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“Have fun!”
God Believes in You!
Dr. Paul Ellis
Last night I caught my five-year-old son
reading in bed when he should’ve been sleeping. I asked him to give me his book
and he did, albeit reluctantly.
I reminded him that it was late and he
needed to go to sleep because he had school in the morning. Then I put his book
at the end of his bed and turned to leave.
Luke couldn’t believe his luck. “Haha – I can get that book when you go!”
he said with a wicked grin.
“I know you can,
but I hope you won’t. It’s time to sleep. Good night, son.”
I
closed the door and waited outside for a minute. Then I opened the door a crack
to see if he had caved into temptation. He hadn’t. His head was still on the
pillow and the book was untouched.
“Attaboy,” I said to myself.
The
single most astonishing discovery in the gospel is that Almighty God, the Maker
of Heaven and Earth, has faith in us. He
trusts us.
He gives us the
freedom to choose, encourages us to “Choose
life,” and then lets us decide.
This
explains the tree.
Faith and love in the Garden of Eden
The
forbidden tree was not an obedience test, as in, fail the test and God will
punish you. The forbidden tree was an opportunity to trust God. Tragically, we
didn’t and we paid a price.
But God, good Father that He is, didn’t
wash his hands of us. He didn’t say, “What
a bunch of screw-ups. They’re no kids of mine.”
Instead, He made things right, indeed, even
better than before, because He
still believes in us, He still thinks
the best of us, and He longs for us to trust Him back.
Is
this not the greatest untold story of human history?
Think
about it. In the beginning God makes a world, perfect in every way, and then He
gives us His beautiful, shiny planet.
The
highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth He has given to man. (Psalms 115:16)
You might say it was a reckless gamble, but
I say it was an audacious act of love and trust, like when a father hands his
daughter the keys to his Shelby Mustang and says, “Go have fun!”
What
is man that you are mindful of him? … You made him ruler over the works of your
hands. (Psalms
8:4,6)
God gave us the car-keys to planet earth
and basically said, “Have fun!”
True, we responded by crashing the car. But
don’t miss the bigger point: Knowing what we would do, and knowing how much it
would cost Him to repair the damage, God went ahead and did it anyway.
Why? Because he loves us and believes in us
and hopes that one day we will stop running and come home.
God believes in you!
You
won’t hear this message from manmade religion. Instead you will be asked, “Do
you believe in God?”
And if you hesitate
to answer, religion will try lto manipulate you with carrots and sticks. “If you believe, you’ll be blessed. If you
don’t, you’ll burn!”
This is not love. Love makes no threats,
and “love doesn’t force itself on others”
(1 Corinthians
13:5, MSG).
Nor does this
reveal the One who said, “You did not
choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).
A back-to-front gospel says, “Believe in God or pay the price.”
But the gospel of
grace declares, “God believes in you.” This is the
stunning revelation that sets us free from the prison of loneliness and
distrust.
Last
night it would’ve been the easiest thing for me to take my boy’s book by force
and put it where he couldn’t reach it. I could coerce him into doing the right
thing because I’m stronger than him.
And if he were a
strapping teenager I could control him through carrots and sticks. I could make
him do what I wanted with harsh words and threats. “Under my roof, you’ll do what I say!”
But
what kind of father would I be if I did that? And what kind of son would he be?
He wouldn’t be a son but a slave. And since we were not made to be slaves he’d
eventually run away.
I
don’t want to relate to my son through power or the fear of punishment. I want
to relate to him through love.
How do I do that? By giving him freedom to
resist me, and then loving him no matter what.
It’s
the same with our heavenly Father.
The
Almighty is stronger than you or I and it would be the easiest thing in the
world for him to make us do whatever he liked. It would be no trouble at all.
But that’s not how love works. Love doesn’t
seek to control or coerce. Love yields, and the greater the Yielder, the
greater the love.
God longs for you!
This
is the surprising announcement of the gospel. Despite all our mistakes and
foolishness, our Father holds nothing against us.
He waits by the gate for us to come home so
He can clothe us and throw a party that is so outrageously good fun that
religious kill-joys are scandalized by it.
Perhaps you’ve heard the old joke about the
nun and the atheist. The atheist says, “I
don’t believe in God,” and the nun replies, “But God believes in you.”
This is no joke; this is the gospel truth
that penetrates the unbelieving heart. God isn’t shaking his fist at you. He
loves you and wants to be with you.
As
a parent, my greatest joy comes from experiencing the fearless and trusting
love of my children.
When Luke gave me
his book last night, he was saying, “Daddy,
I love reading, but I love you more and I trust your judgment.”
It melted my heart. But here’s the thing:
Luke would never trust me if I didn’t trust him first.
It’s
the same with our heavenly Father. We love because He first loved us, and we
trust because He first trusted us. That’s the biblical pattern. God acts; we
respond.
The
reason some people have trouble trusting is they don’t see God with
outstretched arms but with clenched fists.
Religion has taught them to fear His
punishment. Such folk need to hear the good news of His grace. They need to
hear how much their Daddy loves them and wants nothing but the best for them.
Eveything
that God has ever done testifies to His love for us. The Garden, the tree, the
cross – He did it all because He loves us and believes in us and is not willing
that any of us should perish.
His enduring hope is that we will stop
doubting his intentions and trust him back.
And
when that happens – when we stand firm in the confidence of our Father’s love –
life truly begins!
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Dr. Paul Ellis is the multi-award-winning
author of several gospel books. A former
Bible smuggler, Paul pastored a multicultural church in Hong Kong for ten
years. He was also a full professor at one of Asia’s leading business schools.
He is ranked as one of the world’s most prolific scholars in the field of
international business. He lives with his wife and their four children in
Auckland, New Zealand. Paul writes regularly about the good news of God’s
amazing grace at escapetoreality.org.
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