A Portrait Of Love Series

Luke 11:11-13 (MSG)

11 If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate?

12 If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider?

13 As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing—you're at least decent to your own children. And don't you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?"

God and His love are not proud. This means arrogant and stuck up and inaccessible. Pride is defined as “overrating one’s excellencies, and thus arrogant or haughty.” Of course a God who is infinitely kind and good cannot overrate his kindness and goodness and his other excellencies. We sing, “I could sing of your love forever,” because God’s love is infinite. No matter how long we sing about it, we can’t express it, capture it, or run out of things to say about it.

When someone is arrogant or haughty, you feel lower in their presence. You feel less than they are, or at least like they want you to feel like that. And yet the eternal God, the Lord of Creation, the only one who truly IS above us and higher than us in a real sense, takes on human flesh, stoops to our level, and allows to step on his back and then boosts us up to the throne of God. As John Ortberg says, Ironically, the only person who has ever walked this earth who did not have a Messiah complex, was actually the Messiah! The only one around whom the world actually DOES revolve never demanded that others revolve around him. The only one who has ever literally been “all that,” made himself nothing.

Philippians 2:5-8 (MSG)

5 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. 6 He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. 7 Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! 8 Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

That is the gracious humility of Jesus.

This love is not rude or self-seeking. It is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. When you do something wrong, you may roll your eyes, but God never does. God is never rude. He never stands over you demanding, “Would you please just get it right, what’s the matter with you?” He never gets ticked and throws up his hands and says, “What’s the use, you’ll never get it right,” or, “I can’t believe you’re still not getting it.” He’s never mean-spirited. He never takes pleasure in your pain or failures. He’s never interested in just getting his own way. If God wanted that he wouldn’t have created creatures with the ability to NOT please him. God is not self-seeking, He is seeking your happiness and peace and fulfillment. The Purpose-Driven Life opens with that sentence, “It’s not about you.” And it’s NOT about you, it’s about God. But ironically, God is about you! God is with you, and for you!