I’m amazed how many people don’t realize that God feels very deeply. A heart-wrenching amount of people see Christianity solely as a way to salvation. They see God’s love as a love of rescue, not a love of intimacy. They don’t actually have a relationship with God at all. But the whole point of Christianity is relationship! A beautiful, exquisite relationship!
Many believers see Christianity as being solely based on being God’s child and friend. They understand that it is about love, God’s sacrificial love for us and our love for him out of gratefulness and appreciating who he is. They understand that obedience is part of that love relationship and strive to live a righteous life. They have an intimate relationship with God, but it’s far less than what it could be.
There is so much more! What most people I’ve talked to don’t realize is that we can hurt God. They understand that God can feel sadness, but they see it as the feeling a parent has when their child is making bad choices that are hurting themselves. What they don’t realize is that God can hurt because he feels rejected. Were you taught that feeling rejection, envy, or jealousy were always sins? Do you believe God couldn’t possibly feel such things because he is perfect? He can. I’ll show you. I didn’t understand it.
But I came across glimpses of it as I read and then I came across a passage that gave me a burning passion to investigate it. It says that the body is meant “for the Lord, and the Lord for the body… Whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:12, 17). This passage talks about how people who have sex become one, even a casual encounter with a prostitute. Chapter 7 talks about marriage. Although Paul stresses that marriage is NOT wrong, he writes, “An unmarried [person’s] aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit... I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord” (vs 32-35). I was absolutely struck by this because Paul was comparing our relationship to God to a beautiful, truly united marriage where both partners are so devoted to each other they are one in spirit! How exquisite!
One of the most beautiful descriptions of marriage in the Bible is Ephesians 5:21-32. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord... Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless… husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself… [Spouses] become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”
WOW. Such an exquisite picture I am breathless with awe. A wife, following her husband with the love and passion with which she follows Christ. Not as a doormat, but as a lover and a friend, one with him in spirit. She trusts him for spiritual protection and leadership. She still has independence, but she uses it to contribute to the richness, growth and well-being of the household, as well as that in which she is interested (see Proverbs 31:10- 31). She honors her husband so thoroughly that he “praises her at the city gate” (the phrase here means before the elders and leaders of the city and anyone who passes within earshot).
And the husband. I am so glad I am not a guy. He has the greater responsibility. His job is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. And what did Christ do for the church? He gave himself up to show her love, to be in relationship with her, and to make her worthy of heaven. He died a death so painful it coined the word excruciating. He got on his knees and washed her feet. He worked in single minded devotion to serve and to love and to make her the best person she could possibly. He worked to bring her inexpressible and glorious joy (1 Peter 5:8), peace that transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:7) and a love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19).
He worked to present her as RADIANT. Think about that. Radiance is seen on the outside because it fills the inside. She is so filled with the beauty of a noble spirit and a strong heart and a healthy soul that she shines with it! Imagine a husband who works to do everything he can to help his wife grow in to the strongest, healthiest person she can be! A husband who’s greatest delight in life is to make his wife an exquisite, confident, radiant person to the very depths of her soul!
Imagine that. Now think about the limitations of frailty of people. People are frail – selfish, unreliable, and distracted. Even the best spouse in the world comes far short of this picture. That isn’t to say there is no such thing as an amazing marriage. There is. If two people come together before God and strive for this, it will be an amazing marriage. But it will be such a pale comparison it’s like an old black and white film compared to Dolby Surround Sound IMAX 3D. Because God's relationship with us is perfect. He will never betray. He will never cheat. He will never let us down. He will never put himself before us within the divine romance.
So let’s get back to God’s feelings. God’s wants an intimate relationship with us. How do we know? Two reasons. The first is that we are made in the image of God. We could never feel and long for such amazing things if it were not a part of who God is. We are made in the image of God exclusive of any other living thing because we are made to feel as he feels. To long for relationship as he longs for relationship. This longing for relationship and intimacy and connection makes us completely unique from animals. We are made to reflect God’s heart. His essence. The Songs of Solomon get downright erotic in their descriptions of romance. The Bible is filled with stories of longing, fellowship, romance, and love. Where do you think all these emotions come from? They come from God because that’s what God feels!
And what about the negative emotions? Where does jealousy come from? The desire for love. Where does rage come from? The betrayal of love. Where does fear come from? The lack of love. Whatever the feeling is, the deepest root is always the need for love. God IS love. He is the essence and existence of love. He didn’t just create love; he is the embodiment of love.
The second way we can know these things is the scripture says so. God loves us. “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him” (Psalm 103:11). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). He loves us so much that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul describes God’s love so beautifully when he writes, “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19).
But the word love can mean so many different things. Especially in today’s society. Even beyond Christ dying for us, the Bible has so many other words to describe God’s love! He doesn’t just love us, he dearly loves us (Ephesians 5:1). He cherishes us (Psalm 83:3). He delights and rejoices in us (Isaiah 65:19). He glories in us and wants to give us glory (1 Peter 1:7). To glory in someone is to take great pride or pleasure in them, to esteem them. Yes! To esteem! The angel told Daniel he was highly esteemed three times!
God doesn’t just love us, he longs for us (James 4:5). He wants fellowship with us (1 Corinthians 1:9, 2 Corinthians 19:14). He doesn’t just want to know us, he wants to be known by us (John 16:3). Jesus said, “I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26). We are the heirs (Romans 8:17) and children (Ephesians 5:1) of God the Father and the friends (John 15:15) and bride (John 3:29) of God the Son. And these few verses barely touch the surface of the love God feels for us and how he longs for us and longs for us to love him He wants us to love him with all our heart, soul and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5, plus 4 or 5 other places). And God wants to forever live with those who love him. “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).
But what about the negative emotions? Did you know God feels indignation (Psalm 78:49)? God IS love. “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). To not love, is to reject HIM. His love for us is so deep, so self-sacrificing and so unconditional, he feels grief when he is betrayed and rejected (Isaiah 63:9-10). He feels jealous anger and wrath (Deuteronomy 6:14-15) and even jealous fury (Psalm 78:59).
God sees our relationship as a divine romance. He gave us the commands he has because it molds our hearts into people who can grow deeper and deeper into that romance. He is so hurt when people reject him by forsaking his commands he refers to them as adulterers. And not in pretty language! Ezekiel 16 and Hosea 2 get very colorful as God describes the prostitution and adultery of his chosen people. When we put the world and the things of the world and the people of the world ahead of divine romance, we’re cheating on God. And just as it hurts us so much to be betrayed and cheated on, it hurts God, too.
This being a divine romance is why relationship with the world, sin, affects our relationship and intimacy with God. When we make anything in this world, sinful or not, a higher priority than God it is idol worship. When we choose to “date” the world instead of or more than God, it is cheating on him. And if we continue to cheat on him and refuse to repair our relationship with him, he will reject and divorce us just as he rejected and divorced Israel. In this life and the next.
I want to end on a good note. God’s love runs so deep that no matter how horribly we treat him, he is there ready to forgive and show us incredible compassion and love if we turn back to him. Time, after time, after time, after time, God forgave when people turned back to him. He accepted them back no matter what. If scorn him, he rejects us. If we turn away from him, he lets us go. But if we love him, if we seek him, if we choose him, even if we fall down a hundred million times, as long as we walk with him and toward him, he continues to forgive us and help us grow into stronger, healthier, happier people and works on our hearts to steadily grow us so we can experience the fullness of that divine romance in this life and the next.
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