Page 6 - Good News March 2019 paper

an God love someone like me? Does this hugging embrace, and I heard
question ever trouble you? Perhaps it comes
Cup in those quiet moments when you're all
alone. Maybe there was a time - in your childhood
years, perhaps - when you could believe that God
really did love you. But that was… before thoughts
of God were overrun by the alluring pleasures and
entertainments or athletic ambitions the world
offered you… before the molestation… before that
first sexual tryst in high school or college… before
the abortion… before pornography became an
obsession… before secret sin took over and began
to dominate your life… before you crossed lines and
engaged in things you swore you'd never do.
Whatever IT was that happened, it's now a mountain
between you and God. If He ever loved you, it seems
impossible to believe He could now. I remember all
too well being in that place. My carefully with my sin, my selfishness, my
constructed life was demolished in quick fashion
when my secret sexual behaviours came to light. I
lost my job in ministry, lost my treasured pristine
reputation, severely damaged my marriage and
wound up exiled to a programme for sexual addicts
in rural Kentucky. I wasn't just lost; I was a 38-year
old Loser at the lowest point in my life. Years of self-
love had left me hardened outwardly and hollow
inwardly.
One day, shortly after my unceremonious arrival at
the Pure Life Ministries Residential Programme, I
took a walk out on the ridge, to the place where a
hand-hewn wooden cross stands amidst a small
grove of cedar trees, and sat down on the bench
overlooking the cross.
I began to pray. I told God how miserable and
wretched I was. I confessed sexual sins, sins of
deception, sins against others, sins against Him,
sins too shameful to speak of here. I told Him how
wrong I was; how sad I was; how lonely I was; how I
felt like a failure my whole life; how nobody really
loved me and I couldn't blame them. I lost track of
time but I'm sure I spent at least 30 minutes babbling
on and on, admitting to God precisely how
disgusting, vile and wretched I was. At some point, a
vague memory came to mind of some preacher
saying I shouldn't do all the talking but should allow
God opportunity to speak when I'm praying.
So I paused in pouring out my heart to God and said,
“Sorry Lord; I've been doing all the talking.” (In my
thinking, this was just one more failure to add to the
list.) “Do You have anything You want to say to me?”
It's hard to put into words what happened when I
asked that question. But somehow, I felt - in a very
literal way - the arms of God Himself draw me into a
Him say with perfect clarity in my
heart, “I love you.”
That was it for me. He won my
heart! I had just spent a good half-
hour or more telling the Lord all
the reasons why no one could
possibly love me, why HE
shouldn't love me or even have
anything to do with me. And how
did He respond? What did He
want to say to me about all of this?
“I love you.”
Friend, that's what He wanted me
to know above all else. Oh, to be
sure, He fully intended to deal
pride and self-righteousness, my
unfaithfulness, my utter lack of from this profound statement about love.
respect for His Word. But first, I
needed to know a very, very vital Our Love for God: While it's easy to sing “I love you
piece of the puzzle that I had long Lord” while participating in the congregational
been overlooking: He loves me. hymns and worship songs of the church, and
perhaps even to utter the words in prayer now and
Because of God's Love… again, the truth for most of us is that we do not love
There's a story in Genesis that God - at least, not like we ought to. Not like Jacob
helps to make the love of God loved Rachel. If we did, then years of serving Him
come alive for me. Perhaps you would seem as nothing more than a few days to us.
remember how Jacob deceived He would truly be the centre of our affections. Doing
Isaac and stole his brother's what we know would be pleasing to Him, wouldn't be
inheritance, then fled to the such a struggle. Obeying Him wouldn't seem
distant home of his mother's burdensome or restrictive. It would be exhilarating!
relatives. In exile, Jacob wound If you spent time studying Scripture about what it
up agreeing to tend the flocks of means to truly love God, you just might discover that
his Uncle Laban. He also your love for Him is pretty weak and superficial. If
happened to fall in love with that is the case, the best response is to begin by
Rachel, Laban's younger confessing that truth to God. Be honest. Be sincere.
daughter. Pour your heart out to Him! He can handle the truth.
And He can help you change!
Soon enough, the arrangement
was made that he would work for God's Love for Us: There's another side to this
Laban for seven years, at the end divine portrait of love between Jacob and Rachel.
of which time Rachel would This passage also provides great insight into the
become his wife. Here's how the Father's love. God does love you! What if it meant
Scriptures summarize Jacob's serving seven years for you? Would He do it? Yes,
years of toil: “So Jacob served He's willing. And He proved it by coming as the
seven years for Rachel, and they Servant-of-All for us (Mark 10:44-45). Would He
seemed only a few days to him serve seven years? I suspect He would serve
because of the love he had for seventy-times-seven years. In fact, He would give
her” (Genesis 29:20). Wow! “… His whole life. He did give His whole life: “For God so
and they seemed only a few days loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
to him because of the love he had that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
for her.” Can you imagine love like have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Let these familiar
that? words become full of NEW meaning to you!
There are two sides to consider - Ed Buch, Pure Life Ministries, 2018