Friday Blog

[God] Loves You, and There is Nothing You Can Do About It

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Valentine's Chocolate Boxes

The past two weeks I have attempted to begin the Sabbath by pausing to contemplate some aspect of my week reviewing how God has spoken to me in some quiet way as I start the day He has set aside to fellowship with us. This week was a busy week and as a result I had another appointment that left me rushing to get home before sunset that left me falling over the edge into Sabbath instead of ushering it in quietly. I have contemplated often how Lisa's and my dog Pogo illustrates my rushed relationship with God. I may explore that more in depth in another post at another time, but today is Valentines day so I want to explore that concept a little today.

The English language often is very poor at expressing ideas effectively. When we explore the meaning of words we find that many of them have multiple meanings with wide ranging application. Take the word "love" as an example - at Valentines day we express our "love" for another by giving them a box of chocolates because every one "loves" chocolate (yes, I understand that not EVERYBODY loves chocolate, but you know what I mean!) We use the same word to describe our affinity for a sweet treat that we do for our affection for our crush and for our devotion to our soul mate. The first reference simply attests to our enjoyment of a delicacy while the last two reference different levels of the same emotion - it's the same word used to convey three very different meanings.
 
Over the years there have been several movies that I have watched that have made significant spiritual statements. Some of them like The Shack and Courageous are overtly religious while others like A Christmas Wish and A Walk in the Clouds make a more subtle statement with their message lurking just beneath the surface for anyone willing to dig a little to find. A few weeks ago Lisa and I watched the movie Soul on Fire (2025). This movie falls in the middle, clearly having a religious intent but the deeper message is still hiding under the surface. The story is about a young John O'Leary and his fight for survival after he burns his parents house down because he was playing with matches and gasoline in the garage. As a result of this accident he received burns over 100% of his body with 3rd degree burns over 85%, and was given less than a 1% chance of survival. As he is being treated in the emergency room his dad arrives at the hospital and states to John "I love you, and there is nothing you can do about that" just before they rush him into surgery. That phrase would be repeated at least one more time in the movie "I love you, and there is nothing you can do about that."
 
For many of us we have heard that phrase stated about God, "He loves us, and there is nothing we can do about that." Intellectually we know that God loves but we have a hard time believe that God loves US and there is nothing WE can do about that. Years ago I had a conversation with my mom about this very concept - the Sabbath School lesson had been focusing on God's forgiveness of our sin but someone was telling her that forgiveness was conditional, if she continued to be good God would continue to forgive her, but if she EVER did anything wrong all that forgiveness would be removed. I believe this perspective comes because we have a human perspective on love (once again I love chocolate and I love my wife!) and a misunderstanding of who God is. We believe that love is an emotion and God expresses love out of an emotional attachment. We read all the biblical passages about how God loves us but miss the most important one - 1 John 4:8 tells us that love is not something that God FEELS, but it is who He IS! God IS Love. Love does not define who God is, God defines what love is (we could spend an enormous amount of time looking at all the scripture that describes God's love but again that is for another time.) God will love you no matter what, there is NOTHING you can do about it. 2 Timothy 2:13 tells us that God cannot deny Himself - the Turk application of this passage says that "even if we don't love God He still loves us because He cannot deny Himself."
 
As with John O'Leary (spoiler alert) we often spend our entire lives believing that if God only knew what we had done He would stop loving us. I've got news for you, He already knows and He loves you anyway - and there is NOTHING you can do about that! Our challenge is not to attempt to earn God's love, but rather to accept the love that He so graciously lavishes upon us.

 

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