{"id":279,"date":"2021-01-19T20:32:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T20:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.18\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=279"},"modified":"2021-02-21T20:39:29","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T20:39:29","slug":"god-is-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/?p=279","title":{"rendered":"Editorial – God is love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

God is not politically correct \u2013with massive implications for His children and their mission\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Survivors of the world\u2019s disasters invariably sing the praises of their rescuers. Gratitude flows logically and naturally. For two thousand years, Christians, their own lives rescued and turned around by the mercy of God, have proclaimed that \u201cthe Father has sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world\u201d (1 John 4:14). His motivation? \u201cGod is love\u201d. The best news, one would think… Yet the notion that men and women need saving is largely doubted, resented, despised, mocked and even hated in most of the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\u2019s Word predicts a needlessly miserable end of time scenario for countless rebellious mortals: \u201cPeople gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.\u201d (Revelation 16:10-11) Now, let\u2019s pause to process this terrible prospect\u2026 This is like cursing the rescue teams who ran into Manhattan\u2019s Ground Zero while everyone else who had legs was running out. God sends a Saviour \u2013 His own Son \u2013 and is cursed by the race He died to save? Is there a madness at work here? If the greatest reality in the cosmos is that God is \u2013 and that God is love\u2013 surely universal denial of this reality is\u2026 madness? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

History disconnect<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our politically correct population loses its grip on reality the more ‘PC’ it becomes. Younger adults are PC without
knowing it \u2013 it\u2019s their \u2018norm’. They have no idea of the lost freedoms of former generations when polar-opposites could peacefully co-exist without screaming “I’m offended\u201d and would even defend each other’s right to be \u2018opposite\u2019. They have no idea that both Nazis and Stalinists would welcome the selfcensorship that today’s Brits exercise, for fear of losing one’s job, being arrested, prosecuted, attacked \u2013 even killed. I wish I could say that the Church is free of this paralysing fear, but that\u2019s far from the reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not God\u2019s love that is hated \u2013 it\u2019s that His love can’t be separated from His righteousness, justice and purity \u2013 and He can\u2019t love without the truth. God\u2019s love is a popular concept \u2013 but not His holiness, not His non-conformity. What we sinners \u2018need\u2019 \u2013 what we demand \u2013 is a God who is just like us<\/strong>.He must conform to our standards and never talk about sin, because that makes us uncomfortable and offends us deeply. If He would only settle for our easygoing, hormone-driven definition of \u2018love\u2019\u2026 why can\u2019t He accept that love and lust are the same thing? His demand for faithfulness undermines our moody freedom\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like teenagers, confused and torn between rebellion and responsibility, our race resents and resists love\u2019s boundaries across our reckless path. Once we see that God is love<\/strong>, that God defines love and that God acts only in love, every \u201cthou shalt not\u201din the Bible makes different sense. When God says \u201cDon\u2019t\u201d, He\u2019s saying: \u201cI Love you\u201d. Such unkindness! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, that \u201cGod is love\u201d <\/strong>is the reason that He is hated. We mortals are naturally self-centred. True love must be taught; it must be modelled before we ‘get it’. Otherwise, it’s an alien concept. Left to our infant self-preoccupation, we become self-preoccupied adults, selfpreoccupied citizens. God has nothing to learn about love. He is not preoccupied with Himself but with us, with the welfare of sinners: saved sinners and
not-yet-saved sinners. He is love’s standard. God is not politically correct. True love can’t be PC, because political correctness separates entire nations from the truth, forces people to live within a fiction and quickly shows its hatred of those who stand for the truth and refuse to be silenced. When we are politically correct, we reveal that someone has discovered the price of our loyalty and ‘bought us’. There we were, on display in society’s slave market\u2026 Our price tags read: ‘reputation to protect’, ‘ambitious’, ‘afraid to die’, ‘family to shield’, ‘money motivated’ \u2026 The buyers with the loudest, most terrifying threats bought our submission and our silence. Now we serve them in mute shame and others, who might have stood firm with our example, also crumble and conform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not for sale<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Intimidation and flogging failed to silence the apostles. They were not for sale; they had already been bought. Their Master had purchased them with His own blood. It was their joyful freedom to be His slaves. They had been eyewitnesses of His resurrection. God \u2013 as “the Man Christ Jesus” \u2013 had defeated sin and death and hell for sinners who could do none of these things for themselves. This was good news; the very best news. Moreover, their Risen Lord had commissioned them that their eyewitness testimony and His teaching should produce disciples in all nations. The Holy Spirit revealed to them that God”desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4). Thus, these bold men became, unintentionally, the natural enemies of those who suppress the truth. The world\u2019s power-brokers put God\u2019s messengers in chains, but His kind message laughed at prison doors \u2013 and His kind messengers laughed at death\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod is love\u201d<\/strong>. It is not enough to say that God is \u2018loving\u2019. That might imply variability, circumstances and times at which God might not be loving. The apostle is not describing God\u2019s whims but His essence: \u201cGod is love\u201d<\/strong>. The Greek permits no reversal of the text. We cannot translate: \u2018Love is God\u2019. John\u2019s logic is simple and clear. The person who does not love (as defined by God) does not know love. The stranger to love is therefore a stranger to God. The same apostle can say, accurately, that \u201clove is of God\u201d (1 John 4:7).Love derives from God; not God from love. This means that love is defined from above, not from below. The love of which John speaks has no self-interest in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, dear Christian, explains how you came to know Jesus.<\/strong> Through two thousand years, many missionaries have shared Paul\u2019s experience: \u201cI have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.<\/em>\u201d (2 Corinthians 11:26-28) If you asked them why they would choose to live in harm\u2019s way, they would echo Paul:\u201cMessiah\u2019s love compels me\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some years ago, I met a Christian pastor from Fiji. His faith and calling sprang from soil stained with the blood of the first missionaries who made the decision to die before they left home. Compelled by Jesus\u2019 love, they put themselves knowingly, calculatingly, in harm\u2019s way rather than leave his fierce ancestors in pagan darkness. Your faith and mine also rests on such selfless sacrifice \u2013 and ultimately on Calvary.  The implications for our own missionary calling are obvious\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until very recently, political correctness was indulged with a joke and otherwise ignored as a wacky irrelevance by the saner majority of a free British society. Today, society is not free and political correctness is no joke \u2013 it\u2019s self-censorship, generated by fear and \u2013 to the increasing shame of the mother of parliamentary democracies \u2013 fortified by recent laws and lawmakers. In less than two decades the subtle power of political correctness has enslaved millions who now, unwittingly, toe the (undeclared) Marxist political line and guard their every word, even in private conversation, lest their buried truth should escape into the light and cause \u2018offence\u2019. With borrowed historical insight, we note that \u2018the lights are going out all over Britain\u2019.Thus far, it is a bloodless coup \u2013 but history warns that the landscape could darken still more\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fake is the new real<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2019Reality\u2019, now, is whatever you want it to be \u2013 it can be anything but the truth. You can stand naked before a full-length mirror, ignore what is plainly before your eyes and choose to be whatever gender you \u2018feel\u2019 at that moment \u2013 or even refuse to choose if you prefer more \u2018open\u2019 options. When it comes to perceiving gender reality, hormones now trump optics \u2013 every time. You can take a religion that teaches \u2018kill the unbeliever\u2019 and a religion that teaches \u201clove your enemy\u201dand equate them, so that their \u2018gods\u2019 are considered identical and uniqueness is denied to either one; OR\u2026 you can invert that whole viewpoint and equate \u2018fundamentalists\u2019 who terrorise, kidnap, rape and behead fellow human beings with \u2018fundamentalists\u2019 who refuse to change one word of the Bible that requires them to love God, their neighbour, their enemy, to feed the poor, clothe the naked, \u201clive at peace with all men\u201dand tell the world that Jesus died and rose again to save God\u2019s enemies \u2013 even if it\u2019s dangerous to say so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world of fake news and fake reality, you can now be arrested for preaching God\u2019s saving truth in public, but you can march through London flying the flags of a terrorist organisation funded by the peace-loving mullahs of Iran. The market for truth has bottomed out, but deadly fiction enjoys government support. \u201cSo, justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot ente<\/em>r.\u201d (Isaiah 59:14)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, our native land has suddenly taken on the look of a hostile, alien landscape; unfamiliar to us, but quite \u2018normal\u2019 to the first Christians and believers in most other nations of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Harm\u2019s way\u2019 is the natural habitat of Christian mission. The Good Shepherd never abandons His sheep, but He leads them out on His Father\u2019s business: to rescue the wolves. If they knew Our God, our enemies would not be our enemies. We are hated without a cause, but we do not love as blindly as we are hated. The love we are called to return is not na\u00efve but \u2018child-like\u2019 \u2013 that is, \u2018childof-God-like\u2019: \u201c\u2026love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful<\/em>.\u201d (Luke 6:35-36) \u201cGod is love\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God is not politically correct \u2013with massive implications for His children and their mission\u2026 Survivors of the world\u2019s disasters invariably sing the praises of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":962,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swordmagazine.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}