Day 2905 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Hebrews 12:6 NIV

One of the most detrimental 'advancements' that our society has managed to both imagine and actually undertake is the complete dismantling of the concept of what true love really is. We've all but lost the ability to understand the purpose, the power, the point of what love is meant to be. Much to our shame, the idea of love has been watered down into something that is altogether weak, insignificant and without merit.

This is something that we've discussed at fairly good length in prior posts, but in light of all that we've been talking about lately, I think it makes good sense to toss it around yet again. Yesterday we talked about how Christ chose to embrace the suffering He endured in order to make perfect forever those who are being made holy. His gift of Himself upon that cross was the opening gambit of what should hopefully prove a radical turning point in our lives.

It was done in order to begin the process of our being made holy. You'll notice the words 'process' and 'being made'. In order words, His sacrifice started something that we must undertake for the rest of our lives. It's a kind of change that requires as much time as we have left to fully take effect. It's an entirely new way of life, and something this radical, this novel, this intense simply needs a whole lot of work and focus and effort in order to fully take root in hearts that have been beaten and broken down by sinful ideology.

Truth be told, it's the lies that sin convinces us of that have spawned all of this misunderstanding as to what true love is. It's the lies we've allowed ourselves to believe that have given way to our inability to adhere to things that are difficult or painful or what we'd now consider unfair. And that's the whole problem we must now contend with going forward. We just see it all as being unfair.

This modern concept of love is one of fairness, kindness, appeasement, agreement and tranquility. And while on the surface all of those characteristics sound wonderful, the issue is that they only cater to one thing and that is our consoling. They only exist to make us feel good. They only seek to make us happy, and while happiness is great, it shouldn't be the goal that it has been allowed to become. Happiness is a fleeting emotion that's typically only grounded in perfect circumstances.

And as we've been discussing of late, the circumstances we face in life are not always perfect.

So what happens when we're inevitably faced with something hard, something painful, something scary? Well, when we hold to this extremely weakened idea of love, then we're left to assume that this God we believe in isn't quite as loving and kind and caring as we've hoped Him to be. When we equate love with comfort and appeasement, His leading us to things that are uncomfortable and run violently against our personally held preferences will obviously lead to this friction in our faith that lends itself only to instilling doubt in our hearts.

When comfort and happiness are the goal, as they most clearly are in our world's new idea of what it is to be loving, then we'll find ourselves struggling mightily to comprehend the trials and challenges and hard days and disappointments that we'll face in life. If God loves us, then He just wants us happy, right? If He loves us then our comfort is a paramount priority in His mind, right? If He truly loves us, as many claim He does, well then our desires must be at least negotiable as He simply wants us to feel good. Right?

Let's reflect back to what we discussed yesterday: Christ on a cross. The sacrifice of Jesus in order to begin a good work in us. The death of His only begotten Son in order to atone for the sinfulness of a fallen creation. Suffering, misery, pain, torment, torture. All not only allowed but predestined by God. All not only experienced but ordained. All not only necessary but satisfying.

Doesn't sound very loving to minds that equate love with tranquility and comfort and peace and feeling good.

And there's the problem. Our world has managed to warp the very severity of what true love it. We’ve forgotten that love does what’s needed to achieve what’s needed. We've forgotten that love exists to help others, to make others better, to make things better. We've forgotten that love exists to lead, to guide, to correct, to inspire, to encourage, to improve. We've forgotten that love exists for far more than our temporary comfort or fleeting happiness.

So sadly, people see life's hardships as evidence of God's inattention. They see their struggles as proof that He doesn't care about them. They equate their pains to His lack of provision. We've truly gotten it all so incredibly backwards, upside down, inside out that we've found this new ability to doubt in God's love simply due to the fact that life isn't easy. The fact that we don't always get our way is seen as a reason to assume that He doesn't care about us.

But the fact is that He cares so much about us that He's not willing to allow us to settle for less than the gift of eternal joy in Heaven.

We'd make that trade. We've made that trade countless times before. We've shaken hands with the devil in order to find immediate happiness through sin. We've traded away the hope of a promise still to come for the instant gratification of selfish fulfillment now. We've grown to see sin as more loving than God all because it gives us what we want and doesn't require us to forgo anything or to face anything or to endure anything or to suffer anything or to sacrifice anything.

Friends, love is sacrificial. Love is enduring. Love is humble. Love is willing to fight if that's what it takes to help someone find a better life lived for more than hollow hopes. To forget that, as society unfortunately has, is among the saddest 'advancements' in the history of humanity. Because it causes us to undervalue, underappreciate, undermine and even fail to understand who Jesus is and what He did on the cross.

That cross proves the existence of something called tough love. Considering the overall downturn of the world around us, that may be a concept you've not heard of before. Tough love is this radical idea held by some throughout history in which they seek the betterment of those whom they love, and they accept the responsibility to propel those whom they love toward that betterment, no matter what.

As the writer of Hebrews goes on to say a couple of verses later here in chapter 12, all of us have had parents who disciplined us. We've had parents who corrected us. We've had people in our lives who have rebuked us and debated us and denied us the satisfaction of things we thought would satisfy us, because they knew there is no satisfaction in temporary gain. They corrected us because they knew the value of living decent lives. They rebuke us because they want us to be better.

And we love them for it. We appreciate them for it. We look back on the belts and the switches and the family meetings and the intercessions and the times we felt ashamed when they said that they were disappointed in us. We remember the pain and embarrassment we felt in all those moments of our parents correcting us and rebuking us and refusing to leave us lost in this world of doing everything our way. And though that pain and humiliation was not fun at the time, we now look back on it with a deep appreciation because we know it helped. We know it worked.

We know we're better for it. And that's why we know what true love is. Because we've received it. We've felt it. We've been shown the results of someone being willing to do what's hard in order to make us better. We have lived it.

So how can we have so quickly and so easily and so willingly forgotten it?

Contrary to all this foolishness spreading around, God doesn't correct us because He hates us. He doesn't deny us our immediate gratification because He doesn't want our joy. He doesn't rebuke us and try us and challenge us and push us because He wants to see us suffer. He does it all because He knows we'd never follow the narrow road that leads us home if not for His help. He does it because He knows we'd settle for staying put if not for His loving encouragement to strive for something better.

He knows that without the stark misery witnessed upon the cross, none of us would ever want anything better than the hollow lives we'd carved out in the prisons of sinful desires.

So He did what was hard; He sacrificed His Son. He embraced the death of Christ so that we could realize who we'd been, what we'd done, and find the inspiration to be more. To be better. To be moral. To be upstanding. To be made holy.

God's discipline isn't evidence of His lack of kindness. His rejection of our perfect plans doesn't mean He's not perfectly loving. His refusal to allow us to settle for what we think is good enough is proof that He wants more for us than we even want for ourselves. And friends, that's what true love is all about. Refusing to allow someone else to settle for what they think is good enough, because as pleasure-seeking heathens, what we think is good enough to settle for is usually just based on how good it makes us feel in the moment.

That’s why we have to toss this stupid idea of love that has us doubting in who God is and how much He loves us. His love is the love we're called to have, to embrace, to seek, to offer, to emulate. His love is the love by which we grow and change and learn and improve and actually find salvation that leads to a joy that doesn't end or run out or disappoint after a while. His love is the love by which we'll be judged. And so the sooner we learn to appreciate it and begin embracing it and allow ourselves to follow it, the better off we'll be in the long run.

The temporary appeal of worldly love ought to tell us everything we need to know about the lie it really is. If it only seeks our momentary happiness or comfort or satisfaction, then it clearly doesn't care about the long term. And if it doesn't care about the long term, then you can be certain that our eternal salvation is not a concern. And if it doesn't care about our eternal salvation, then of what value can it possibly hold?

It's time be brave my friends. It's time to embrace that which makes us better rather than what simply makes us happy. Our happiness is great, but it does not factor into our salvation. We don't need to be happy, but we definitely need to be saved from all the sinful filth that has made us happy in the past. God wants more for us and from us. That fact points directly to a corresponding question that only we can answer for ourselves:

Do we want better for us and from us?

How we respond to His tough love shows our answer to that question.

Make no mistake, and please try to understand this as it’s clearly evidenced throughout Scripture and the lives of those who’ve gone down this narrow road before us: There will be challenges up ahead. There will be pain we endure. There will be moments of struggling and strife. All of them can either help us appreciate God’s love, or they can cause us to doubt in it. But if we can simply try and see things from His perspective then we’ll fall on the right side of that coin.

He sees what’s ahead. He knows everything this world can offer. He knows the beauty of the rewards found only in Heaven. And He sent His Son to ensure we had the chance to experience those priceless eternal gifts. And the cross proves that He will do whatever necessary to make sure we don't get lost along the way. His disciplining of us is only there to help us keep from wandering off the road that leads us home.

His hand guides us toward His Heavenly home. If we slap that hand away, we’re only slapping away the kindness that proved itself upon the cross.

If we’re wise, we’ll allow Him to help keep that from happening as we move closer to the end of this chapter of our lives. It might not be fun to be disciplined, but if it ensures we get home safely, then why would we ever want to avoid it? God's discipline seems unnecessary to any who think love exists only to ensure happiness. But true love will do whatever necessary to ensure the best possible outcome. Even if it means sacrificing temporary comfort to get there.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold