Saturday, March 26, 2011
He Loves Me Too
We've been singing "He Loves Me Too" in our morning devotions for a little while. It got me thinking. "Because He loves the little things, I know He loves me too." We know the Bible speaks of the love that God has for all of His creation. Psalm 135 speaks of God's compassion on all He has made. Psalm 32 says that the whole creation is filled with the love of God. When He created all things, He said that the things He created are good, and God loves what is good.
Now these passages are quite a bit less emphatic than the love that God has toward His people. But they are there. But that then ought to make us comfortable with the idea that God loves different things in different senses or degrees. If He loves a bird that He has made, does that mean that He loves me the same as a bird? Jesus says not- "You are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:31)
On the Hypercalvinist side, there are some that deny any love of God at all for the non-elect. On the Arminian side, there are some that insist that the love of God for all men means that love must be absolutely undifferentiated, so that God could not love some more than others, or show unconditional favor to some but not to others. But I am comfortable thinking that God is at least as complex as I am. He loves all of His creation, including all men, but in His providence and secret will, has decided to show some of us a supreme love, the love of the gospel, of the sacrifice and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to rescue me from my fallen state. I cannot point to anything in me that makes me more worthy of this love than others; I pray only that He would make me worthy of it. I am grateful to know that He loves the sparrow, and therefore loves me too. But I am also grateful that He loves me more than the sparrow, who is here one day and gone the next and is sold for two pennies in the market.
Now these passages are quite a bit less emphatic than the love that God has toward His people. But they are there. But that then ought to make us comfortable with the idea that God loves different things in different senses or degrees. If He loves a bird that He has made, does that mean that He loves me the same as a bird? Jesus says not- "You are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:31)
On the Hypercalvinist side, there are some that deny any love of God at all for the non-elect. On the Arminian side, there are some that insist that the love of God for all men means that love must be absolutely undifferentiated, so that God could not love some more than others, or show unconditional favor to some but not to others. But I am comfortable thinking that God is at least as complex as I am. He loves all of His creation, including all men, but in His providence and secret will, has decided to show some of us a supreme love, the love of the gospel, of the sacrifice and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to rescue me from my fallen state. I cannot point to anything in me that makes me more worthy of this love than others; I pray only that He would make me worthy of it. I am grateful to know that He loves the sparrow, and therefore loves me too. But I am also grateful that He loves me more than the sparrow, who is here one day and gone the next and is sold for two pennies in the market.
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