Loved Beyond Comprehension – Courage for the Journey
God’s Incomprehensible Love
Today we are taking a look at how we are loved beyond comprehension. I am absolutely convinced beyond any doubt that NOTHING in all of the universe will come between us and the love God has for us. So, stick with me, because the best part comes near the end.
Last week I shared reflections with you from Romans 8.
In Christ and by His Spirit, we are no less than 8 things
- Not condemned
- Resurrected
- Adopted as Heirs with Christ
- Glorified
- Saved in Hope
- Joined in Prayer
- Called with Purpose
- Love beyond Comprehension
But Suffering and Glory are Married
Since I spent extra time on being glorified, we only made it through the first five. It felt like everything was going along so positively until then. We moved from being adopted as heirs with our brother Christ to being saved with hope. Then a big but showed up in verse 17.
We share an inheritance with Christ, BUT only if we also suffer with Him. Suffering and Eternal Glory are married and cannot be separated. I don’t like suffering. And I don’t know anyone else who does. It seems Paul’s readers didn’t either.
That’s when he shares that he is expecting them and us to conclude that whatever suffering we are enduring in this present life is not even worth comparing to the glory that is to come.
Because we have the Holy Spirit as a pledge of what will come, we have hope that is sure and certain. So, we wait with joyful expectancy and patient composure for the fulfilment of that which we are hoping – which is our future Glory.
Thy Kingdom Come
My pastor is preaching a series on the book of Luke called Blessed Assurance. You can check it out on Cullman FBC’s YouTube channel. Right now, He is slowing the roll and spending extra time on the Lord’s Prayer. This past Sunday he covered Thy Kingdom Come.
I was fully prepared to exclaim some hardy amens. I’ve got this one. I am all about God’s Kingdom coming. Please come today. I’m ready. There is nothing here better than the New Heaven New Earth that is coming. So, let’s go.
I was not counting on a zinger from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I get so caught up in focusing on future Glory, I do not pray for the here and now global kingdom.
Let me try to tell you what I mean.
Setting my mind on heaven gives me courage to live now because of the hope of Glory that is to come. This is my main message and the basis of this podcast. For example, there are glimpses of heaven all around me if I have the eyes to see it. I can look no further than the coming of dawn each morning when God breaks through the darkness with His glorious light and invites me to meet with Him.
I ask Him to show me what He has for me that day as His ambassador. I want everyone I come in contact with to hear a message of reconciliation – that God will not hold your sins against you because Christ already paid the debt with His own life as the sacrificial Lamb. Therefore, peace with God is a reality.
So far, so good, right? So where am I failing?
Do I Want Heaven Here?
The realization that smacked me in the face and more than pricked my heart was I don’t really want heaven here. I am thankful to receive glimpses of heaven here as I wait for Christ to return and set up His Kingdom. But I am not interested in making up there, down here. I have not been praying for heaven to come here, unless it includes Jesus Christ on a white horse setting up His Kingdom.
You may be asking, so what’s the problem? Why is this even significant?
The problem when I say, “I want heaven, but not here” is that I am praying for God’s Kingdom to come how I think it should. I either want to be taken there or Christ to return here and we join Him in all His Glory.
I say I want to live as Christ while I am here, but I am not really praying with a global kingdom mindset for what comes in between already, and not yet.
I have talked about this before. Christ has already done everything necessary to secure our future glory, but that glory…is in the future. God is saying it is not yet time.
So, we live in between already and not yet.
Until Sunday, I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of that -living for Christ while I long for His return. Looking forward with hope to future glory has helped set me free from my anger and guilt. I have learned how to live again after a terrible loss.
And I don’t just mean to survive. I mean really live with freedom to laugh and love without the heavy weight of the grief cloud constantly hovering and threatening to unleash its torment at any moment. I am happy to share my story whenever I have the opportunity, hoping to encourage someone who may be hurting. But I am ready to get out of here whenever Jesus says let’s go.
I Made a Pact with God
Since it seems it’s not my time yet, I made a pact of sorts with God.
I will live for You here until I’m 80.
That seems long enough for You to do what You will through me,
and then I want to come Home.
But the Home I imagine is there. Not here.
I’m sure you can see plenty of problems with this little pact and can see why I have not really talked about it much. For one, my people live into their 90’s, so thinking I am going Home at 80 is not probable. More significantly, who am I to be telling my Creator God how long I am willing to live here for Him? What I am thinking but not saying is God should be okay with this arrangement because He is the One who asked me to suffer the loss of a child. And that child is there. But when that thought comes, the Holy Spirit shows me there may still be a little anger that pops up from time to time.
The more recent revelation, however, is -this little pact does not include praying for heaven to be brought here in a way that God wants me to pray. I am not really on fire for the global kingdom. It seems I want to learn how to get better at Gospel conversations, but I don’t want to actually have them.
Why is that? This is really what I have been wrestling with.
I want to learn how to get better at Gospel conversations, but I don’t want to actually have them. Doesn’t that seem so incredibly selfish? I don’t think it’s because it’s too hard or too uncomfortable. I do plenty of things that are hard and uncomfortable. And I am not afraid of confrontation. Furthermore, I am sharing the Truth of God’s Word regularly. How is that different from having a Bonafide Gospel conversation?
My Continued Struggle
I have been wrestling with this for days.
I think I enjoy sharing the good news I find in God’s Word when it comes from my careful study. There seems to be a disconnect when I don’t feel like I am prepared. Or if I think I am going to say something wrong, it comes out like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Wat wat want wat want wat wan. Then I’m left thinking, what did I just say. I hope I didn’t say it wrong.
Just this morning, I read a passage in my daily bible reading that I am asking the Spirit to help me discern.
13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. (Luke 21:13–15, ESV)
Jesus said this to His disciples in the context of suffering they were going to be asked to endure. And He says He will give them a mouth and wisdom. His Spirit will take the Words of God that they have hidden in their heart, and that they know to be true, and bring them to mind at the moment they need them.
So why do I fear God is going to ask me to have a gospel conversation I’m not prepared for?
Even as I continue to wrestle with this, I am thanking God for continuing to work on me. He hasn’t given up on me. I take comfort in knowing, if I share the Truth, it is the Holy Spirit who runs with it. He’s the One who makes sense of the Gospel in the heart and mind of the hearer.
That brings me to #6 in the list of who we are in Christ by His Spirit.
Sixth – Joined in Prayer 8:26-27
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because[g] the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Prayer is a trinitarian exercise. Does that sound like a big word? By this I mean the three persons of the Godhead are all involved. God the Father, God the Son, and the sometimes-forgotten God – the Holy Spirit. I don’t completely understand the Trinity. I have heard people refer to an egg and all sorts of other 3 in 1 comparisons, but nothing really explains the perfect unity of purpose that exists within the Godhead.
This I do know: we have access to God our Father through His Son and by His Spirit. It’s the Spirit who has made His home in us to dwell in us. He comes to our aid and bears us up in the ambiguity of this already, not yet existence.
Because we do not always know God’s will or even how to offer a prayer for deliverance in a worthy manner, the Spirit Himself goes and pleads on our behalf. He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. These are wordless sighs and utterances of yearning. He could put them into words. He is capable of doing so -but chooses not to.
It seems the One who searches hearts already knows the mind of the Spirit and what His intent is. Because the Spirit intercedes and pleads for God’s children according to the will of God, everything we are asked to endure gets worked out into something good that makes us more like Christ until we are made completely like Him in our future glorification.
In the meantime, please join me for the willingness to pray for more of heaven here and now as we share Truth the Holy Spirit will use to increase the global kingdom.
Seventh – Called with Purpose 8:28-30
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[h] for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Everyone loves Romans 8:28. Every detail of our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Knowing God has a positive purpose for every negative thing in this life helps us endure it a little longer. However, this verse is connected to those that follow. And we seem to have a harder time with those.
Maybe we would be okay if these verses skipped foreknew and predestined and started with us being called…as in a people called out by name for a purpose. But called comes in the middle of a chain that begins with being foreknown and predestined and ends with being justified and glorified. Foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified are all connected and cannot be separated.
In trying to make this clearer, I can accept there are things we cannot understand as finite and fallen creatures. I am going to try to share this based on what I have studied and know to be true. And I am happy for you to comment respectfully and tell me what you think.
To foreknow simply means to know beforehand, in advance of its happening. God is eternal, He has no beginning. I don’t really understand the eternal nature of God. I can somewhat understand eternity future because I talk about it more and look forward to it, but who understands that God had no beginning?
However, if/ since I (and you) accept His eternality as Truth, of course, we must accept He knew what would happen before it happened. In his commentary on Romans, John Stott says, in the context of the covenant God made with Abraham -to call a people to Himself, being foreknown is equivalent to being foreloved. It is more than intellectual cognition; it includes a personal relationship of care and affection.
That brings us to predestined, which means to decide beforehand.
Maybe our problem is not that God foreknew but rather when did He decide to shape the lives of those whom He foreloved? Asking when something happened assumes a time. God knew before time was created and He also decided before time was created. He was the one who created time -not because He needed it (this goes back to His eternal nature), but so that His creation would have order.
Before answering when, the question we should ask is what.
What did God decide? He decided He wanted to set apart a people of His own whom He foreknew and foreloved with a sovereign, distinguishing, and divine love. Because Christ decided for us first, that made it possible for us then to freely decide for Him. What glorifies Him is when His people love Him -the people He made a covenant with and called by name – when we, His people, freely choose to love Him, He is most glorified.
When we give thanks that He awakened our faith while we were otherwise helplessly and hopelessly dead, and when we pray for the new birth of others because we want them to be spiritually alive also, then we are acknowledging God is sovereign over salvation. After He gets us in a right standing with Himself, He sticks with us to finish what He started until it is completed.
We are nearing the end of the chapter, so hold on. These last verses will not disappoint.
Eighth – Loved Beyond Comprehension 8:31-39
1 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be[i] against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.[j] 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
WOW! Don’t you just feel like raising your hands with a holy Hallelujah!
What Paul is saying here at the end is this -since God is on our side, there is no enemy who can successfully oppose us. When we get confused about how God works or what He is doing, we only need to look to the Cross. If God was willing to give up His own Son, there is nothing He would withhold from us that He determines is for our good.
Let’s take it back to the beginning of this conversation that started last week. God declared us not guilty and now no one can ever condemn us. In case you need a reminder, it is Christ Jesus who died to pay the penalty we deserved. Then He conquered death when He was raised to life. Now He is in God’s presence at this very moment, effectively going before our Father on our behalf.
Let’s not ever get over this kind of love.
Sure, while we are still in this sin sick world, there are horrific evils and persecutions that those without God will try to use to separate us. Because they hate Him, they try to pick us off one by one. But not even the worst thing they can come up with will succeed.
Because Christ loves us, we have already won! I am absolutely convinced beyond any doubt that NOTHING in all of the universe will come between us and the love God has for us. Because of the way Jesus, our Messiah and Master, has embraced us, we are champions!
As I soak this in, I never want to get over it. And I don’t want you to either. May the Truth of these Words from God continue to give us Courage for our Journey!
