by Peter Louis
by Peter Louis
CHAPTER 1
“He went up on the hillside and called those whom He Himself wanted and chose; and they came to Him.”
In the following pages, we will examine the why, what, and how of the gospel to bring a fresh perspective and sense of gratitude to those who may have become numb to this Good News. We will explore the heart of God in why He saved humanity instead of choosing to start over again with a different race. Following that, we will discover what God saves us from, what he saves us into, and how we can practically experience and enter into such a great and thorough salvation! For too long we have focused on what God has done instead of being amazed at why He did it. When the gospel becomes a technical conversation about what God did instead of why He did it, we will end up with countless belief systems and cold hearts.
FOR TOO LONG WE HAVE FOCUSED ON WHAT GOD HAS DONE INSTEAD OF BEING AMAZED AT WHY HE DID IT.
So why did God so love the world? God is love. The Apostle John revealed a profound truth to us when he penned these words. God does not just act in loving ways; He is love. His nature and being is the very substance of love, and to know God is to know real love. And for love to truly be love, it requires something or someone to bestow itself upon. I believe this is why God created mankind and why He chose to redeem us through the sacrifice of His Son. Because He is love, God delights to share His heart with mankind. He loves to dis- close His affections to us and to romance us (Ps. 25:14, Zeph. 3:17). I often think about the ache in the heart of God as people busily bypass His efforts to demonstrate that He is real and that He lovingly longs to be near to each one of us. God is not only interested in our being “used” by Him to advance His Kingdom; He knows and cares about the seemingly insignificant desires of our hearts. The ways that God expresses His heart toward humanity are countless, but if we acknowledge a few, they will open our eyes and hearts to see more of the innumerable evidences of His great love.
A wonderful example of God’s kindness and affection was shown to my wife not too long ago. For years she has loved to bake, and for as long as I can remember she has shared a desire with me to own a teal KitchenAid mixer. She loves the color teal, but we could not justify buying a new mixer just because she wanted a different color. The one we received as a gift when we got married was black, and it worked just fine for about 9 years. Then some components started to wear out, and one day it started to break.
The very next day I got a text from a friend asking me if Kristi, my wife, owned a KitchenAid mixer. I told him, “She did, but it start- ed to break yesterday.” Well, to our surprise, my friend and his wife
spontaneously delivered a brand-new teal KitchenAid mixer to our house later that day. Our friends had no idea this was a long-standing desire of Kristi’s heart. In the words of our friend who gave us the mixer, “I just felt compelled by God all week that I needed to give this to you since I never use it and know that you love baking.” Needless to say, Kristi cried profusely as she realized that God cares about the little, seemingly insignificant desires of her heart. This is one of many examples of God displaying His affection to us to woo our hearts to His own and to lead us to fall even deeper in love with Him.
We live and move and have our being because God has given us His breath and His spirit. We wake up each morning and take a giant gulp of His kindness; we sleep each night in peace and with plenty of oxygen because God has so graciously allowed us to do so.
Paul writes, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20). This means that God can be seen and known through what has been creat- ed. A sunset can reveal an aspect of the beauty of God, while a mighty mountain displays His steadfast nature. The sun rising each morn- ing reveals His faithfulness. The ocean’s tide reveals His relentless, loving pursuit of each of us. His divine nature, which John supremely summed up as love, can be seen, known, and experienced throughout creation if we only have eyes to see.
And therein lies the problem for most of us. The manifestation of His divine love can be obscured from our vision as a result of person- al failures, hurtful relationships, and life’s disappointments. Perhaps we have agreed with the fallacies whispered to us by the father of lies, Satan, that defy and deny the good and loving nature of our God (James. 1:17). For if the enemy is able to convince us that God’s nature is different than it actually is, we find ourselves in a sabo- taged relationship in which we never actually know God intimately or, worse, even have the desire to know Him. Without an accurate understanding of how extravagantly God loves us, we will not have an authentic encounter with His saving power resulting in a transformed and abundant life.
My friend Mike struggled to be intimate with God for years because the religious tradition he grew up in taught him that God was angry with him when he sinned and that he would not find his way back into God’s good graces and affection unless he felt “sorry” enough for his sin and did a few of the things that God likes, such as going to church, reading his Bible, and sharing his faith with other people. In his mind, God was the cosmic policeman who made sure he was doing the “right things”; otherwise, he would be punished through difficult circumstances or even tragedy. Like it does for so many, his belief about God hindered his ability to truly draw close and know God as a father.
You may bristle at my suggestion that your life experiences or reli- gious upbringing may have conjured up a misrepresented view of God, but I urge you to lay personal history, hurts, theology, and prior religious experience aside. Let us explore afresh this gospel, this God- man who is mighty in love, glorious in beauty, and adventurous in relationship. In my efforts to unfold the greatest mystery of all time, God in us, it is possible that you may discover a God you have never known.
Because God cannot change, we can reasonably conclude He is still pursuing intimacy with mankind. The beautiful, uninhibited relationship between God and man that was lost in the garden has been restored through Jesus Christ. When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their spirits died, sin entered in, and it became impossible for God and man to continue the perfect fellowship that they once enjoyed.
His pursuit, demonstrated through the passion of Christ, contin- ues to this day. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the reason you are reading this book is not because you are pursuing God but because He has been and is presently pursuing you. You are holding this book because a Divine Love has been hunting you down and seeks to over- whelm you with His patience, kindness, and mercy.
If you are willing to lay aside any predispositions or disappoint- ments you’ve had in your relationship with God, at least for a moment, I would like to present to you a God of love, who is longing to know you more fully and be known more fully by you. I believe He can make sense of your hurt and heal it all at the same time. I believe He will uniquely display His heart of love and mercy to you, especially in the midst of pain. And most importantly, I believe He will show you His Son Jesus, Who for our sake became sin so that we would become the righteousness of God.
It is the passionate love of God, this longing for intimacy, that I believe is the driving power of the gospel. I am convinced that the gospel is not solely for those who do not yet believe. If we continually yield to His passion and His pursuit to know us, His divine power will carry us all the days of our lives. Perhaps one of the saddest truths of our day is that many believers have become numb to this gospel’s power at work in their everyday Christian lives. They can speak the truths we are discussing here, yet with little or no sincere conviction. Their joy and peace are limited as they constantly feel at odds with God, struggling against the effects of sin and the cares of this world. Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15). Oh, how I long for all who have ears to hear this powerful gospel again and again until it is woven into the fabric of everyday life.
This gospel is for all. It’s for the lost, of course, but it’s also for the ones who are numb, who are tired of trying to live the Christian life in their own strength, and who are tired of struggling with sin and feel- ing like they constantly fall short of a divine standard of perfection. These are the ones who, in some sense, are the most desperate because they have tasted and seen that the Lord is good but have since been swept away by a torrent of disappointment and failure. Oh, how the gospel is able to save to the uttermost!
It is often assumed that the ultimate aim of the gospel is to change our eternal address from hell to heaven. This promise of living in eternity with our Creator, free from all the effects of sin and liberated permanently by the Spirit of God, is a magnificent promise indeed. However, I submit that the bottom line of the gospel is union with Christ. If we understand that this union, this inseparable oneness, was the chief aim and desire in the heart of God for sending His Son, then the various aspects and work of Christ in redeeming us to the Father will become more clear.
Paul stresses this point to the church in Ephesus saying, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespass- es, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:7-10, emphasis added). According to Paul, redemption and forgiveness were given to us through an abundance of grace. And this lavish kindness of God was His way of revealing to us the purpose or motive of God behind everything that Christ did. Paul says this mystery, that is now known, is that God wants union, oneness, and intimacy with His people. The heartbeat and rhythm of the gospel is God’s desire to be one with us. If we do not start and end with God’s all-consuming desire to be intimate with us, His people, then we are missing the entire point. The true and powerful gospel invites us into constant union with God. It is in this union that we will be swept into the abundant and eternal life, beginning even now.
When this reality becomes the foundation of our Christian walk, we will begin to see what God has always intended for the redemption of man. Because we have reduced the gospel to praying a prayer so that we can go to heaven, we have lost sight of its power. The gospel is not just transformative for someone who has never believed; it is, for all time, God’s very present help in our time of need. I am over- whelmed by an urgency in this hour to see people restored to the joy of their salvation. It is the same joy that was set before Jesus, compel- ling Him to endure the cross. You and I were that joy! We always have been and always will be the object of His affection and the delight of His heart. Believing this is foundational to the Christian faith and understanding the power of salvation. Let’s press into this sure and steadfast confidence as we remember the Son of God, bloody and beaten, hanging on a cross, madly in love with us. Remember the words of John: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
The death of Jesus is God’s great proclamation, once and for all, that even while we were still sinning, while we were crucifying Jesus, He cried out in love, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). This is the love of God. This means that no matter what you have done, what sin you may currently find yourself in, or what sins have been committed against you, there is a love that washes it all as white as snow.
By the grace of God, may we “pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1). We believe in the life and ministry of Jesus reconciling humanity back to God but desperately lack passion to see this fundamental truth restored to and celebrated by the Church. There are too many lifeless and indifferent members of the Body of Christ, not because they are not sincere but because the gospel that was preached lacked the power to truly awaken them to God’s divine love. This was my story for too long.
