Donny Waldner @OCFab_Finishing - Twitter Profile

"I Love You" Is an Incomplete Sentence--Unless God Says It God is the only one for whom, “I love you,” is a complete sentence. For everyone else, those three words are the beginning of a spoken or, more likely, unspoken sentence. There’s a “because” or “until” or “if” or “but” that follows the “I love you.” “I love you *because* you make me happy.” “I love you *but* I love someone else more.” “I love you *until* you cheat on me.” “I love you *because* you’re my son.” “I love you *if* you love me.” We love because we find in the beloved something that is lovable. We see, we know, and then we love. Or, at least, we promise to love. Not so with God. He loves first, without finding anything worthy of love in us. He does what he is. And when he loves, his love, given in Christ, transforms the beloved into something truly lovely. He takes me—a filthy, self-absorbed man reeking of every vice hell ever spawned—and before I clean up my act, before I show signs of repentance, before anything, God loves me. There is no “because” or “until” or “if” or “but”. There is only the God who loves because that’s who he is, quite literally.

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OCFab_Finishing retweeted

Chad Bird

@birdchadlouis

over 3 years ago

Psalm 23 is certainly comforting when viewed as a stand-alone song. But when seen in connection with Israel’s history, its impact deepens and broadens. Here’s but one example. In verse 1, we read, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” The Hebrew verb for “want/lack” is חסר (chasar). This same verb is used in Nehemiah to refer to Israel’s time in the wilderness during the exodus: “Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing” (9:21). They חסר nothing. Yahweh was Israel’s divine Shepherd in the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death, yet they did not חסר, they wanted for nothing. Why? He prepared a table of manna for them in the presence of their enemies. He gave them drink from the rock. Even their shoes didn’t wear out. His goodness and mercy pursued them, restoring their souls, and finally bringing them to the land of promise, where the house of the LORD was eventually built. Rather than reading Psalm 23 individualistically, hear it in its broader, salvation-history context. In so doing, we know with greater confidence that what the Lord Jesus did for Israel, he will also do for us.

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Donny Waldner

@OCFab_Finishing

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