Too often, we reason God owes us something. Then, when God determines to grant us seasons of life that are not filled with sunshine, merriment, prosperity, and popularity, we whine as if the Sovereign Lord has done us wrong. Friends, it is vital that we understand who we really are. When properly understood, our attitude will turn from anger and pouting to adoration and praise.
Why did God love man?
David contemplated the love of God shown towards those created in God’s image and likeness. The Psalmist wrote:
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens … When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8)
It really does not make sense why God so cared for humankind. Was not man created of dirt like other beasts? Why did God specially construct man and woman in his own image? Why were they granted souls to live forever? Why were they granted such logical, philosophical, creative, and constructive abilities? All were given a need for significance or purpose, why? Why did the Creator program humans with a special interest and need for human relationships and community? Why did God give his image-bearers dominion over the earth to serve as his lords and ladies in his name and for glory? Then, why did God plant within all humans a sense of morality and desire for spiritual communion? And more interestingly, why is God interested in having an intimate relationship with such? Why did God walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day?
God was so huge and magnificent. He needed nothing. He had no unmet desires. The Trinity enjoyed perfect communion with one another. God was not improved by his creation and creatures. So, why did God make such a big deal of man?
However, there is a larger question that needs to be raised …
Why does God love sinful man?
This makes even less sense, and this is the ginormous question posed by Bildad:
How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure? Behold, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in his eyes; how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm! (Job 26:4-6)
God is eternal, omnipresent, and omniscient. That means he is always present, and he knows all things.
God is holy. He absolutely abhors sin.
God is wrathful. He hates sin and sinners. He damns Lucifer and his demons, and he promises to damn all men and women who side with the Devil and blaspheme him everyday before his face.
God is just and immutable. He pours out all the blessings and curses upon men and women that they earn and deserve. (This means he only pours out curses.) He grants honor or hell in an equitable manner, and he never ever changes his standard or promise.
God owes no creature any mercy or grace. He gives no such opportunity to Lucifer and the demons. They sin and are sentenced without a plan of salvation, and in doing so he acts not unjustly. He merely gives his created angelic creatures what they deserve, and he cries not over their future in the Lake of Fire he created for them.
Therefore, knowing that we are foolish, sinful, rebellious, obstinate, and devilish men and women, why the stay of execution? Why the gaze of mercy and grace? Why the Covenant of Grace or plan of salvation? Or, utilizing the words of Bildad, knowing that we are worse than unsinful maggots and worms, why the pity, compassion, love, humiliation, self-sacrifice, adoption, and marriage?
Aaron Shust sings these lyrics:
I am not skilled to understand, what God has willed, what God has planned.
I only know at his right hand, stands one who is my Savior.
I take him at his word and deed, Christ died to save me – this I read.
And in my heart I find a need of him to be my Savior.
That he would leave his place on high, and come for sinful man to die.
You count it strange, so once did I, before I knew my Savior.
My Savior loves, my Savior lives, my Savior’s always there for me
My God; he was, my God; he is; my God; is always gonna be
Cory Asbury meditates in song:
Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me. You have been so, so good to me.
Before I took a breath, you breathed your life in me. You have been so, so kind to me.
When I was your foe, still your love fought for me. You have been so, so good to me.
When I felt no worth, you paid it all for me. you have been so, so kind to me.
There’s no shadow you won’t light up, mountain you won’t climb up, coming after me.
There’s no wall you won’t kick down, lie you won’t tear down, coming after me.
O, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.
O, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine.
I couldn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it, still, you give yourself away.
O, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.
John Newton penned:
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.
Friends, it is time to praise, adore, and offer forth thanksgiving to God. It is time for us to use our redeemed hearts, minds, eyes, and lips to laud him for his overwhelming, never-ending, and reckless love. His grace is amazing, and it is especially and experientially so for those who know who they are and what they deserve.
With a desire to help you spend some time in prayerful song, I have attached links below to the three praise songs listed above. Enjoy praising the God who knows, loves, lives, dies, rises, intercedes, regenerates, justifies, indwells, adopts, sanctifies, preserves, and glorifies those in whom he strangely and unchangeably delights. You are now the apple of his eye. You are his precious and radiant bride. What incredible grace!
Unfathomable Grace 