WHY GOD LOVES US If God is going to lovingly seek our eternal happiness and welfare, He must first be committed above else to the pursuit of His own glory and the esteem of His own name. The extensive listing of biblical texts bears witness to this truth. My conclusion is that if God is going to love us passionately, He must first love Himself preeminently. However, this latter statement is so bothersome to many people that I need to explain it in some detail. Essential to true love is treating a person as valuable. To love someone you must esteem them highly and act sacrificially on their behalf and for their welfare. Although we should be cautious in saying that God must do this or that, of one thing I am certain: God must love and thus value Himself supremely. Many find this offensive, and I can understand why. It strikes them as arrogant and egotistical of God to be so concerned with His own fame. We intuitively recoil from people who are always seeking their own glory and exploiting others to enhance their reputation or position. We value altruism and hold narrow self-seeking in contempt. And rightly so. So, how does God escape our disdain? How can we be asked to admire God for seemingly doing what we condemn in others? The answer is found in the nature of moral excellence, which demands that we value what is most valuable and honor what is most honorable. Both the Bible and common sense tell us it is morally incumbent that we cherish what is most worthy. Everyone would agree that God is the supremely valuable being in the universe. His majesty exceeds that of all others, His holiness is incomparable and His beauty transcendently attractive. God is the preeminently worthy One and the most honorable Being in existence. That is why we worship only Him and ascribe all glory to His name (Exodus 20:3-4). If it is right for man to have the glory of God as his goal, can it be wrong for God to have the same goal? If man can have no higher purpose than Gods glory, how can God? If it is wrong for man to seek a lesser end than this, it would be wrong for God, too. The reason it cannot be right for man to live for himself, as if he were God, is because he is not God. However, it cannot be wrong for God to seek His own glory, simply because He is God. Those who insist that God should not seek His glory in all things are really asking that He cease to be God. And there is no greater blasphemy than to will God out of existence. How could we describe God as righteous and good if He ever failed to pursue and preserve what is supremely valuable and of greatest worth? That is why God must take ultimate delight in His own glory or He would be unrighteous. It is incumbent on everyone to take delight in a person in proportion to the excellence of that persons glory. Whose glory can compare with that of Gods? If God were not to delight supremely in God He would not be God, or at least He would be an unrighteous one and thus unworthy of our delight. For God to fail or refuse to value Himself preeminently would implicate Him in the sin of idolatry. If God were ever to act in such a way that He did not seek His own glory, He would be saying that something more valuable than Himself exists, and that is a lie. Worse still, it is idolatrous. The reason it is sinful for us to seek our own glory is because there is something more valuable and important than ourselves. God. We are but creatures. For the same reason it is righteous for God to seek His own glory because nothing is more important or more worthy than God. He is the Creator. It follows from this that everything God does is designed to win praise for that glory from His people. All the different ways God has chosen to display his glory in creation and redemption seem to reach their culmination in the praises of his redeemed people. God governs the world with glory precisely that he might be admired, marveled at, exalted and praised. The climax of his happiness is the delight he takes in the echoes of his excellence in the praises of the saints. How, then, can He be a God of love? If God loves Himself above all others, how can He love others at all? If He is passionately committed to doing everything for his own sake, how can He be passionately committed to ours? So again, if God is for Himself, how can He be for us? Here is my answer. If God were to cease loving Himself supremely He would cease being God, for He will have committed an unrighteous and idolatrous act. If this were to occur, we are the ones who stand to lose most. Whom, then, should we adore? On whom, then should we rely? Where, then, would we turn for strength and sustenance and joy and life? Now answer two questions. First, what is the most loving thing that God could do for us? What could God give us to enjoy that would prove him most loving? There is only one possible answer: himself! If he withholds himself from our contemplation and companionship, no matter what else he gives us, he is not loving. Now for the second question. What do we all do when we are given or shown something beautiful or excellent? We praise it! In fact, our joy in the gift is incomplete until we praise it. Our praise is the consummation of our enjoyment. What this means is that if God loves us, and He does, He will do two things. First, He will give Himself to us. He is Himself the greatest gift. Second, He will work to secure from our hearts the praise of His glory. This isnt because he needs to shore up some weakness in himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because he loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found only in knowing and praising him, the most magnificent of all Beings. That is why if God is going to be for us He must be for Himself. In other words, God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking his own praise is the ultimate loving act. For him, self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When he does all things for the praise of his glory, he preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world which can satisfy our longings. God is for us! And the foundation of this love is that God has been, is now, and always will be, for himself. Now, how would a God like this go about loving us? Would it not be by providing us with the highest good possible? And is not God Himself the highest good? Therefore, if God really loves us, He must work to bring us into the enjoyment of who He is (theres His glory). He must do everything in His infinite power to lead us into praise and honor of His name. By winning for Himself our worship as the God of all glory, we experience the greatest possible satisfaction, namely, enjoying God. Theres our happiness again. And God is most glorified by our enjoyment of Him. Or, to put it in words we already heard, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Thus, for God to seek His own glory and for God to seek our happiness are not separate or antithetical endeavors. For us to seek our own happiness is thus perfectly consistent with our pursuit of Gods glory. That is because God is most glorified in us (theres His glory) when we are most satisfied in Him (theres our happiness). Therefore, if God were not committed first to His own glory, He would not be at all committed to our good. Our highest good (that is, our happiness) is in the enjoyment of God. Gods highest good is in being enjoyed. Thus, for God to work for your enjoyment of Him (thats His love for you) and for His glory in being enjoyed (thats His love for Himself) are not properly distinct. Whereas I used to think that these concepts were on two different tracks moving at the speed of light in opposite directions, I now recognize that they are gloriously inseparable. That is the gospel of Christian Joy. And it is our only hope for holiness. So Ill say it again. The aim of God in all He does is His delight in our delight in Him. CONCLUSION So what conclusion may we draw from this as it pertains to the pursuit of holiness? Simply that: It is impossible that anyone can pursue happiness with too much passion and zeal and intensity. This pursuit is not sin. Sin is pursuing happiness where it cannot be lastingly found, or pursuing it in the right direction, but with halfhearted affections. Virtue, on the other hand, is to do what we do with all our might in pursuit of the enjoyment of all that God is for us in Jesus. That, my friend, breaks the power of cancelled sin. So there it is: do what you do with all your might in pursuit of the enjoyment of all that God is for you in Jesus. In this way, and only in this way, will sin lose its grip on our hearts. https://facebook/groups/1610832099144591/ P.S. PLEASE, HELP JOHN STEWART, A POOR HOMELESS GRACE EVANGELIST, WHO SLEEP IN THE RAIN ON A CARDBOARD UNDER A TARP IN THE WOODS. IF WE HAVE SOWED UNTO YOU SPIRITUAL THINGS, IS IT A GREAT THING IF I REAP YOUR CARNAL THINGS -1 CORINTHIANS 9:11 John Stewart 3020 Waialae Ave Honolulu, HI 96816 USA _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 09:37:21 +0000
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