NOTHING can separate us from the LOVE OF GOD (Romans 8:38-39)...but WE can separate OUSELVES from the WILL OF GOD.
Hosea 8 NKJV
1 "Set the trumpet to your mouth! He shall come like an eagle against the house of the Lord, Because they have transgressed My covenant And rebelled against My law. 2 Israel will cry to Me, 'My God, we know You!' 3 Israel has rejected the good; The enemy will pursue him. 4 "They set up kings, but not by Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge them. From their silver and gold They made idols for themselves-- That they might be cut off. 5 Your calf is rejected, O Samaria! My anger is aroused against them-- How long until they attain to innocence? 6 For from Israel is even this: A workman made it, and it is not God; But the calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces. 7 "They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud; It shall never produce meal. If it should produce, Aliens would swallow it up. 8 Israel is swallowed up; Now they are among the Gentiles Like a vessel in which is no pleasure. 9 For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey alone by itself; Ephraim has hired lovers. 10 Yes, though they have hired among the nations, Now I will gather them; And they shall sorrow a little, Because of the burden of the king of princes. 11 "Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin, They have become for him altars for sinning. 12 I have written for him the great things of My law, But they were considered a strange thing. 13 For the sacrifices of My offerings they sacrifice flesh and eat it, But the Lord does not accept them. Now He will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. They shall return to Egypt. 14 "For Israel has forgotten his Maker, And has built temples; Judah also has multiplied fortified cities; But I will send fire upon his cities, And it shall devour his palaces."
The list of verses and passages throughout Scripture which denote DISOBEDIENCE and its CONSEQUENCES are SO EXTENSIVE that attempting to even BEGIN to list them seems fruitless. Yet…we find that the LOVE of God for us is EVERLASTING. But many in the Church fail to recognize that the EXTENT of God’s LOVE does not measure our RELATIONSHIP with God.
God has and DOES love every human that He has ever created! Hitler…Saddam Hussein…Mussolini…Jack the Ripper…the Boston Strangler…Jeffrey Dahmer…child molesters…rapists…murderers…sexual deviants…adulterers…liars…racists…ME…and YOU!
God “so love the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). And, as Romans 8 tells us, NOTHING can separate us from that love! No matter what we do…no matter how sinful we are…God LOVES us. Jesus didn’t die for good people: Jesus died for SINFUL people. And the Bible tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)
But…and this is CRUCIAL to understand…God’s LOVE for us does not translate into SALVATION for us. God loves us whether we get SAVED or whether we remain a SINNER! The LOVE of God never ceases…it never changes! You see…Jesus died so that ALL may have life…and that ALL includes EVERYONE! Jesus died for us whether we love Him back or not!
The Bible tells us that it is God’s WILL that EVERY PERSON come to know and accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The Bible says:
“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV)
This text PLAINLY STATES the WILL OF GOD: that God is “not willing that any should perish.” Yet, here is a fact of history (life past), a fact of life (life present), and a fact of generations (life future): not EVERYONE has…or is…or will…accept Jesus as Savior and Lord. Thus, we KNOW that God does not ALWAYS get what He wants. Notice in the passage quoted at the beginning from Hosea…when, in verse 4, we find God saying “They set up kings, but not by me.” You see…what God DESIRED was NOT FOLLOWED by the Israel. The Bible is an OVERWHELMING display of God’s WILL being ignored by humanity…WITH the very EXISTENCE of DISOBEDIENCE being the mark of a CREATION which chooses to DISOBEY the WILL OF GOD.
How do we reconcile that God CAN DO ANYTHING and that GOD IS SOVEREIGN with the existence of DISOBEDIENCE?
We could/can NEVER truly understand what I call the WHY’S of God. We do know this: God is God…and He can do ANYTHING that He wants…and NOTHING can happen unless God ALLOWS it.
But…we must ALSO recognize THIS truth: that God often does not WANT what He ALLOWS!
Follow me here: The Word of God in its entirety shows us a God Who is ONLY:
GOOD
HOLY
RIGHTEOUS
MORAL
TRUE
LIGHT
The list could go on and on.
There is no EVIL or UNHOLINESS or IMMORALITY or UNRIGHTEOUSNESS or LIE or DARKNESS in God! These are works of EVIL…and NOTHING which comes from God is EVER evil! Therefore…the WILL of God is ALWAYS for GOOD! God can NEVER desire EVIL for ANYONE.
Again…“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV)
Does that passage say that God wants “some” to perish and “some” to repent?!? Or does that passage say that God does not WILL anyone to PERISH?!?
You see…God loves us SO MUCH that He wants us SAVED. Regardless of our evil ways…no matter how evil we may get…God, through His Holy Spirit, STRIVES with us in an effort to GIVE us the FREE GIFT of eternal life. That love took Jesus to a CROSS…the ULTIMATE ACT of LOVE towards a depraved humanity! And Jesus did NOT WAIT until we were GOOD before He died for us: He died while we were UNLOVABLE and STILL SINNERS (Romans 5:8 NKJV “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”)
Understanding that God WANTS all of humanity to receive the free gift of SALVATION is THE essential truth of Scripture. But…again…what God WANTS is NOT always what He gets. Yes…God CAN do ANYTHING…and NOTHING can happen unless He chooses to ALLOW it. The old saying “God is in control.” is true…but only IF we APPLY it correctly.
The very fact that God IS in control is what means we MUST ACCEPT that God can CHOOSE whatever He wants! And…God can therefore CHOOSE to NOT CONTROL certain things!
There is an old question that said “Can God create a rock that He could not lift?” The answer, based on the LIMITLESS POWER of God is “No.” God can do NOTHING that in and of itself LIMITS His power. You see…if the ROCK could be so big that the ROCK limited God’s power…then it is the ROCK that would then be in control! Many say that it is THAT fact that means that EVERYTHING that happens is GOD’S WILL. But…that is NOT true!
You see…NO CREATION can LIMIT the power of God. But…God cannot TRULY limit His Own power either. Herein lies the misunderstanding of God…His power…and how He allows mankind to CHOOSE obedience or disobedience.
When God allows mankind to CHOOSE to obey…or to choose NOT to obey…God is NOT LIMITING His power. The POWER OF SALVATION has ALREADY BEEN MANIFEST in the DEATH of Jesus Christ! Jesus became “the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world.” The work of salvation is ALREADY DONE! There is NOTHING ELSE that God has to do!
Yet…Jesus made salvation a FREE GIFT. Notice that salvation is denoted in Scripture as PAID FOR…and that it is OFFERED to EVERYONE. But…we ALL know that NO ONE has to accept ANYTHING which is OFFERED. God WANTS us to accept His FREE GIFT…but He CHOOSES to allow us to make that CHOICE.
It is not EASY to mesh the TRUTHS that God can do ANYTHING…and God ALLOWS things…with the TRUTH that God gives us CHOICES. If we seek to cling to a God who CONTROLS every aspect of mankind on this earth….then we struggle with God giving mankind a CHOICE.
The fact is this: God CAN control EVERYTHING and ANYTHING…yet He CHOOSES not to. That in NO WAY makes God any LESS God. You see…it is GOD who CHOOSES to ALLOW mankind CHOICES! If it was MANKIND dictating to God what we can CHOOSE…then THAT would be UNBIBLICAL.
So…we see this: When GOD chooses to NOT CONTROL...then God made that choice…and THAT still keeps God as SOVEREIGN.
Maybe we will NEVER understand the ways of God completely. We OFTEN ask “Why did God allow that?”
We often fail to understand ONE ESSENTIAL TRUTH: If God did not ALLOW a sin in one area…then God could not ALLOW a sin in ANOTHER area.
Here is an example: A man is about to rape and murder a child. The Spirit of God does not WANT that child raped or murdered. (If you do not understand THAT truth of God…then you TOTALLY misunderstand God!) God NEVER wants ANYONE to sin…EVER! In this situation…the love of God is shown in His love for the CHILD…yet, it is also shown in His love for the RAPIST/MURDERER. God wants to save BOTH lives in this situation! God is URGING the man to NOT rape and murder…as He is PLEADING with the man to SPARE the life of the child. Truth: rape and murder are DISOBEDIENCE to the WILL of God!
Sin is ALWAYS disobedience to God’s WILL! We ONLY get SIN when we DISOBEY what God is wanting…and what God is wanting is GOD’S WILL in that situation!
We can…and MUST…NEVER attribute to GOD the works of SATAN! And…ANY disobedience is SIN and of the DEVIL! It was NOT God who urged Hitler to MURDER and SLAUGHTER the Jews in the Holocaust! It WAS God trying to change the heart of Hitler…in hopes that Hitler would find ETERNAL LIFE and that Hitler would NOT murder and slaughter ANYONE!
Some use the truth that God CAN CONTROL everything as a basis for saying that God DOES CONTROL everything. NOT TRUE! God did NOT control Hitler as He murdered MILLIONS…SATAN did!
But that leads many to ask “Then why would God permit such evil?” Let’s face it: that question is born out of a belief that HITLER’S sins are WORSE than OUR sins! You see…we NEVER seem to ask that question about sins that we see as LESS EVIL (do not get me wrong…in the realm of what is EVIL, I do believe that LYING is NOT as EVIL as the MURDER OF MILLIONS: but, BOTH are STILL SINS!) But…we do not go around asking (after we have lied)…”Why would God permit such lying?”
God PERMITTED…ALLOWED…Hitler to murder millions because God ALSO allows men and women everywhere to LIE and to CHEAT and to LUST and to STEAL and to HAVE PERVERSE SEX and to BEAR FALSE WITNESS…get the point?
God is NO LESS GOD because He allows CHOICE…and DISOBEDIENCE. It is ONLY GOD that can ALLOW CHOICE.
God’s ways are not OUR ways….not always. Sometimes we OBEY God…and sometimes we DISOBEY God. Sometimes we FOLLOW God’s WILL…and sometimes we DO NOT FOLLOW God’s WILL.
Joshua 22:5 NKJV
But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul."
2 Samuel 22:22 NKJV
For I have kept the ways of the Lord, And have not wickedly departed from my God.
Just as with these two passages, we are able to understand that the OPPOSITE of these two passages is an “understood” truth. In Joshua, we see the command “to walk in all His ways”…but the people eventually disobeyed and DID NOT “walk in all His ways.” And…in Samuel, any act which departs from the “ways of the Lord” is noted as something done “wickedly.”
Now…back to the beginning:
NOTHING can separate us from the LOVE OF GOD (Romans 8:38-39)...but WE can separate OUSELVES from the WILL OF GOD.
And…if we SEPARATE ourselves from the WILL of God…we enter into DISOBEDIENCE. And that DISOBEDIENCE can lead us to an ETERNAL SEPARATION from God.
God LOVES us all. God loves ME. And God loves YOU.
You can NEVER be separated from the LOVE of God…found in Christ Jesus. Find that LOVE of God…and then remain in the WILL of God.
Make GODLY, OBEDIENT choices.
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