“I have loved you,” says the LORD. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’” Malachi 1:2
When I was a young bride I secretly wondered if Bruce really loved me. I was an emotional abyss that required constant reminders of his love. Many times I would tearfully question his affection, requiring him to verbally recount the ways he loved me. He was always patient with my needs and cautious with my heart. I would tend to forget the daily loving actions and my hungry heart would begin wondering again…how has he loved me? The issue I had to work out in my mind and heart was that I he did love me, and everything out of that love was true and secure.
Spiritually speaking, we also have to settle in our minds once and for all that God loves us. The suffering of life is not from a God whose love is fickle but from sin whose arms are long. It is because of God’s love that He takes what sin demands and turns it to our benefit. It is because of God’s love that we are able to love the unlovely and forgive the undeserving. It is because of God’s covenant love with our ancestors that we are in a covenant relationship with Him. It is because of God’s love that He surrendered His own Son through torture and shame so that we might live. ‘God’s love for us makes our relationship with Him possible. “We love because he first loved us (John 4:19). The foundation of our relationship with God is not our FAITH – though faith is essential; it is God’s love. Everything begins with God.’ The Applied Old Testament Commentary, p. 1311.
So the next time we shake our fists to heaven, we had better be ready to recount the ways that we have loved Him.
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