God's Love

“He loved us not because we are lovable, but because He is love” (C. S. Lewis)

Have you ever been unfaithful to God? Have you ever backslidden as a believer in Christ? Do you ever feel like a failure? In Hosea 1, we see how the Lord disciplines every one of His children. He will not let us continue in sin. His love is relentless, and He always comes after His straying child.

The believer in Jesus Christ is constantly growing. We are not in any way sinless, but we ought to be sinning less. If you find yourself not sinning less, then chastening is coming your way. God will do what it takes to bring you to your knees not because He is cruel, but because He is the most tender compassionate Being in the universe. He wants you to be what He saved you to be. He wants you to confront sin in your life.

“you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.” (Deut. 1:31)

Richard Dawkins, the most prominent apologist of atheism in the world today has said,

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Dawkins isn’t the first to say such things about God, just the most adamant. He is above all a propagandist, with a deep-seated antipathy to the Christian faith. For a Christian—even the most brilliant one—to reason with Dawkins on these points would be like two generals trying to parley before a battle, when one of them has dedicated his life to destroying the other.

As a former atheist recently said to me, “I read Dawkins’s God Delusion, and concluded that if arguments so weak, so circular, given by a man who obviously has a serious problem with God—if this is the best atheism has to offer, then God must really exist.” She later became a Christian. She admits though, that she still has her problems with the Old Testament. So do many Christians. At times they can be nearly as critical of God as Dawkins is.

After all, isn’t the God of the Old Testament the same one Who:

• Destroyed the earth with a flood?
• Called for the death of the first born of Egypt?
• Called for the extermination of some of His own people?
• Called for the extermination of all the Canaanites?
• Let David off scot-free after he planned the death of a man then took the man’s wife into his harem?

The following is taken from Hannah’s blog, Sometimes A Light. Reprinted with permission.

My father is not a violent or angry man; he is excruciatingly patient and self-possessed. Unlike many fathers, he never roared, strutted or flaunted his authority. He didn’t yell or belittle me. When I failed, he didn’t condemn.

It was terrifying.

In fact, my most uncomfortable childhood memories are of sitting across from him after he had caught me doing something I shouldn’t have. Silent, he would simply look at me. My conscience, on the other hand, would be screaming, Just punish me–-get it over with! But I dared not say anything either. One thing I had learned through these encounters was to keep my mouth shut. Talking only got me into trouble.

He would break the silence after several minutes by simply saying, “Tell me what you did.”

This was my cue. Predictably, I began with “I didn’t do anything.” Then I’d confidently rehearse my version of events and, more often than not, conclude with an out-right lie. He’d listen, sit silently for another few minutes and then simply repeat, “Tell me what you did.”

So for a second time, I’d tell my story, perhaps revise a few facts and add a detail of truth, hoping to convince him. But he was too smart for that. He’d listen and again merely say, “Tell me what you did.” Usually, by this point I’d begin to get frustrated. Was he deaf? I just told him twice what happened. What more can I say? This is getting us nowhere. But I had no choice, so I’d repeat my hopeless excuse for a third time.