First Faint Echo

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.  And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Genesis 3:7  

In Genesis 2:25, Adam and Eve were naked and felt no shame.  They felt no shame because there was no sin.  But by 3:7 they have sinned and now they feel shame in their nakedness.  

Satan had suggested to Eve that she was missing out, that God was holding back something she needed, that God could not be trusted.  Satan lied.  

What does sin bring Adam and Eve?  Exactly what sin brings us:  guilt, shame, fear, mistrust, alienation from God, rupture of relationships, the end of all joy and peace.  In a word, sin brings death.  

So much for Satan’s promise.  

Sin may look good but it hurts us.  It always hurts us.  Mark it down:  Sin will always hurt you, sooner or later.  Often it hurts others too.  

How did Adam and Eve respond to their shame?  Fig leaves.  They tried to hide behind fig leaves.  Trust and transparency had vanished.  Barriers went up.  And ever since Adam and Eve, we have all been wearing masks, hiding, posing, pretending, running from God, blaming others.   

Our only escape is the grace of God.  God alone can tear the walls down and set us free.  How does God set us free?  It takes blood.  It takes blood because someone has to die for sin.  So God threw away the fig leaves and clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins.  To get animal skins would require death and bloodshed and sacrifice, the first faint echo of a Savior, the first faint echo of a future day when God himself would shed his blood.  For you.  And for me.

The Deceiver

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.  He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Genesis 3:1

Genesis 1-2 gives no word of the battle.  We see God’s creation.  It was good.  God creates Adam.  Then he creates Eve.  The creation narrative ends with Adam and Eve naked and unashamed.  There is trust and transparency in paradise.  Things are very good.  

But wait!  Genesis 3 opens with a crafty snake who subtly suggests that God is not good and he cannot be trusted.  There is an enemy in paradise, an opponent of God, who turns out to be Satan.  

Satan comes to deceive and devour.  What is the satanic strategy?  Listen to his words to Eve:  “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”  

Can you hear the tone, the incredulity?  “I can’t believe it!  Has God really said that you can’t eat of any tree in the garden?  How unfair!”  

What is Satan doing?  He is suggesting that God is not good.  He is questioning God’s love for Eve.  He is casting doubt on God’s goodness to Adam and Eve.  He is insinuating that God is holding back something from Eve that she really needs.  

This is still the satanic strategy.  Satan wants to devour you.  This is his strategy.  

Expect to hear the same voice in your head.  Nothing’s changed.  You will hear a voice suggesting that God is not good, that God does not really love you, that God is unfair to you, that God is hard to please, that God is in fact a cosmic Scrooge.  

Have you heard that voice?  Sure you have.  Recognize its source.  Don’t be naïve about the unseen spiritual war.  

Behind all sin is the suspicion that God isn’t very good and therefore he cannot be trusted.  This is Satan’s main ploy in his quest to ruin your life and devour your soul.  

You will hear things like this:  

“God is being so unfair in what he says about divorce (or adultery or honesty in your business or generous giving or forgiving your father or Christians marrying only Christians or pornography).”

“God is holding back something I need to make me happy.”

“What applies to others doesn’t apply to me.  My situation is different.”  

Don’t listen!  Shut your ears to the voice of the deceiver!  Stand firm in Christ’s strength!

Naked Marriage

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Genesis 2:25  

This verse, early in the Bible, surprises us.  It is so stark, so unusual.  And yet it has such power and poignancy. “They were both naked and they were not ashamed.”  What is God telling us about marriage?  

There are naked bodies and yet no shame, no embarrassment, no fear, no masks, no walls.  What intimacy!  What closeness!  What freedom!  What trust!  What transparency!  

They trusted one another.  And because they trusted one another, they felt safe.  They felt accepted.  They felt secure in their relationship.  No threats, no fears, no shame.  They could trust each other with their bodies because they trusted each other with their hearts.  They were open and honest.  Transparent.  Secure.  

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?  Can you imagine this kind of marriage, feeling so understood, so accepted, so safe?  

How does this happen?  It starts with trust.  Trust comes when you are always truthful and honest, when you are dependable, when you do what you say, when you are loyal and faithful no matter what.  

When you tell the truth and do what you say day by day, week by week, year by year, you build trust.  As trust builds, you feel safe.  You open your heart.  You let her, you let him, know what’s really going on inside.  You connect at the heart level.  

You listen deeply, with all your heart, because you long to understand your spouse.  And over time, you feel close.  Incredibly close.  You begin to experience the magic and mystery of marriage.  One-flesh marriage.

One-Flesh Marriage

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2:24    

This is the essence of biblical marriage:  leave, cleave, become one flesh.  

First, leave.  If the couple does not adequately leave, then the marriage is torpedoed from the start.  Honor your parents, love your parents, but look to each other for primary support and direction.  You are a new family.  Live like it!  Beware of undue dependence on your parents.  

Second, cleave.  The idea of the Hebrew term is permanence.  God’s ideal is marriage for life, “till death do us part.”  At the beginning of your marriage decide that divorce is not an option for you.  If marriage is permanent, if you know that you are sticking together no matter what, then it will make all the difference in how you tackle problems.  

Third, become one flesh.  One flesh means a oneness at every level – emotionally, spiritually, socially, intellectually, recreationally, physically.  The point of the phrase is intimacy, a sense of closeness.  You are soul mates, lovers, best friends.  You live life together.  You pursue a shared life.  You are alert to any signs of creeping separateness.  And over time, despite many challenges and hardships, you become close, so close you can scarcely believe it.  

This is God’s dream for every marriage – a one-flesh marriage.  This is the beauty and glory of marriage as God intended it to be.  

Make it your dream too and pursue it with all your heart!

Marriage Partners

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper fit for him.”

Genesis 2:18    

Marriage is God’s idea, God’s creation, God’s gift.  The foundational passage on marriage in all the Bible is Genesis 2:18-25.  

Adam is in a paradise environment, unlike any we can imagine.  He has God above him.  He has the animals below him.  But he has no one alongside him.  No one to share life with.  

And God says this is not good.  But we immediately see the goodness of God because God goes on to say that he will provide what Adam needs, a helper.  

The Hebrew term “helper” carries no notion of inferiority.  The term refers to someone who has resources and capacities that we lack.  In fact, the term is used of God himself, who is the Great Helper of Israel.  

God is telling us that woman has capacities and gifts that man lacks.  By implication, man has capacities and gifts that she lacks.  

Here is God’s ideal for marriage:  a man and woman, gloriously different, helping each other be all they can be for God.  As Alan Ross once pointed out in the theological magazine Kindred Spirit, marriage was not given to accumulate possessions, but to develop persons.  Two equals, two life partners, each for the other and both for God.  

Perhaps pairs figure skating pictures this best.  The man and the woman are equal but different.  One is strong, the other is graceful.  One lifts, the other jumps.  Each member of the partnership is essential.  When they work together something beautiful happens.  

This is God’s ideal for every marriage.

Your Work Matters

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Genesis 2:15    

At the outset of the Bible God gives man work.  

This means work is inherently good, not bad.  Work is not the result of sin.  It is not a consequence of the Fall.  It is not a necessary evil.  Work was created before the Fall.  In fact, God himself works.  When the Bible opens, God is at work.  Work in itself is completely good.  

Moreover, we are designed for work.  We are imagebearers of the God who works.  Work is part of our design, part of our humanness, part of the image of God in us.  We need work.  We are not fully alive without work.  

This is not to say that we need a job.  We do not need a paying job to be fully alive, but we do need work, whether this is house work, school work, volunteer work or job work.  We are designed for work.  

Our work matters to God.  Just as God cared about Adam’s work, he cares about our work.  He wants this work to be fulfilling, not frustrating.  

How does this happen?  How does our work become a source of fulfillment?  It happens when we turn our work into worship.  If we do our work for God, to please him and to honor him, then that work becomes an act of worship.  It is when we work for God that we find our deliverance from drudgery.  

The classic tale is the medieval construction supervisor who asked three of his workers what they were doing.  The first worker replied, “I am laying bricks.”  He goes a little farther along and asked the second worker, who replied, “I am building a wall.”  He goes still farther along and he asked the third worker, who replied, “I am building a great cathedral for the glory of God.”  The third worker got it.  He found deliverance from drudgery because his work had become worship.  

Work for the Lord.

Sabbath Rest

So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 2:3    

God did not rest on the seventh day because he was tired.  He did not rest because he was weary.  Omnipotence does not get weary.   

Rather, God rested because he was finished.  His work of creation was completed.  But God also rested for our sakes.  We needed to see the rhythm of work and rest.  He rested for our sakes not for his sake.   

The Bible says God blessed the Sabbath.  He made it holy.  In what sense is the Sabbath holy?  Well, it is special.  It is a different day.  It is God’s gift to us, a day of rest and worship, a day to pray and play.  A day to stop working.   

God designed you for a day of rest.  A regular day of rest.  One day in seven.  Your body needs it.  Your mind needs it.  Your soul needs it.   

But the Sabbath is more than the absence of work.  It is also the presence of worship.  It is a day to live in God’s presence, a day of drawing close to God.  The reason why the weekend doesn’t refresh most people, who are just as weary on Monday morning as on Friday afternoon, is because there is no true Sabbath.  There is the absence of work but not the presence of worship.  We need our souls restored, and that only comes when we touch God and let God breathe life into our weary souls.  It comes with worship.   
This is the Sabbath:  rest and worship, pray and play.  God’s gift to you.

Be Fruitful and Rule

And God blessed them.  And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28  

In Genesis 1:28 we come to the very first command that God gives the human race.  It is a two-fold command.  First, be fruitful.  And second, have dominion over the earth.  

It is noteworthy that both commands express the image of God that was stated in the previous verse.  Because we are imagebearers of God we get to share in God’s work of producing human life.  And because we are imagebearers of God we get to share in God’s work of ruling over the creation.  Both commands, be fruitful and have dominion, express our identity as imagebearers of God.  

It is also striking that the very first command given by God involves sex.  The point of the command is not sex, but children.  Have children, be fruitful, fill the earth!  However the command inherently involves sex.  When it comes to sex, God is no Scrooge. He created it!  Sex is God’s idea, God’s creation, God’s gift.  And within the context of marriage, sex is wholly good.   

The second command is the charge to rule over the earth and everything in it.  This is often referred to as the cultural mandate.  We have the privilege of ruling over creation, but our rule is not the rule of an owner, but the rule of a steward.   We rule as God’s representatives.  

This is our calling as humans:  Be fruitful and rule over creation.

Male and Female

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;  male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27    

Alone of all God’s creatures, we bear God’s image.  This tells us our identity – who we are as humans.  We are imagebearers.  We have a basic likeness to God.  We are persons, we are relational beings, we are rational and emotional and volitional persons.  We are God’s representatives on earth.  

This is the central truth about us.  We are imagebearers of the eternal God.  This gives us worth, dignity, value.  We matter.  We matter not because of our achievements or money or looks, but simply because we bear God’s image.  

If you are a human being, then this is the truth about you.  You matter.  No matter what you have achieved.  No matter what you look like or how much money you have.  No matter how you have failed or how much you have struggled, you have worth, dignity and value simply because you bear the image of the immortal God.  Nothing can change that.  

If the first two lines emphasize our identity as imagebearers, the third line reveals our sexuality.  We are sexual beings.  God did not create neuter human beings.  He made us male or female, man or woman.  

Sexuality is far deeper than the physical.  It’s far more than plumbing!  Males and females not only have differently shaped bodies, we have differently shaped souls.  

Indeed, gender is the only fundamental distinction between humans.  Other distinctions, such as ethnicity, language, race, economic status or nationality don’t really matter.  They are superficial distinctions.  But gender, this matters.  

We see this when a baby is born.  Our first question is, “Is it a boy or a girl?”  For some reason that matters to us.  Gender matters to us in so many ways.  

This is who you are.  You are an imagebearer of God, either male or female.  You matter.  To the God of the universe, the God who made you, the God who cares about you, you matter incredibly!

Creator and Redeemer

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Genesis 1:3    

It is only fitting that God’s first act of creation is the creation of light, because light is a symbol of truth and life, of grace and goodness.  

The creation of light in Genesis 1:3 represents the first faint pointer to God’s redemption in Jesus Christ.  Just as light shines in the darkness, Jesus, the light of the world, will shine into the darkness of our hearts.  

Paul uses this very image when he quotes Genesis 1:3 in 2 Corinthians:  

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).  

God is not only Creator but he is also Redeemer.  The great Creator of the universe is the God who saves!  Where would we be if God was only great and he was not also good?  

But at the outset of the Bible we see that God is both great and good.  He is both Creator and Redeemer.  

And we see it all the way through the Bible, until we reach the great crescendo of Revelation 4-5, where God is worshipped as Creator (Revelation 4) and as Redeemer (Revelation 5).  

This is our God!  This is your God!  He is Creator.  And he is Redeemer.  He is great.  And he is good.

In the Beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1    

The Bible begins with the simple, sublime statement:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  

In the beginning, God! Before anything else there is God. Above everything else there is God. Behind everything else there is God.  He is the uncreated Creator of all creation.  

The Bible begins with God.  Above all else, the Bible is a book about God.  This is God’s story, God’s revelation, God’s book.  

The Bible never argues for God’s existence.  It assumes God’s existence.  Down deep, every human knows that God exists, that God is Creator.   

To say that God created the heavens and the earth is to say that God created the vast universe, a universe that is staggering in its size.  Yet God created it without any effort whatsoever.  

When we look at creation all around us, we see God’s glory.  We see God’s thumbprint.  We see his power, his beauty, his majesty, his vastness.  How great is our God!   

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:  “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”   

And Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned the words: 

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush aflame with God.
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.  

Jonathan Edwards put it simply:  “Nature is God’s greatest evangelist.”  

That God is Creator means that God made us.  He made you.  You belong to him, because he made you.  You are accountable to worship him, to serve him, to obey him.  He is your God!  

Everything begins right here, with the truth of creation.  That God is Creator is essential to the Godness of God.  No wonder Satan opposes this truth in any way possible.  No wonder the Bible begins:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

War

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”

Revelation 12:10  

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis clarifies the spiritual reality:  

One of the things that surprised me when I first read the New Testament seriously was that it talked so much about a Dark Power in the universe – a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the Power behind death, disease, and sin.  The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong.  Christianity agrees … this is a universe at war.  

The writer Frederick Buechner has a similar warning in A Sacred Journey:  A Memoir of Early Days:  

Reality can be harsh and you shut your eyes to it only at your peril because if you do not face up to the enemy in all his dark power, then the enemy will come up from behind some dark day and destroy you while you are facing the other way.  

Most succinctly, John Eldredge warns in Waking the Dead:  “To live in ignorance of spiritual warfare is the most naïve and dangerous thing we can do.”  

One of Satan’s strategies is accusation.  In fact, in Revelation 12:10 he is called “the accuser of our brothers.”  Satan’s characteristic activity is to accuse us and condemn us.  How many Christians have been totally defeated and discouraged because they listened to Satan’s accusations rather than listening to the voice of God saying to us:  “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) and “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).  How many Christians have cowered back in fear and guilt because they listened to Satan’s nefarious lies?  

Don’t do it!  Stand firm against the enemy.  Stand firm in Christ’s strength and claim the promises of God’s Word.  Christ’s grace is bigger than your sin.  Rest in the grace of Christ Jesus – grace that is greater than all your sin.

Lukewarm

I know your works:  you are neither cold nor hot.  Would that you were either cold or hot!  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

Revelation 3:15-16    

Laodicea had a lukewarm water supply.  The nearby city of Hierapolis had hot springs that were great for bathing.  The nearby city of Colossae had pure cold water that was great for drinking.  But not Laodicea.  They only had lukewarm water, which was not great for anything.  

Jesus is saying to the church at Laodicea – and no doubt to lots of churches today:  You are lukewarm as a church.  You are neither hot nor cold.  You are just lukewarm.  Yuck!  It makes me want to spit you out of my mouth!  

Those are strong words.  Sobering words.  

A church is lukewarm when it is proud and self-reliant.  That was the church in Laodicea.  They were wealthy and this led them to self-sufficiency.  “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17).  

This is a sober warning to every church in the United States, for we live in an affluent culture, and we must be wary, extremely wary, of pride and self-sufficiency.  

How do we know if we have pride and self-sufficiency like the church in Laodicea?  

The best indicator, the sure indicator, is prayerlessness.  If there is little prayer in the church, if prayer is seen as a preliminary courtesy before you get to the real work of planning and talking, if prayer is not seen as the lifeblood of the church, then you can bet that there is a spirit of self-sufficiency rather than a spirit of desperateness and dependence.  

Jackson Senyonga, a leading pastor in Uganda, has remarked, “In America the cry of sin is louder than the cry of intercession.”   

George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilization, commented, “The lack of prayer is the greatest scandal in the church today.  It is a greater scandal than the disunity, the immorality, the lack of love.”  

Our lack of prayer indicates our pride, our self-righteousness, our self-sufficiency.

Your First Love

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Revelation 2:4  

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea.”  I believe his insight applies to the Kingdom of God.  If you want to build a church that pleases God, don’t recruit people to tasks and projects and ministries, but rather teach them to long for Jesus.  

Above all else, a church must be a place where the people long for Jesus, where the people are pursuing Jesus, where the people are falling in love with Jesus.  

There was a great church in Ephesus, founded by the Apostle Paul.  They were tremendous lovers of God.  But 30 years later, Jesus sends them the sobering message:  “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”  

The church was full of people who worked hard for God, but they had left their first love.  They were workers, but not worshippers.  They had religious duty, but they did not have a love affair with Jesus.  

Fortunately, Jesus tells them what to do to recapture that first love.  “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (2:5a,b).  Three things:  Remember.  Repent.  Repeat.  

First, remember:  “Remember therefore from where you have fallen.”  If you can, deliberately think back about your feelings and thoughts and actions during your first weeks and months as a follower of Jesus Christ.  Remember!  

Second, repent.  Jesus gives the Ephesian church a simple one-word command:  Repent.  Come to God in brokenness and repentance.  Come to God in confession and surrender.  Ask God to change you.  Turn from yourself to your God.  

Third, repeat.  That is, repeat the things you did in your early Christian life.  “Repent, and do the works you did at first.”  Did you pray fervently?  Sing from your heart?  Gather with Christian friends?  Eagerly read the Bible as a love letter?  Give generously?  Share your faith freely?  Repeat all those things.  

Ken Gire, in his book The Divine Embrace, relays the story of a teenage girl in the atheistic Soviet Union who knew nothing of the Bible, nothing of the doctrines of the church, nothing of the differences between denominations.  She also knew nothing of Jesus until the day she chanced upon a copy of Luke’s Gospel.  When she finished reading it, her immediate reaction was, “I fell in love with him.”  

Jesus is looking for people who will love him back.  Jesus is looking for worshippers.  Jesus is looking for people who have an incurable disease – the disease of being smitten with Jesus.  

Are you smitten with Jesus?  Do you have a love affair with Jesus?  Did you start out with a white-hot passion for Jesus, but now the fire has grown cold?  

Above all else, God wants to be loved.  He wants to be wanted.  

How is your heart for God these days?

Burst of Praise

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

Revelation 1:5b-6  

In his greeting to the seven churches, John bursts forth in excited praise to Jesus.  He exalts Jesus specifically for three things:  

“To him who loves us.” 
The Book of Revelation is known as a book that focuses on the sovereignty and majesty and holiness and judgment of Jesus Christ.  And all of that is true.  But yet the book does not go five verses before Jesus is praised as the one “who loves us.”  

We must never lose sight of the gracious compassion of Jesus for us,the outrageous love of Jesus for us,the relentless tenderness of Jesus for us. Until you know and feel Jesus’s love for you, you do not know Jesus’s heart.  Not fully.  Let Jesus love you.  

“To him who has freed us from our sins by his blood.” 
Invariably, when the New Testament mentions the love of God it also mentions the cross of Jesus, for the cross is the final proof of God’s love for us.  Because Jesus loves us, he died for us on the cross and he has freed us from our sins by that shed blood.

Note the past tense:  He has freed us.  You are forgiven and free, if you have trusted Christ as your Savior.  

Do you feel free from your sin?  If not, whose voice are you listening to, that of the Great Liberator or that of the evil accuser?  

“To him who has made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.”
We are the kingdom of Jesus.  The kingdom of Jesus is not land.  It’s not geography.  It’s people!  Our mission is to advance that kingdom in the lives of more and more people.  

We are also priests to serve our God.  We are priests because we have access to God and because we bring intercession to God and because we serve God.  In the New Testament, priests are not the professionals who wear collars and robes.  The priests are not the pastors and missionaries.  Every believer is a priest.  You are a priest to serve your God and spread his kingdom.

Jesus Wins

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.

Revelation 1:1a  

In 1941, Winston Churchill wrote of his emotions about the attacks on Pearl Harbor.  As recounted by Robert Bartley inThe Wall Street Journal:  

Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death.  So we had won after all!  Silly people – and there were many, not only in enemy countries – might discount the force of the United States.  Some said they were soft, others that they would never be united.  They would fool around at a distance.  They would never come to grips.  They would never stand blood-letting.  

But I had studied the American Civil War, fought out to the last desperate inch.  American blood flowed in my veins.  Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful …  

[With America in the war] Hitler’s fate was sealed.  Mussolini’s fate was sealed.  As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.  

Churchill’s message, “We’re Going to Win,” echoes the message of the Book of Revelation:  “We’re Going to Win.”  

The Book of Revelation (singular, not plural, the revelation of Jesus Christ) was written in 95 A.D., when the cruel Roman emperor, Domitian, ruled.  During Domitian’s reign Christians throughout the Empire were persecuted severely and many were executed.  It was written to encourage believers in the Roman province of Asia Minor (today western Turkey) to be loyal to Christ, not Caesar, despite the persecution.  

The book contains so many theological controversies and conundrums.  But if you capsulize the message of the book in a few words, here it is:  Jesus Christ wins!  Or, to elaborate a bit:  Jesus Christ is the Sovereign Ruler and Judge and he is coming again to rule in triumph and glory!  

In fact, there is no other book of the Bible that places more focus on the greatness, glory, grandeur, sovereignty and majesty of Jesus Christ than the triumphant Book of Revelation.

Propitiation

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:10    

The love of God is the foundation of the entire spiritual life.  Not our love for God, although that is very important, since to love God is the greatest commandment.  But underneath our love for God is God’s love for us. More foundational than our love for God is God’s love for us.  Our love for God is simply a response to God’s prior and initiating love for us.  

We will not go higher, or deeper, or further, than our experience of God’s love for us.  

Moreover, when it comes to God’s love, the greatest example of that love and the proof of that love is found in the cross of Christ.  That God would send his own Son to the planet to become a man and then die on a cross, bearing our sin, is the greatest proof that God cares about us.  God cares about us more than we could possibly fathom.  

John White, a psychiatrist and writer, penned passionate words about the cross and God’s love in his book The Fight:

He welcomes you because his Son died for you.  His breast has always yearned for you and his arms yearned to enfold you.  Christ’s death has now made it possible for the Father to do what he wanted to do all along.  So come boldly – sprinkled by blood.  Let him enfold you to the warmth of his bosom while his hot tears wash over your body.  

Hot tears?  Does the expression sound irreverent or sentimental?  I have no words that do justice to the love that led to the death of God’s Son.  The universe ought to have stopped in its tracks, and I, for one, am sorry it didn’t.  No more heinous crime was ever committed against God nor greater act of love consummated on behalf of the criminal.  Are you blasphemous enough to suppose that your dead works, your feeble efforts can add to the finished work of a dying Savior?  “It is finished!” he cried.  Completed.  Done.  Forever ended.  He crashed through the gates of hell, set prisoners free, abolished death and burst in new life from the tomb.  All to set you free from sin and open the way for you to run into the loving arms of God.

God Defines Love

Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love.

1 John 4:8    

God’s nature is to love.  His essential nature is to love.   

He doesn’t have to try to love.  This is just the way he is in everything and in every way and at all times.  God cannot help but be loving because God is love.  This is his essential nature.   

This does not mean that love defines God but that God defines love.  Moreover, that God is love is not the only thing about God but it is the main thing about God.  More than we can possibly imagine, God is a loving God.  

It has been pointed out that there is nothing you could do to make God love you more and there is nothing you can do to make God love you less.  On the one hand, God’s love is perfect and infinite, so he could not possibly love you more.  On the other hand, God’s love for you is relentless and unconditional, and he could not possibly love you less.   

Moreover, God’s love for you is intensely personal and emotional.  It is not “generic.”  It is not just that God loves people in general, the mass of humanity.  No, God loves you.  You personally.  He loves you as though you were the only person in the world to love.  He has even numbered the hairs on your head!   

The renowned theologian, Karl Barth, wrote volumes of dense theology.  In fact, some would consider him the greatest theologian in four hundred years, since the time of John Calvin.  He was once asked to sum up, in one sentence, the thousands of pages of theology he had written.  He paused and then replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”   

Indeed, God is love.

Agree with God

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9    

King Frederick II, an eighteenth-century king of Prussia, was visiting a prison in Berlin.  Lloyd H. Steffen in The Christian Century recounts this story.  Each of the inmates tried to explain how they were innocent and had been unjustly imprisoned.  All except one.  That one sat quietly in a corner, while all the rest protested their innocence.  Seeing him sitting there oblivious to the commotion, the king asked him what he was there for.   

“Armed robbery, Your Honor.”

The king asked, “Were you guilty?”

“Yes, Sir,” he answered.  “I entirely deserve my punishment.” 

The king then gave an order to the guard:  “Release this guilty man. I don’t want him
corrupting all these innocent people.”  

It is always best to confess our sins, honestly and forthrightly.  

There is power in confession. To confess our sins to God is to pull a drain plug on guilt.  All our sin and guilt swooshes down the drain, vanishing forever in God’s grace.  

When we confess our sin, we simply agree with God about our sin.  “Lord, I was dishonest with Bob.”  “Father, forgive me for losing my temper with Tommy.”  “O God, forgive my pride.  I didn’t need to brag about my job with those people.”  

In Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Frederick Buechner puts the matter poignantly:  “To confess your sins to God is not to tell him anything he doesn’t already know.  Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you.  When you confess them, they become the bridge.”  

I find the same thing happens in my marriage. If I am unkind or insensitive with Gayle, we may still be married but there is now a barrier between us. We are connected in a legal and judicial sense but we are not connected in a relational and fellowship sense. But when I apologize to Gayle, everything changes.  Our closeness and oneness is restored. There is power in confession.  

God gives us a wonderful promise in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

This is the Christian bar of soap. When we confess our sin he will restore us to full, untarnished fellowship with him.  

Confession is part of prayer. We don’t need to be overly introspective, but neither should we be insensitive to the Spirit’s gentle convicting work. When God graciously (it is an act of grace) reminds us of our sin, then immediately and sincerely confess it to God and experience the fresh joy of his cleansing grace.  

In one sense, a legal and judicial sense, all our sin has already been forgiven. All our sin was nailed to the cross and we are under no condemnation (Romans 8:1).  

But there is another sense, a relational and fellowship sense, that our relationship with God is hindered by our sin. There is a barrier between us until we confess our sin to God. This is the point of 1 John 1:9.

Vigilant

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

1 Peter 5:8    

We have an enemy.  An unseen, evil enemy, with lots of assistants.  

This enemy, the devil, is like a roaring lion, an image which tells us he is fierce, dangerous, hungry and ever-ready to inflict harm.  

The devil is not just a roaring lion but he is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour and that someone includes you.  He and his minions want to devour you, hurt you, destroy you.  They want to distance you from God in any way possible, through deception, accusation, condemnation and temptation.  They want to convince you that God isn’t good, that God cannot be trusted, that God is mad at you, that God is disappointed in you, that God doesn’t really love you, that God is a cosmic killjoy.  

Satan wants to destroy your marriage and convince you that some other spouse would be much better for you.  He tries to persuade you that God wants you to be happy so you had better get a divorce.  He seeks to bring unforgiveness, anger, pride, debt, fear and guilt into your marriage.  

In these ways, and all kinds of other ways, Satan is out to devour your soul, ruin your family and damage your spiritual life.  

What do we do?  Wake up and fight the battle!  Be vigilant!  Be alert!  Be aware that there is a battle, that there is an opponent, that he is real.  

If you were on a cruise ship, you could drift off to sleep and take a nap.  But you are on a battleship and you had better be fully alert, scanning the horizon for signs of the enemy.  

If you don’t pray, often, that God would protect you and your family from the enemy, then you are not alert and vigilant.  If you are not aware that the voices in your head that condemn you, accuse you, tempt you and lie to you, are voices of the enemy, then you are not alert and vigilant.  If you are not aware that conflicts and misunderstandings are at times caused or exacerbated by the enemy, then you are not vigilant.  

We don’t focus on the enemy but we are aware of the enemy and his schemes.  Be alert and vigilant!