GIG 207 - It's All About the Unconditional Love of the Father

Continuing from last week with our look at parables in which we often seem to misidentify the characters, or at least in which we seem to put the spotlight on the wrong characters, this week we take a look at the story that is commonly called "The Parable of the Prodigal Son." Certainly the prodigal son isn't a character who we simply glance over, and most of us can easily identify with him in one way or another, but is he really meant to be the main focus of the parable? We'll share a couple of real-life stories as we discuss how we think the focus was always meant to be on the great love of the father.

gigcast.graceroots.org

God's Great Love - The Kry - I Know Everything About You

I've noticed something about myself in recent years that has changed dramatically as I've grown in grace. In the song below, which I first heard probably in 1994, the lyrics go, "I know everything about you but I still love you." Those are great, encouraging, assuring words to any Christian about God's unconditional agape love. This song also has a very encouraging message about the finished work of Christ and God's never-changing love.

But what's changed for me - and I don't mean to be a stickler but this is just reality - is that I would change "but I still" to "and." "I know everything about you and I love you." No need to add "but I still..." In other words, God's love and grace that my heart has been growing deeper in, has convinced me of His love without Him having to convince me nearly as much as before that "even when I mess up He 'still' loves me." I know that all my actions don't line up with the reality of who I truly am in Him, but the issue of His love and acceptance of me has been resolved over the years. ALL of it is based upon His unconditional love and the finished work of Christ!

...Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but (Jesus), having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Heb 10:11-14 NASB

I was bought for a price. I didn't pay the price. He did! There's nothing that I've ever done or will ever do that adds to or cancels His purchase. Again, I'm the one who's been redeemed. He's the one who paid the price. Let's keep that straight! Even when we were still sinners, even when we were still His enemies, Christ died for us and reconciled us to God (Rom 5:8,10). It's through nothing we've done. Only His love and work has accomplished this! We did nothing to accomplish any of this. He did it all! MUCH was accomplished on the cross and with the burial and resurrection of Jesus. "MUCH" is a huge understatement!

And so if I was a sinner and His enemy when He did all this because of His great love and grace, who am I to question or even make it an issue of whether or not He still loves me! Of course He does! Nothing I ever did made Him love me, and even being a sinner and an enemy didn't keep Him from loving me. I can see why a sinner and an enemy might question God's unconditional love (even thought they don't have to!), but now that I've died as a sinner and an enemy and have been raised again as a brand new creation, to a brand new Life, joined together with Him, having been justified and having peace with God through the blood of Jesus, why would I ever think there's reason to question His great love?

The Kry - I Know Everything About You


Bought with a price
Nothing you've done
It's a gift to you
My love is unconditional

-----

Each time you fall
Look to the sky
It won't change My love for you
It won't change My mind

Lift your head up
You will always be Mine
My grace for you
Will last until the end of time

Am I here to judge or condemn your behavior?

Am I here to judge or condemn your behavior? If so, you could judge me 1,000 times over! No, I'm here to let you know that God accepts and loves you as you are, unconditionally. (Or is John 3:seventeen wrong?)

Focus on God's High View and Acceptance of You

This week's Growing in Grace program is a spin off of last week's program, and is again inspired in part by another blog post from Steve McVey, Who Accepted Whom? It's common for people to read the Bible and interpret what they read in a self-focused way, putting the responsibility on themselves to find God, to accept God, to come back to God, to perform for God, etc, when in reality God is the one who has reached out to us and performed all the work necessary for us to have a free, loving, intimate relationship with Him.

Kap and I talk about how we need to rid ourselves of an Old Covenant mentality and look at the Bible in light of God's high view of us as His treasured children, and His unconditional acceptance of us and love for us. He has placed us in Christ and He has made us alive together with Him. He has made peace with us. He has accepted us!

Despite the prodigal son's low view of himself, the father ran to him and accepted him with open arms, and paid no attention to what the son thought he might be able to do to gain a small measure of acceptance from his father. He threw a party for him!

We can forget any notion of "our part" in any of the salvation plan and in any part of the living out of this life in Christ. God has not left it up to us to make any of this happen! As if!!! He has simply asked us to believe. Through faith, we are branches on a vine, and we have no life in and of ourselves, but yet being connected to the vine we are privileged by God's grace to partake in the fullness of life in the Vine!

gigcast.graceroots.org

Ruth Part 2 - Unconditional Friendship

About a week and a half ago I posted God Sent Ruth - Friendship, which is a great message from my old pastor, Mark, from 1997. He continued on with Ruth the following week. You may think that studying an Old Testament character such as Ruth might be dull or boring, but it's amazing how much grace can be found here!

Among other things in this message, Mark talks about friendship - friendship between Christians (which of course should be rich and unconditional, but is often full of conditions and judgmentalism), and friendship between Christians and non-Christians - which Christians often sadly stay away from, or at least only view from an evangelistic standpoint. He sidetracks off of Ruth's story with his own touching story of a decision he made to relate to a certain coworker not in a "Christian" or "religious" context, and not for the purpose of evangelizing him, but rather from the perspective of unconditional friendship. The coworker knew he was a pastor and kept expecting Mark to preach at him about Christ, and in fact he even kept bringing up Christian stuff himself, but Mark simply related to him as a friend who loved him unconditionally. It's amazing what can happen if we just love people.

Mark also reiterates what he had said the previous week about God having made a LAW that said no Moabite shall be a part of the congregation of Israel, but yet here was Ruth, the Moabitess, coming into it with Naomi. The New Testament would later say that if a person broke any single law, he was guilty of all and was under the curse... and yet so many blessings would come out of this act of Ruth being a true friend - forsaking her own people and way of life - and clinging to Naomi and becoming a part of her own people. Did you know that Jesus descended from Ruth, the Moabitess?!

There's so much more here. This is the kind of stuff I was weaned on in my early days of having begun to shed legalism and embrace grace. I can't say enough how I highly recommend giving this a listen!

Nothing Can Separate Us From God, Who IS Love

The New Testament writers point out that nothing can separate us from God's love and that God is love. So... what can separate us from God Himself? Nothing! God's love is unconditional - it has no conditions. He loves us. Period. He showed it to us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us - the ungodly. Somehow some people have gotten the idea that now that we're Christians, the things we do or don't do will keep us from God. But nothing can separate us from God! Nothing can separate us from His love! His perfect love should cast aside all fears and worries that we'll ever have our fellowship with Him broken. Through His love and by the finished work of Christ - and by nothing we've done or not done - we remain in perfect, unbroken fellowship with God.

gigcast.graceroots.org

There's no catch

The other day I mentioned one of my all-time favorite TV shows, The Pretender. It aired in the late 90's. In recent years I've really been enjoying a USA Network program: Monk (along with another USA program called Psych). They're both well-written and well-acted shows, with comedy and drama mixed into both.

Adrian Monk is a detective who "developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder" after the tragic death of his wife, Trudy. Monk is "consumed by peculiar obsessions and wracked with hundreds of phobias," and it makes for some great comedy as he drives people crazy, while at the same time solving cases like no one else can.

In last Friday's episode, Monk finds himself being surprisingly befriended by an older woman. She sort of embraces him like a mother, and she's able to help him get past some of his quirks as she loves him unconditionally and encourages him to do such things as cross a road while the sign says "Don't Walk," eat mixed vegetables, rearrange the furniture in his apartment, and do a few other things that his obsessive-compulsiveness normally doesn't allow him to do.

Early on in the episode, Mr. Monk comments to his assistant, Natalie, that when people embrace him or act nicely towards him, there's always a catch. They want something from him. Well, during the course of this episode, Monk ends up suspecting that his new friend's neighbor is the murderer in a case he is trying to solve. But yet the man has an alibi: Monk's new friend says she saw the man at home, playing his drums, at the time the murder happened. But Monk begins putting the clues of the case together, and he comes to the conclusion that this woman is actually the suspect's mother - not just his neighbor - and that she had lied to the police about the man's alibi.

Monk goes through his whole "Here's what happened" scenario that he does near the end of every program. He lays out his accusations toward the woman, as she stands there in puzzlement, wondering where all of these accusations are coming from. But Monk feels so very deceived, and he repeats his claim that there's "always a catch" when someone loves him unconditionally. He says the woman was only using him to cover up for her son. Now, usually when Monk comes to this "Here's what happened" revelation, he's right on target. However, in this case it turns out that the murder suspect's real mother posts bail for him. This woman who had befriended Monk was telling the truth all along, and had truly been loving him and accepting him as he was, with no "catch." Monk's suspicions about her had been wrong.

Do you have any "suspicions" about God? Do you think that in the midst of all this talk about His "unconditional love" there must be a catch? Sure, He does some nice things, but really He's not who people say He is. There's no way He can truly accept you as you are, and interact with you as His beloved child, right? He wants something from you. He's got ulterior motives. Sure, He's helped you to get over some of your fears and phobias, but really He's out to get you and deceive you. His love isn't really unconditional.

It seems to me that many people that I've come across in the church "talk the talk" about God's unconditional love, but yet they live in fear of Him, or they live as if there's got to be some "catch." They've got to perform up to a certain standard for Him. They end up putting all these conditions on God's unconditional love! But with God, there are no strings attached. He loves you and accepts you as you are. You don't need to try and figure out what the catch is, because there is no catch!

Bottom line: Live loved!

Grace and Love

Latest GIGCAST is up. This week we talk a little more about how "grace" is not simply one subject of many, but is the essence of every aspect of the Christian life and we talk about the biblical idea of what it means to have fallen from grace by going back to trusting in our own works. Along with all this, we talk about how God's unconditional love cannot be separated from His grace, and how growing in our understanding of God's love can change our entire mindset of who He is and who we are in Him.

gigcast.graceroots.org

Do you really know how much God loves you?

What question do you think Jesus will ask you on judgment day?

What did you do for me? How did you live? Were you faithful? Did you go to church? Did you serve Me? Did you love Me? Did you do everything I asked of you?

Brennan Manning has a different thought. The question he's convinced Jesus will ask has absolutely nothing to do with what we've done or haven't done. It has to do with whether or not we know just how deeply God loves us.


This video brought to my mind that God's message of the depths of His love is a message that He has been showering me with all my life, whether I've noticed it or paid attention to it or not.

In 1992, when I was 23 years old, I was spending time in prayer with a friend of mine, James. We were essentially kneeling down, facing each other as we prayed together. I don't remember what we were praying about, but James became emotional and suddenly reached over and hugged me tightly, crying over me. As he was doing this, out of his mouth came the phrase, "Know ye not that I love you?" I think the phrase was repeated at least once, perhaps more times. This was an unusual act from my friend, and I quickly realized that this was not James simply being James. Rather, it was my Father speaking to me through him and crying desperate tears of love over me, hugging me tightly.

God's words to me, "Know ye not that I love you," were both refreshing and haunting at the same time. I thought I knew that He loved me, but yet the truth was that I really had no clue about the depths of His unconditional, affectionate love for me.

Two or three years later, I came to somewhat of a grace-awakening in my life and I began to be consciously aware that I was growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I began to learn more of God's love and grace, and in the following years I was teaching about it and sharing it with many people. I was teaching people that they are not only saved by grace, but are kept by grace. I was teaching them that God loves them deeply and unconditionally, and that unconditional means what it says - no conditions!

Then in the fall of 2002 Steve McVey came to our church and taught during our weekend services. During the Saturday evening service, something special happened that I could never have forecast nor planned. Near the end of the service, Steve had everyone close their eyes and imagine Jesus Himself physically walking into the building, and then into the sanctuary, and then into the very row we were sitting in, and then coming right up to our seat. (Words can't really explain what was going on here. It was simply a way to visualize that Jesus really is right here with us and that He speaks to us). As we were sitting there quietly, with Jesus 'right there with us,' Steve asked Jesus to speak to us individually. The place was very quiet, and unlike many noisy worship services, the focus really was on Jesus.

I had no agenda and I had no clue what Jesus would say to me.

Suddenly the words came...

"Know ye not that I love you?"

I hadn't thought of those words in years! Those words were the farthest thing from my mind. I thought that if He spoke to me, He might perhaps give me some direction in my marriage or in 'my ministry' or something like that. Maybe He would give me a word for someone else. Again, I thought I knew of His love for me. After all, I was teaching it and sharing it with others all the time!

Instead, His word to me, in expounded, paraphrased form, was "Come on, Joel, don't you get how much I love you? Why haven't you let my love penetrate your life?" And again, the words were both refreshing and haunting. I realized that God was encouraging me in His deep love for me, and at the same time I realized that I really had no clue about the depths of His love.

Since that time, I've continued to teach about God's unconditional love. But much more than that, I've sought to really know His love. I've had to continue to unlearn a lot of the conditions that people, including myself, place on God's love. I've had to continue to unlearn a lot of the religious junk that I'd been taught over the years. But most of all, I've been wanting to simply know God and His love for me. I think I've grown quite a bit in understanding and knowing His deep love, but yet I wouldn't find it hard to believe at all if God were to repeat the same words to me in 2012! (Ten years after the last time, and twenty years after the first time). In fact, it's a question that now continually gets me more and more grounded in His love for me and not in what I can ever do for Him. What a blessing to just know God, and His love!

The Kry - I Know Everything About You

This song from Canadian band The Kry was a tremendous help and encouragement to me back in the days when I was really just beginning to learn about God's unconditional love.



Some of my favorite lines from the song include:

Bought with a price
Nothing you've done
It's a gift to you
My love is unconditional

---

Each time you fall
Look to the sky
It won't change My love for you
It won't change My mind

Lift your head up
You will always be Mine
My grace for you
Will last until the end of time

---

And of course the chorus:

I know everything about you
I know what you say and do
But I still love you
I know everything about you
I know what you're thinking through
But I still love you

My own added thoughts... We humans do seem to feel the need to add "but" in front of God's unconditional "I love you." In other words, we picture God saying, "I know all the things you do, but I love you anyway." Believe it or not, I think this actually sells unconditional love short! I believe that with God, there is no "but." I don't think He loves us "in spite of" the things we do. His love has nothing to do with what we do or don't do.

Our Father loves us because He is love.