relationship Archives - Colin Dye

GOD’S LOVE UNCONDITIONAL OR CONDITIONAL – PART 7

Colin Dye — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 16:30:00 +0000

Jesus said, â€œhe who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him.â€ This aspect of Godâ€™s love is conditional.

Godâ€™s Rewarding Love

This blog series ends with one final aspect of Godâ€™s love â€“ his rewarding love. We have seen that God unconditionally set his love upon everyone he created. The blessings of Godâ€™s ongoing Providential love rest unconditionally upon all humanity, without exception. He also demonstrated his Invitational love by sending Christ to die for the sins of the world, so that whosoever believes may have eternal life. In this way, Godâ€™s Saving love is conditional upon us opening up and receiving his love.

God has also established relationship with his people through what we call his Covenantal love. The initiative his entirely his, but to enjoy the blessings of the covenant we must respond with believing loyalty and obedience. This aspect is clearly conditional.

The answer to the question, â€œIs Godâ€™s love conditional or unconditional?â€, is that itâ€™s both. Both elements apply to Godâ€™s Rewarding love. Godâ€™s prior love of his people is unconditional. He chose to set his love on us without any precondition or merit on our part. But to enjoy the rewards of this love we must sincerely respond to it. Having received Godâ€™s love simply by faith, we go on to enjoy the blessings of relationship with him by being faithful to him in all things.

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”Â Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me ( John 14:21-24 ESV).

Loving obedience to God brings the promise of increasing intimacy and proximity to him. He dwells with the faithful, manifesting himself to us, and not to the world. This is why people who do not yet know Jesus sometimes find it difficult to believe God really loves them.Â

Maybe you have prayed to God asking him to bless your health, your job, your relationships or your finances. But when things donâ€™t work out as you want, you immediately doubt his love.

The secondary things of life are never the measure of Godâ€™s love. Those who truly give themselves to Christ and long for more of him will naturally pursue him and seek to please him in all things. Thatâ€™s the proper response to Godâ€™s love. The most precious love we can offer God is to trust him in all circumstances of life.Â

Bad things sometimes happen to good people and good things to bad people. Therefore, Godâ€™s love and displeasure are not easily discerned through our circumstances. He disciplines those he loves. The love of God is never removed from his people, but it can be restrained. If we displease the Lord, his response is one of rebuke and chastening. He restrains but never removes his love.Â

However, Godâ€™s reward and blessing is with those who fear him. The Lord rewards those who diligently seek him, walking in his wisdom. And the ultimate reward is the gift of himself.

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Affirming the Father's Love

Colin Dye — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:55:48 +0000

When time began, the Word was there, and the Word was face to face with God, and the Word was God.

Fatherhood lies at the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus fully and uniquely revealed the nature of God as Father:
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. John 1:18

This is so familiar to us as Christians that we often fail to grasp just how unique this message is and the radical impact it can have upon people’s lives. The angels are called “sons of God’ in the Bible, and Satan (originally Lucifer) was one of them. This means that Satan who is in a broken relationship with his father, has now become the son of rebellion and archetype of all anti- Father behaviour. That’s what makes Jesus’ sonship so important. Jesus is the Son of God, not by birth or creation, but by virtue of his eternal co-existence with God sharing and expressing the very nature of God himself. God is an Eternal Father, because he has an Eternal Son. Jesus came into the world to share, show and affirm the Father’s love. Everything he did and said demonstrated that. He revealed the Father’s heart, and confirmed the Father’s commitment to us all.
The devil, being in perpetual rebellion to God sets his face against God as Father and every trace of fatherhood that originates from him. We see his work in families where father is most likely to be absent, or abusive, or passive, making it hard for people to understand that God is none of these things – quite the reverse. But Jesus came to show that God is ever-present, always-loving and totally for his children.
Have you ever taken that in – I mean really grasped its significance? God, the supreme, exalted and totally transcendent One, the Maker and Master of the universe is your father – and he is never absent from you for one moment. He is always there, protecting, affirming and chastening you in the strength of his love. And, above all, he is for you.
We find that hard to believe for a number of reasons. First, a positive experience of fatherhood is often missing from our lives. Then, there is a sense of guilt coming from our own evident shortcomings which leads us to fear that God is angry with us and actually working against us in all things. And finally, we have to contend with the devil’s hatred of the Father and his constant slandering of God’s character tempting us to doubt the Father’s love.
But the radical revelation of Christ to us is this: God is for us, not against us and has made full provision for our sin and failure. He is working for us, not against us and had our best interests at heart. He calls us to respond to him as his sons and daughters, to delight in his love and to find the joy of serving him as our Father. This is the only way to true healing and restoration. Let the Holy Spirit lead you deeper into that love.

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How to listen to God?

Colin Dye — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:35:38 +0000

How to listen to God?

He listens to us and we listen to him; he speaks to us and we speak to him; he gives himself to us and we give ourselves to him. If we do not keep on listening to God, we may be able to know the triune God propositionally, but we will never know the Father, the Son and the Spirit personally and relationally.
The devil attempts to deceive believers by suggesting a variety of lies – many of which are based on the idea that listening to God is an occasional action rather than a life-long activity.

So what is listening to God? It is…

Active not passive – we do not listen to God like we listen to a piece of music – to be entertained; instead, we listen to him like a trainee pilot listens to his instructor – to be directed.
Relational not functional – we do not listen to God like we listen to a useful but anonymous helpline operator; rather, we listen to him like children listen to their parents.
Continuous not occasional – we do not listen to God like we listen to the radio, as-and-when we choose; instead, we listen to him continuously: we listen to God, we do not listen out for God.
Rooted in the prophetic – we listen to God like the prophets of old, in an intimate, anointed, servant relationship, ready to act on God?s words.

The living God who speaks his mind and counsel to us is the same mighty God who made humanity in his image and dealt in grace with the Patriarchs. He is the God who parted the Red Sea, provided the Law, and protected his people in the wilderness; who smote Jericho, Goliath and Sennacherib; who sent fire to Carmel and shut the lions? mouths; who came in the flesh, sacrificed his Son, raised him from the dead and poured his Spirit onto the Church.
This is the great God who speaks today to us – personally, privately, specifically, lovingly, graciously and continuously. We must take care, however, that our confidence in his will and willingness to speak does not lapse into presumption, over-familiarity and complacency.
One essential foundation of all prophetic listening is a deep sense of genuine awe at the thought of the living, loving God actually communicating with us. We simply must recognise, realise and remember who it is to whom we are listening.
Give me a hearing heart!
Listening to God is a continuous process: we can express this in a different way by saying that we should develop a ?listening lifestyle? or a ?hearing heart? – for listening to God is fundamental to the believer?s life of faith.
1 Kings 3:4-14 describes how God spoke to Solomon in a dream and offered him anything he asked. 1 Kings 3:9 reports that the new king asked for an ?understanding heart? so that he could ?discern between good and evil?.
Although the Hebrew word bin can be translated as ?understanding? or ?discerning?, it points to a continuous receiving or hearing of God?s understanding rather than to a once-and-for-all gift of wisdom. This means that Solomon was asking for a hearing heart rather than for encyclopaedic knowledge or a miraculous store of wisdom. This is why God was so pleased with Solomon?s request.
In John 14:13, Jesus speaks to us in much the same way that God spoke to Solomon, promising us whatever we ask in his name. Surely no request is more in keeping with Jesus? words in John 14-16 than a plea for a ?hearing heart?.
As we move on to examine different aspects of the biblical teaching about God?s forth-speaking and our prophetic listening, we will do well to ask God to give us a hearing heart – and we should then go on to do all that we can to develop this holy attitude in our lives.

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