Strong Views of God’s Love

Forgiveness, God, Love 0

What makes us universalists is not that we have unusually weak views of sin but unusually strong views of divine love and grace.  Where sin abounds grace abounds all the more.

I have argued that eternal conscious torment is not a just response to sin; and in the eyes of some, this amounts to an underestimate of the severity of sin. . . .  However, just because I do not think that a sin incurs infinite demerit, it does not follow that I deny it incurs very serious demerit. . . .

For the universalist, hell is something to be avoided at all costs, just as Jesus warned us.  To object by saying, “Well, if hell is not forever, it doesn’t really matter if someone has a spell there,” is like suggesting that because you will recover from the long and painful illness, it isn’t worth taking precautions to avoid it.  It is like telling an Old Testament prophet not to bother warning Israel to repent, because God will always restore them after the judgment anyway.  The prophet would reply that it is better to avoid the judgment in this first place, and the prophet is surely correct.  I wonder if I could pose a counter-question to our critics:  “Is it perhaps you who fail to take God’s love and grace as seriously as it deserves?”

It seems to me that the only major Christian doctrine threatened by universalism is the teaching that those in hell have passed beyond the point of no return; and, as this belief is quite detachable from the web of Christian belief without doing any damage to the rest of the web, I can only conclude that, although it is a widely held doctrine, it is peripheral in its structural role in Christian theology.  I can be removed and replaced without doing harm to Christian theology.  Indeed, if I am right, once we remove and replace it with a universalist view of hell, we have a much more coherent web of beliefs than we had before.

— Gregory MacDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, p. 165-167

The Father’s Heart

God, Love 0

The heart of the father burns with an immense desire to bring his children home. . . .

God, creator of heaven and earth, has chosen to be, first and foremost, a Father.

As Father, he wants his children to be free, free to love.  That freedom includes the possibility of their leaving home, going to a “distant country,” and losing everything.  The Father’s heart knows all the pain that will come from that choice, but his love makes him powerless to prevent it.  As Father, he desires that those who stay at home enjoy his presence and experience his affection.  But here again, he wants only to offer a love that can be freely received.  He suffers beyond telling when his children honor him only with lip service, while their hearts are far from him.  He knows their “deceitful tongues” and “disloyal hearts,” but he cannot make them love him without losing his true fatherhood.

As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion.  That authority comes from letting the sins of his children pierce his heart.  There is no lust, greed, anger, resentment, jealousy, or vengeance in his lost children that has not caused immense grief to his heart.  The grief is so deep because the heart is so pure.  From the deep inner place where love embraces all human grief, the Father reaches out to his children.  The touch of his hands, radiating inner light, seeks only to heal.

Here is the God I want to believe in:  a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting, never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders.  His only desire is to bless.

— Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 95-96

A New Song

God, Healing, Trials 0

I would count on this:  God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts.

— Dr. Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 82

Forgiving the Unrepentant

Forgiveness, God 0

It is possible to close ourselves to grace, both human and divine.  But only grace can pry open the door that has been shut in its face.  So God continues to give to the ungrateful and to forgive the unrepentant.  Christ stands before the closed door of a grace-resistant heart and knocks gently with a nail-pierced hand.

So should we.  When things go well, gifts engender gifts, and forgiveness gives birth to forgiveness.  That’s the power of giving and forgiving.  When things go ill, gifts fall on hard soil, and forgiveness remains barren.  That’s the impotence of givers and forgivers, for they can only “knock at the door” by giving and forgiving.  And then they must wait . . . and knock again and wait — trusting that the Spirit of the resurrected Christ will make the seed of their forgiveness bear fruit.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 205

What If It Really Is True?

God, Life, Trials, Trust, Truth 0

But consider this:  What if you knew it would all turn out well, whatever you are facing?  What if Romans 8:28 really were more than a cliche?  What if it was a certainty, a Spirit-certified life preserver, an unsinkable objective truth, infinitely buoyant, able to keep your head above water even when your ship is going down?

What if it really worked?  What if it always worked?  What if there were no problems beyond its reach?

— Robert J. Morgan, The Promise:  How God Works All Things Together For Good, p. 3

Guaranteed

God, Life 0

In Christ, we have an ironclad, unfailing, all-encompassing God-given guarantee that every single circumstance in life will sooner or later turn out well for those committed to Him.

— Robert J. Morgan, The Promise:  How God Works All Things Together for Good, p. xviii

Two Lenses

God, Trials 0

The Lord took no pleasure in my broken neck.  Like any father who has compassion on his children, it pained his heart to see me hurt.  Yet at the same time, it pleased the Lord to permit my accident.  My spinal cord injury was something he sovereignly designed in and for his good pleasure.

God’s ways are so much higher than ours, he has the capacity to look at the world through two lenses — through a narrow lens and a wide-angle one.  When God looks at a painful event through a narrow lens, he sees the tragedy for what it is.  He is deeply grieved. . . .  When God looks at that same event through his wide-angle lens, however, he sees the tragedy in relation to everything leading up to it, as well as flowing out from it.  He sees a mosaic stretching into eternity.  It is this mosaic with all its parts, both good and evil, that brings him delight.

— Joni Eareckson Tada, Pearls of Great Price, July 6 entry

The Best Promise

God, Life, Trials 0

Everything that happens to you is for your own good.  If the waves roll against you, it only speeds your ship toward the port.  If lightning and thunder comes, it clears the atmosphere and promotes your soul’s health.  You gain by loss, you grow healthy in sickness, you live by dying, and you are made rich in losses.

Could you ask for a better promise?  It is better that all things should work for my good than all things should be as I would wish to have them.  All things might work for my pleasure and yet might all work my ruin.  If all things do not always please me, they will always benefit me.

This is the best promise of this life.

— Charles Haddon Spurgeon, quoted in The Promise, by Robert J. Morgan