13. Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. (NASB)
13. He is like a father to us,
tender and sympathetic to those who reverence him. (Living)
Wisdom is buried in popular culture as many a short trite cliché. As an example, the search toward subjective salvation has been a forever “bone of contention” in the church. There is very little confusion amongst we Christians as to what God has objectively accomplished in history. There are, however, three questions that have proven to be contentious over the last two thousand years.
Who is worthy of God’s love? Some would say and have said that political institutions and the church establishment are somehow favored by God. It has never worked. Please remember the religious establishment of Jesus’s time, the Emperor Constantine, the centuries of dominance by the papacy, the state church’s of Europe, and America’s recent attempts at stirring the pot of religion and politics, they have all muddied the waters.
How is God’s Love accessed? The universal answer is by faith. We humans insist it can’t be that simple and give it additives. Some have added church membership, baptism, an ethic, prosperity, worship peculiarities, a “special” calling or language. Everything is possible and most all have been tried. The assumption is that if you are a person of faith, God will bless the whatever. The Bible and church history do not document this assumption but rather laugh at our attempts to be God. Martin Luther said it at one time in his ministry, faith alone.
What does it look like to experience His love? Is there such an animal as a normative Christian? Jose says no way! We humans are genetically, culturally and socially diverse beings who experience life differently. God’s love is not a cookie cutter. He takes each of us and melts us into beings who become pliable enough to do His will, not necessarily the will handed down from worldly authority figures including the church. We should allow our brothers the liberty to discover the God sent expression in this life for each individual.
The Psalmist compares this people side of salvation to a Fathers love for his children. Scriptural father’s and today’s fathers have feeling’s for their children, we want the best for them. As fathers, even when our motives are right, we are far less than perfect. Please read the biblical stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they struggled as we do. God’s love is the only perfect representation of fatherhood.
Should we not seek His love first and foremost? Yes, if we fear Him. Again, to fear God is to respect or reverence Him as the perfect Father that He is. The Prodigal son of scripture had a case of the gimme’s. The Father let him go with half the family inheritance, waiting for the time when “he would come to his senses”, and return to the family. We must only ask respectfully by
faith and then keep trusting the Father who knows best.
G.Goslaw
September 17, 2009
