Sometimes I forget that God loves me.
Or, to be honest, I choose not to believe that He does.
I look at my daily failures, at my favored sins of pride and anger—and I think that I must be such a disappointment to God. Yes, He saved me, but look at what a mess I have turned out to be. I know the Bible says He loves us, but if He loves me it’s in the way you love that relative who gets under your skin but you have to love them because they’re family. Elevating my internal insecurities over Scripture, I twist my theology to fit around the faltering way that I love people—with a love that comes up short.
When I first stepped under the umbrella of reformed theology, I put the overemphasized notion of God’s love in an old cardboard box. I wrote, “remember, God is holy” across the top and pushed it to the back corner of the closet of my theology. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, the battle cry of American Christianity was becoming a lullaby of God’s soft, permissive love for us. In an effort to avoid the fuzzy, warm Santa version of God, I’ve leaned so hard on His other attributes—His holiness, His justice, His wrath, even His grace—that I’ve forgotten He loves me. When you box up a piece of His character that you struggle with, you end up with an incomplete and imbalanced view of God.
Last week I was studying Psalm 107 for a Bible study that I lead on Thursdays. If you’ve not read Psalm 107, read it here before continuing. This psalm highlights God’s steadfast love for His people, who (as the psalm references) were scattered to the north, south, east, and west in exile. These are the people of Judah, the remnant of the tribe through whom God was supposed to keep His promise of a coming King who would bless all the people of the earth. But the people are in dire, destitute circumstances. They’re wandering with no home (Jerusalem had been destroyed), they’re in prison and broken down with hard labor (exile), they’re suffering affliction for their own foolishness (I totally understand this), and they’re lost at sea in a storm (probably sailing with little experience for their foreign rulers). All of the situations come as a result of judgment for their rebellion to God. It’s all bad, and it’s all of their own doing.
Yet, the people cry out to God. And God, in steadfast love, answers their cries and rescues them. This love that is heralded in Psalm 107 (and in many other psalms and OT passages), is a specific kind of love that is generally only attributed to God’s covenant love for His people[1]. Checed or hesed comes across in English as loyal love, steadfast love, loving-kindness, faithful love, mercy, goodness. God identified Himself with this kind of love in Exodus 34:6-7. This kind of love is anchored in His character so that no matter what Israel’s circumstances might be, no matter how catastrophic, uncertain, or tumultuous, God’s loyal love would not fail them. And as Psalm 107 illustrates, no matter how foolish, sinful, rebellious, or desperate they are, God’s covenant love meant that He would keep His promises to them. So when He plucked these scattered remnants up out of their dire wanderings, prisons, and afflictions, He was expressing steadfast love to them. And to us. He was keeping His promise to send Jesus.
I was in the middle of explaining the concept of God’s steadfast love to the ladies in my Bible study when I found I couldn’t talk around the knot in my throat. God hasn’t changed. We who belong to Christ have been grafted into His family. He predestined us for salvation, and with His covenant love He saved us. He rescued us from our prison of sin and broke the bonds of our slavery to it. He is committed to me and to you with faithful, loyal, steadfast love that will not break any promises. In saving the people of Judah, He was being good to us. He was preparing the way to send Jesus who would save us from our foolishness, our failures, our inability to grasp the truth that His love transcends our tawdry ideas of it.
He doesn’t love me because I’m lovable. He loves me because He is committed to loving me, because He loved me before I knew what love was. This love doesn’t hinge upon my inability to live up to it. This isn’t second-class, step-child love. This is unfailing, never-stopping, you-were-my-enemy-but-now-you’re-My-daughter kind of love.
He doesn’t love me because I’m lovable. He loves me because He is committed to loving me, because He loved me before I knew what love was. Share on XNo matter how I fail Him, His love remains unchanged. I knew it first when He loved me while I was still a sinner. I know it now because He is invested in my sanctification. Peter said, “Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little” (1 Pet. 5:10). Personal involvement in my becoming like Jesus isn’t a darkened cornered of the closet kind of love. Keeping His promise to love those who are His with an everlasting love doesn’t lessen His holiness or dampen His sovereignty. Rather, it paints a bigger picture of just how low He bends to express His faithful love to the people He has foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified (Rom. 8:29-30). His people may not keep their covenant to Him, but He keeps His promise to love His people.
Sometimes we know this with our heads, but we can’t feel it with our hearts. So we forget it. We believe the other side of it. We wonder if it was ever true that God loved us. We wonder if digging out the box from the corner of the closet will tip the scales of His other attributes too much.
The truth is, God is more than we can comprehend no matter how we try to balance His attributes evenly. We can line them up in a row an equal distance apart. But He’ll still be more than we can handle. More than we can capture in a phrase, a verse, or a metaphor. His steadfast love will be more than we can swallow when we pair it with His holiness. His wrath isn’t eclipsed by His mercy, but it is satisfied with Jesus’ sacrifice. We’ll never earn the favor He gives us in a deluge of grace upon grace upon grace. He just won’t fit in the tight perimeters of qualifiers we give Him. Thankfully, He won’t fit. We don’t have to worry about whether we think He’s holy enough to counterbalance our view of His love. He is sufficiently and sovereignly all the things He has revealed Himself to be.
Steadfast love, loyal love, faithful love. This is the love with which He loves His own. It’s enemy-turned-heir love. It’s hostile-turned-beloved love. It’s love that transfers from darkness to light. It cannot be fractured by any catastrophe or failing. It cannot even be severed by death. I love the stillness of soul that comes under the covering of reformed theology. But I don’t have to sacrifice one aspect of God’s character to hold up another. It’s okay to pull the box out of the closet. When we root our thoughts about God in Scripture, then His attributes aren’t diminished in light of one another. Rather, they gleam brighter in a glory that cannot be contained.
Yes, remember, God is holy. Remember that He is holy so that you can grasp the gift of His love.
Yes, remember, God is holy. Remember that He is holy so that you can grasp the gift of His love. Share on XFor further reading:
Genesis 12
2 Samuel 7
Psalm 107
Romans 8:1-11
Romans 8:29-39
Colossians 1:13-21
1 Peter 5:10
1 John 4:7-21
[1] Checed is used to explain the kind of loyal love between best friends David and Jonathan, but otherwise it is used in reference to God.
Read part one of this short series on Psalm 107.
Photo by Aung Soe Min on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
This is the post that stopped the raging darkness in my soul. Yes. He loves me. Even me. Beautiful.