God's Love > My Love

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Every day after school my grandfather let me have the tallest stack of Oreos. He would bring me fancy pastries from the bakery, and let me get ice cream when we went out to eat. On birthdays and Christmas, Grandpa always gave us cash, which is strangely cool when you’re eight (or eighteen). Once when I was older, he confessed that he never thought he would live to see his grandchildren, and he just loved to see me smile.

I loved my grandfather’s love  – he was wildly generous and never said no.

When I was young and unfamiliar with struggle and suffering, I pictured God’s love like my grandfather’s – that He just wanted me to smile, and so He would make my path all sunshine and rainbows.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Torben Hansen, Creative Commons

If I try to understand God’s love from my own human understanding and experience of love, I will miss it.  My love is so human – it’s often self-serving and self-protecting, usually reciprocal and measured; my love is careful and simple.

God’s love is so much more. God doesn’t love how I think He should or how I expect Him to – He loves according to His character, according to who He is. Certainly God’s love is sweet and tender, gentle and patient. His love is also furious and jealous, relentlessly seeking my holiness over my happiness; it’s fierce and overwhelming as often as it is tender and gentle. He loves me just as fiercely in the stormy seasons as in the rainbow-filled ones; the rain and the sunshine are both products of His grace.

The Bible often addresses God’s love directly: God’s love is so wide, long, deep and high, it surpasses all knowing (Ephesians 3:18-19). He loves us even though there is nothing about us that makes us love-worthy (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). Nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:37-39). He loves us when we are still sinners, completely unable to approach His holiness (Romans 5:8). He loves us so much that He made a way for us to come near and have a relationship with Him, and to live with Him eternally, through Jesus, His only Son, who paid the debt for our sin on the cross (John 3:16)! There are verses in Psalms that speak to the nature of God’s love: it is unfailing (13:5), it reaches to the heavens (36:5), it is priceless (36:7), it is better than life (63:3), His love is good (69:16), it delivers us (86:13), it stands firm (89:2) it supports us (94:18).

In other places, scripture speaks to God’s love descriptively, narrating stories that show and explain His love. The prophets spoke of God’s love for Israel in metaphors and pictures, like a bridegroom loving a bride (Isaiah), and like a husband tenaciously loving a wayward wife (Hosea). Jesus’ love is tangible when He heals the sick (for example, Luke 5:12-16), graces sinners with unimaginable favor (Luke 5:27-32, Luke 7:36-50), and brings the dead back to life (Luke 7:11-17, John 11:1-44). Jesus even explained His love using parables, like the stories of the lost coin, the lost sheep and the prodigal son (Luke 15).

The entirety of the Bible, the grand story from beginning to end, reveals God’s love: He desires to be with us, and though we push Him aside and attempt to go our own way, He knows we will be ultimately unfulfilled without Him. So He provides a way back at great cost to Himself. Though we live through stormy days, He is purifying our faith (1 Peter 1:6-7) while we wait for Him to come and claim His bride.

God’s love is entirely too much to be caught up in a few words, in one verse, one story, one book. Even if we search the entirety of His Word and live one hundred years walking with Him, we will only know of His love in part (1 Corinthians 13:12). It’s too much to be defined, nailed down, categorized, labeled, or charted. It’s unpredictable. It’s unexpected. It’s wild and untamed. He loves us to our benefit, He loves us sacrificially (John 3:16), He loves us knowing the whole story and our part in it (Ephesians 2:10, Romans 8:28), He loves us too much to leave us a mess (Hosea 14:4).

God’s love is not always comfortable; it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes it’s gritty, and fiery and decidedly uncomfortable. But no other love will bring us to wholeness and maturity or offer any motivation to truly love others.

God’s love is so much greater than our love. As He shows us His love, let’s strive to love others with love like His.

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17

[Robin Bupp is married to Caleb, and they are from many places east of the Mississippi (but are calling Michigan home for the foreseeable future). A former high school science teacher, Robin is slowly turning the two Bupp kiddos into tiny nerds while they teach her lots of things, including humility and patience.]

Why You Shouldn't Volunteer at Church

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are reflections on Sunday's message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/messages-media]

Churches need volunteers. This isn’t exactly a secret. At Encounter, volunteers brew the coffee, play instruments and sing, teach children, host Bible studies, collect the offering, and so much more. Without the many people who do all these things, the day-to-day operations of Encounter would look very different—arguably, Encounter as we know it would cease to function. 

Photo Credit: Flickr User Anton Sim, Creative Commons

As crucial as volunteers are, though, I think there are some compelling reasons why you should not volunteer at Encounter:

1) You should not volunteer out of guilt.
2) You should not volunteer if you feel obligated to.
3) You should not volunteer if you’re trying to earn grace. 

Galatians 2 tells the story of when Paul and his companions Barnabas and Titus went to Jerusalem. Some false believers had infiltrated the ranks there, trying to, as Paul puts it, “spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.” These false believers were telling Gentile (non-Jewish) people that they had to be circumcised in order to follow Christ. They were stuck on the rules, and were trying to insist that others follow their rules as well. Paul goes on to rebuke the Galatians, saying, “After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?”

The Galatians were coercing people to act out of obligation, guilt, and the false belief that they had to act in order to receive grace. In reality, the Christian faith is built on the idea that we are incapable of saving ourselves through anything we do, which is why we’re so in need of a Savior. 

What can be done is to freely give of our time and energy as a response to his grace. Outwardly, the actions may look exactly the same, but the inward attitude makes all the difference. If we’re continually serving only out of obligation or guilt, we’re not living into the grace God has freely given us. We’re taking a good gift and trying to pay it back—which we not only don’t have to do, we can’t do. There is no magic number of hours volunteered that will “pay God back” for grace. It can’t be done. God doesn’t want his people serving out of obligation and guilt, but out of freedom as respond to what he’s done.

This doesn’t mean there won’t be times when it feels like we’re serving for the wrong reason. After a stressful week, getting to church early may not be first on the list of things we want to do. But if it’s a persistent feeling of obligation, guilt, or (perhaps even subconsciously) trying to earn grace, it could be time to step back and re-evaluate. Hopefully, with some prayer and reflection, God will change our motivations to what they should be—a response to what he’s already done for us. 

So I don’t think all the volunteers at Encounter should send in their resignation this week. There are a lot of really wonderful reasons to volunteer at church. You should volunteer at Encounter if: 

1) You are looking to respond to the work God has done in your life by serving others.
2) You have gifts that can benefit the community and you want to share them.
3) You are thankful for the grace God has given and want to give back as an expression of that thankfulness.

What other reasons would you add?

[Brianna DeWitt believes in Jesus, surrounding yourself with good people, and that desserts are best when they involve chocolate and peanut butter. She writes about faith, growing up, and whatever else pops into her head on her own blog, and tweets (largely about food) at @bwitt722.]