God’s Love Has Nothing to Do With Us
“For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off” Isaiah 48:9.
It occurred to me as I read this that this idea of deferring His anger for His name’s sake is related to the idea that we love because He first loved us. In other words He doesn’t love us because of anything in us. It’s because of good that’s in Him.
That’s why He doesn’t love us more on our good days or less on our bad days. Because His love for us has NOTHING to do with us. It’s all about Him. He doesn’t love us with eros or romantic love which is based on something good in the loved.
To read this passage for context, click here.
For example, we fall in love because of lovely qualities in the Loved. It might be that they’re good looking or intelligent or caring. But if they didn’t have these qualities we wouldn’t be in love with them.
Something Good In the Lover
God on the other hand, loves us with agape love which is based on something good in the Lover. He loves us because of HIS infinite understanding and compassion.
For instance, I love my cats despite the fact that it’s always all about them. They never come and sit in my lap for my benefit. It’s only because THEY are in the mood for affection. And as soon as that mood subsides they are long gone, regardless of what I may want.
Everything they do is all about gaining some advantage for themselves whether it’s rubbing up on me, or following me around the house, or “talking” to me. But I don’t love them any less because of that. Because I understand that’s their nature. They can’t help it. It’s who they are.
And in the same way “. . .God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8. Apart from the Spirit of God we are utterly depraved and broken and selfish. If we have anything good in us whatsoever, it’s the Spirit of God in us. It’s not us.
God’s Love: A Parent’s Love
This is also the kind of love a parent has for his child, which is why God describes himself as a Father. My children could never cause me to stop loving them, no matter what they do.
And one of my sons has pretty much done it all. Things have improved now, but for a long time we had a very tumultuous relationship.
He was overtly disrespectful. He often wouldn’t even respond when I spoke to him. When He was angry he called me names and actively encouraged his siblings to treat me with contempt.
He damaged the lower level of my home when he was living there rent free as a down and out twenty something. He smoked down there even after I told him not too many times. There was garbage (from the garbage can) all over the floor. And when it flooded down there he wouldn’t even help me clean it up.
And perhaps the coup de grasse was I had to move out of my own house for three weeks because he refused to leave when I told him to. And at the time the police would’ve sided with him because of the law that said I couldn’t kick him out despite the fact he didn’t pay rent and damaged the property.
God’s Love: And Yet
These are just a few examples. In essence he was the most disrespectful, hostile, unloving son on the planet. And yet. And yet I continued to love him and pray for him and fast for him and buy him things and let him live with me.
Why did I do these things? Because I still loved him despite his flaws. Why did I continue to love him? It certainly wasn’t related to anything good in him. How could it be? (This is not to say I SHOULD have done some of these things for him, but that’s another blog post).
Agape Love
It was because of the agape love God put in my heart for him as his mother. AND THIS IS JUST HOW GOD IS TOO. Again, that’s why He calls himself a FATHER.
In fact, I’m convinced that the reason I had to go through this for so long was to teach me this principle. I sorely needed to learn this because of the trauma I experienced from my infancy on. I needed to experience this firsthand so I could learn that the way I loved him is the way God loves me.
To read another post related to God’s Love Has Nothing To Do With Us, see Narrow Is the Road: Raging Emotions and Self-Control.