Assured of His Love
It is all to easy to question God’s love when suffering knocks at you door.
It’s easy to think “If God truly loved me why would this happen?“ “If God cared about me why wouldn’t he give me what I desire with all my heart?” Mollie and I have often had these questions and wrestled with frustration over why God would allow these things to happen. In times like these with impossible questions like these I am so grateful for our Good Sheperds word. We have to remember that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) We have to remember that we are but vapor and dust. (James 4:14/Psalm 103:14-16) God tells us through Solomon not to be wise in our own eyes but to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…” (Prov. 3:5) There is no amount of thinking or talking or questioning that will ever give me the answer as to whether or not God truly loves me.
If I look to my circumstances to gauge His love for me His love would appear to be constantly changing, but I know my God and “His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 136) And if I’m always searching for God’s love in the circumstances of my life I even become tempted to wonder if He is punishing me for my sin by bringing me suffering. ”Can I not have healthy children because of my past sin?” I was reminded yesterday by a beloved brother that Christ has taken the punishment for all my sins. God is just and He would not demand a double payment for my sin. Christ has cried out “it is finished.” (John 19:30)
So where do I go, what do I do? If I have no wisdom in my heart and if I can’t look to my circumstances to tell me if God truly loves me what can? I am learning we must look to God’s word and His word alone for assurance of His love, in His word there is wisdom unlike in my heart, and His word NEVER CHANGES unlike my circumstances. So as a reminder to myself and as an encouragement to anyone reading I wanted to share my reflections of God’s love for me, on my growing assurance of His love that I have found only in His word.
Think of Christ, sinned against daily by those He created, He knows suffering. Think of Christ, leaving His Fathers side, He knows suffering. Think of Christ, mocked by those He came to save, He knows suffering. Think of Christ, rejected by His closest companions in His greatest hour of need, He knows suffering. Think of Christ, in the Garden, asking that His suffering might be removed. Over and over He returned to the Father “take this cup of suffering from me” He asked. He asked His Father who has loved Him perfectly to remove the greatest suffering ever endured and the answer was no. The Father knows what it is to say no to a Son whom He loves, the Son knows what it is to be told no by the Father. My point is that Jesus knows the agony of the cup of suffering not being removed, He is not impartial or incapable of compassion to our suffering. Who is there that would better understand our sorrows, would He not hear His own cry echoed in ours? Would He not be the one person most desirous of granting us this plea? I say then with the greatest confidence that His love for me must be very great. The benefit of this suffering must be very great to me, Christ who knows what it is to suffer would not waste my suffering. If He was told no and now He has the power to tell me yes why would He not? It is because the blessing of this suffering is far better for me than the blessing of my comfort. He loves me enough to let me suffer, to remember Himself being told no, to consider his power to remove this cup from me and yet to sustain it.
The same exact situation is played out for us in scripture with the apostle Paul. He pleaded with the Lord to take away his thorn in the flesh, “But he said to me,(Paul)“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:8) It is hard to accept, often I wish that God would just give me the comfort I desire, but He loves me to much to withhold His blessing from me. Christ’s power is being made perfect in us during suffering, we are being conformed to the image of Christ in our suffering, the scales of this world fall from our eyes and we get a clearer vision of the hope of Heaven in our suffering. What a precious gift!
So Mollie and I are not less sure of God’s love when we suffer, we are more sure than ever. We are so thankful for our Shepherds word of truth which helps us to understand this impossible situation and we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:2) I hope to make this clear, Mollie and I are not special or strong, we are faithless and weak, we are mist and dust, like every other person, just like you. We are only upheld by the grace and strength God provides, and so with the Apostle Paul we boast in our weakness, for when we are weak, then we are strong.
I want to assure you dear Christian, cast far from you the accusations of Satan that God does not love you, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8) God’s “steadfast love endures forever.” God has “forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”(Col 2:13-14) I want to assure you dear brother or sister that God’s power will be made perfect in you in your weakness, if you face trials and suffering God will be faithful to you to strengthen you (Isaiah 41:10) Look with us to God’s word alone for assurance of His love, if your faith is in Christ alone I assure you beloved, you will find it there.
Prayer Requests
Please pray that we would look to God’s word alone for assurance of His love
Please pray that we would continue to be humbled by the Lord and our prideful hearts would be replaced with the heart of Christ
Please pray that God would give us strength to care for William and that God would protect his health as we are in and out of the hospital
Psalm 131
“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.
