just unlovable. Sure, you may think I’m a cuddly sort of fellow. I’m nice enough. I’ve probably usually spoken to you with kindness. But if you actually knew me. If I laid out my history before you, you’d run screaming. If I told you some of the things that have been in my head, you would flee, flapping your arms about your head trying to ward off the craziness. The problem is, I do know me. I know what I’ve thought about. I know what I’ve done. Regrettably, I can’t run away from it. It’s always with me.


Do you know that same feeling?


I can’t speak for everyone else in the world. I don’t know what everyone else would do if they learned about who you really are when the masks come off. But I can share with you what God said. God knew your entire history. God knows every thought you’ve ever had. God knew every mistake, every failure, every sin. He knew every lie. He knew every lust. He knew every theft. He knew every immorality. He knew every covetousness. He knew every arrogance. He knew every judgment. He knew every hurt. He knew every betrayal. He knew it all. There is not one thing you have kept hidden from Him. He knew it all before you were even here.


Do you know what He did even though He knew every bit of that? He loved you. He looked at you and said, “There is someone I can love.” And He sent Jesus to die for you so you might be forgiven and set free from all that wrong. Romans 5:6-8 says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would are even to die–but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

So, before you start hating on yourself today, stop and think about what God did for you even though He knew everything you did. If God can love you, then you must be pretty lovable. Why not love yourself too?

[EDIT] As per Michelle’s request: A Link to my sermon entitled “Worth a Son”

Thanks for the suggestion, Michelle.

Imperfect Christians Aren’t Bad Christians

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shameWhen a child spills some milk what do you do? Do you yell and scream at him as if he is a worthless, flawed, failure? I hope not. That little child is imperfect and makes mistakes. To treat him like he has no value or is less-than when he makes a mistake is not good. Instead, show him how to clean up his mess. Talk him through how and why the mess was made so he might avoid the same mistake in the future.

 

What about when a child says a cuss word? Do you yell and scream at her as if she is a worthless, flawed, failure who is making you look like a bad parent? I hope not. That child is imperfect and makes mistakes. To treat her like she has no value or is less-than when she makes a mistake is not good. Instead, you talk to her about language. You help her establish boundaries for the kinds of words she uses and strive to pass on your values regarding the words we speak.

 

That makes sense to us regarding our kids. But what about our brethren? What about members of our congregation? What do we do when we know one of our brethren lied, lusted, cheated, stole, etc.? Do we yell and scream at them as if they are worthless, flawed, failures who are making your church look bad? Do we shame them, making them jump through hoops to feel forgiven? Do we treat them as if they are less-than? Do we look down on them as if they aren’t quite as spiritual as us? I hope not. That brother or sister is imperfect. They make mistakes. They will sin. To treat them like they are less-than, to shame them, to bitterly and harshly treat them is just not good. How dare we who are just as imperfect and just as sinful treat our brethren as if we are better than they are when we talk to them about their sins.

 

Perhaps this is why Paul told us to restore those caught in any trespass with gentleness (Galatians 6:1).

 

Certainly, if someone is living in utter rebellion, harsh rebuke may become necessary. However, to treat other growing Christians as if they are bad Christians just because they aren’t perfect (just like we aren’t perfect) is wrong. Do you know what Jesus did for that brother or sister when He learned about their sins? He died for them.

 

Think about that the next time you need to talk to a brother or sister about sin in their life. That may help you talk to them God’s way.

 

Remember, God’s Way Works!

For Dad So Loved His Family That He…

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John 3:16 is probably the most well-known and oft-quoted verse in the Bible (except perhaps Matthew 7:1). We all know it: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” That verse provides great comfort and encouragement for me. However, it hit me a little different today. 

My heavenly Father loved me so much, He gave His only begotten Son so I might live. That made me wonder, if my kids were writing a book what might they be able to say about me.

“Dad so loved us kids that he…”

What would they say?

I don’t have much to add to that right now. I just wanted you thinking about it too.

Believing in the God of the Psalmists, Part 10: God is Love

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(If you are stumbling across this for the first time, you may want to start at the beginning of the series and work your way through the links at the end of each post.  Or check out the index for this entire series of posts. We’ve learned so much about the psalmists and their relationship with God. I hope today’s is no exception.)

God is Love

A popular modern approach to God as revealed in the Bible is to change God between the testaments. Folks look at the God of the Old Testament as a harsh, legalistic, sometimes mean, sometimes brutal, judging God. Then they come to the New Testament and say all that has changed. Now, God is a God of love. He doesn’t judge, He is never harsh. He just wants us to know how much He loves us.

However, that doesn’t mesh with the Psalmists view of God at all. Despite the brutal judgment God sometimes administered, the Psalmists were completely sure that God was a God of love. The psalmists mention God’s love 123 times. Consider just a few of the statements.

  • God’s steadfast love is precious (Psalm 36:7).
  • We enter His house through His steadfast love (Psalm 5:7).
  • He delivers us for the sake of His steadfast love (Psalm 6:4).
  • He is merciful and forgets our sins because of His steadfast love (Psalm 25:6-7).
  • His steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts Him (Psalm 32:10).
  • His steadfast love endures all day (Psalm 52:1).
  • God answers our pleas because of His steadfast love (Psalm 69:16).
  • His steadfast love holds us up when we think we’ll slip (Psalm 94:18).
  • His steadfast love endures forever (Psalm 100:5).

This story of God’s love crescendoes in Psalm 136. Here the Psalmist repeats “For his steadfast love endures forever” 26 times. In fact, this was most certainly a liturgical psalm used in public assemblies and worship for the Jews. The priest or officiate would say the first line of each couplet and the congregation would shout the refrain–“For his steadfast love endures forever.” What an amazing experience that must have been, hearing the entire congregation praise God for his love as the stories of God’s love were repeated to them.

No doubt, the psalmists were sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes hurt, sometimes angry, sometimes lonely, sometimes joyful, sometimes bitter. But they always knew God loved them.

How can we not pray to a God whose steadfast love for us endures forever, no matter who we are, where we come from, or what we’ve done?

Whatever you do today, don’t forget–God Loves You!

(I think we’re going to take a little break from this study of the Psalms. But keep your eyes open, in a few weeks we’ll get back to them and start learning to look at ourselves the way the Psalmists did.)