On Sunday, I talked about God’s love for His chosen children (including us!) and how easy it is to doubt that love. This is certainly the context of the opening of the book of Malachi: “I have loved you,” says the Lord.
“But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’ (Malachi 1:2) I believe that many people feel that same distance from the love of God, whether they say it out loud or it’s hidden somewhere in their heart. The Lord brings it out in the open through the prophet’s message and this antipatory question.
After the service, Walt Kippenhuck brought up another way to consider the question of God’s love. He said that for him (and others he’s talked to), the question isn’t knowing if God loves us. He’s always known and believed that. The problem comes when you compare it to how consistently we mess up, even though we are loved so extravagantly. You might ask it this way: “If God is good and he loves me, why do I keep messing up?”
I thought about it a lot this week and asked Walt how he has wrestled through this in his own life. Here are some of his thoughts…
In some ways, the answer is as simple as the fact that we're broken by nature. When we live our own way, we can reliably expect to encounter this, and it will be the story of our lives. But God has given us a better way - clear, detailed instructions, in fact. Unfortunately, we: don’t read them, think we know a better way, think we know an easier way, read them years ago and are pretty sure we remember how it’s supposed to be done, or learned them from someone else who read them but didn’t look for ourselves because we are busy and haven’t made the time.
God is telling us all through scripture to ask when we don’t understand something. But we stay in our confusion because: we don’t know what to ask because we didn’t read the instructions, we feel like the question is dumb (“I should know this by now!”), we’re ashamed because we ignored the instructions and failed, or our relationship with Him has become distant and we don’t feel connected enough to ask for anything.
All of this is exacerbated by the fact that we have an enemy who is focused on throwing all of this in our faces 24-7.
My conclusion has been this:
DO read the instructions.
DO ask the questions… all of them… all the time.
DO read the instructions again and note how holes are being filled in as a result of the questions you asked.
THANK Him. Don’t just move on to the next step. Stop and recognize the difference it made just talking to Him.
Walt
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Maybe you’re not doubting God’s love, but you can’t see yourself as anything but a total mess who can’t be in a life-transforming relationship with Jesus. I trust that Walt’s experience will encourage you to be in the Word, ask for help, ask questions, and observe how you are being changed day by day.
And, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” (Ephesians 1:18-23)
Blessings,
Pastor Tracy
THIS SUNDAY
SUNDAY, October 26 @ 10am
A MESSAGE FROM THE KING
Blind & Broken
Erin Jamieson
Join us for our IN-PERSON SERVICES OR
LIVESTREAM on Sunday!
10:00 - Live Service & Kids Church (+Church Online)