If we were all just more cognizant of who we are, and aware of who we are – what our true identity is – and just enjoyed being us, I think we would find a lot of change begin to take place around us because of our light and joy. We leave a residue of that DNA and that light wherever we go. Whenever we speak and act in a place, that gets recorded within the fabric of the atoms, molecules and particles of that place; so when we walk in that place we leave a deposit of ourselves; that light does continue. So let’s make sure we are not miserable and leaving a miserable deposit in the place we have been in: moaning, complaining and grumbling over the fact that it isn’t as we want it to be. Let’s be positive, leave a deposit of activity in the realm of the spirit in that place which will continue until it has finished bringing about change and transformation.
I think that is the key. Jesus said “If you go into a place and they don’t receive you, shake the dust off your feet and leave.” People think that is so negative! And it wasn’t. That was such a positive statement. Because the dust was the rabbi’s dust, reflecting the rabbi’s teaching that they had received and were living. Therefore by shaking that dust off they were leaving a deposit of the truth and the life and the light in that place; so even though they might have rejected Jesus at that moment, they had a possibility of accepting and engaging because you’ve left a positive deposit, not “let’s bring down fire out of heaven and burn up that village.”
Some of them didn’t yet get it because they didn’t get the love dimension yet; and I think Jesus had to show them by his attitude even by being punished, being whipped and beaten and having a crown of thorns and all the terrible things that he went through getting to the cross, let alone on the cross itself. His response was still “Father, forgive them.” His response was still “look after my mum.” He was still thinking of others, he was still thinking about the world even while he was going through those things; and that’s what he taught his disciples. So when they then went through martyrdom or persecution – which he warned them was likely to happen in the next generation; both the religious and the political spirit being against them (both Israel and Rome) – they could do so with a smile. And even when they were crucified upside down, as some of them were, they still rejoiced because they saw it as an honour
We are leaving deposits of light and love and truth wherever we go. If people have found some joy or happiness in being around us because we weren’t miserable and we weren’t complaining and grumbling about the weather and everything else, but we were rejoicing and enjoying and always had something to be thankful for and grateful about, that leaves a deposit of life; and that will bring about change, even after we have left and are no longer there, because we have been there.
What have we left? It’s a good thing to think about. Wherever we have been in the last week, whether it be at work or in the supermarket or in the garden or in meeting people or out having fun or having a meal in a restaurant, did we leave a good deposit? Did we leave a good vibe, a good atmosphere – a rejoicing, peaceful atmosphere – or did we moan and complain and oh, the queue’s too long and we’re getting angry and annoyed and frustrated and all that? What have we left? What deposit have we left wherever we have been, and wherever we are going?
Think about it this week. Wherever you are going this week, whatever you are doing this week, what deposit of light are we leaving behind, of peace, of joy, in the fabric of the very place we have been to bring about that place being transformed? Or the people who are going to come into that place feel and sense something good about it because they pick up the light and that peace that we left there?
It is a good thing to think about isn’t it? Am I leaving rest and joy, and peace and love wherever I’m going? If people see you enjoying your grandchildren and having fun, you’ll leave that deposit with them and with where you’ve been enjoying them; that memory is there in that fabric of that place. It will be a joyful, happy place and other people who come there can still feel and sense it.
Russian scientists, recording light from our very DNA, are still recording it after we left1. I don’t know how they record it after we left, but they have obviously found a way of doing it. But actually it’s more than that! We are leaving more than just residual light, we are leaving a deposit of who we are in that place, and I think that’s what the world needs.
Am I leaving a deposit of rest and joy, peace and love wherever I go?
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Mike Parsons reads from his latest book, ‘Into the Dark Cloud’.
Engaging in love, joy and peace within the eternal heart of God has transformed my entire life. God has challenged my understanding of who He is, my mindset and my beliefs about Him. He has shown me love, love, and more love in ways I could never have imagined.
At this point, all I desire is a deep relationship with Him.
The way I look at and engage with the world has changed as a result of that.
I am beginning to experience what it means to live loved. It changes everything. Life takes on a whole new perspective: I do not feel obliged or bound by anything, I am free to be myself within the context of a loving relationship with my Father.
God is love, and He wants me to experience that love and be free within it.
Because of that, I can live a life filled with love and demonstrate that love to others. After all, “God so loved the world that He gave…” and Jesus told us to love one another just as He loved us.
In order to do that, we must be able to receive love ourselves. How can we love, if we have not received His love? It would be superficial, limited to a mere physical or emotional affection. But God desires to take us deeper into a love that surpasses that between friends, romantic partners or spouses,
into agape love, unconditional love. To love in such a way, we must first receive it ourselves. That is why God wants us to receive and experience His love.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).
This Word, Jesus, came to reveal love to us. In His earthly life He fully expressed the image of the Father. He even said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”
So, what do we think God is like?
Do we see Him as being like Jesus?
Or as a distant figure from the Old Testament?
It can be confusing to have a divided perception of God, as if He were somehow two-faced, so that we could never be sure which face we would encounter. My view of God used to be more aligned with an old covenant perspective; but Jesus was awesome, so I focused mostly on Him.
But there is no difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their nature of love. They are all expressions of love, and they want us to experience that love.
God is love, and He wants you to experience that love and be free within it.
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God knows everything there is to know about you, even many things you do not know about yourself, and He loves you. He loves you as much as He could possibly ever love anyone, and His love will never change. It is totally unconditional. There is nothing you can do (or not do) which will ever change His love for you.
Once we really accept the truth of that, it gives us the confidence and trust to be completely open with Him, not fearing that if we are honest with Him He will be angry or disappointed with us. He is always smiling upon us; His countenance is always fair towards us. He may be stern and fiercely opposed to whatever is robbing us, hindering us or putting stumbling blocks in our path, but never towards us.
He loves us, and when we really know His love it allows us to say: “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Put me on trial and see if there’s anything in me which is a hindrance and a stumbling block to me.” (see Psalm 139:23-24).
In the Mirror Bible it says this:
The message God spoke to us in Christ, is the most life giving and dynamic influence in us, cutting like a surgeon’s scalpel, sharper than a soldier’s sword, piercing to the deepest core of human conscience, to the dividing of soul and spirit; ending the dominance of the sense realm and its neutralizing effect upon the human spirit. In this way a person’s spirit is freed to become the ruling influence again in the thoughts and intentions of their heart. (Hebrews 4:12).
We want the living word to penetrate and impact us. When God speaks to us, He speaks life and truth: He opens up revelation to us. Before we can change the atmosphere around our life by flowing from the inside out, an inner transformation needs to take place. We want our spirit to be free to become ‘the ruling influence in the thoughts and intentions of our heart’, so that we are no longer ruled by our soul: the directive comes from the spirit and our soul is in complete agreement.
Our surrender, our yielding, invites and enables God’s action.
The whole time we are trying to do it ourselves, God is waiting for us to stop and give up.
In all we are embarking upon in this book, there may be points where we have to give up. When we have been used to fighting for things all our lives,
or been taught that we should always be actively trying to do something,
giving up is not always easy!
Nothing you can do (or not do) will ever change His love for you.
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Problem two with penal substitutionary atonement theory is that it makes a wrathful violence the solution to everything. PSA claims that God’s justice will not allow Him to just forgive sin; instead, His wrath must be poured out – on an innocent, in this case, Jesus – and His justice be satisfied so He can forgive the guilty (us). And again, that concept presents God as a completely violent and wrathful Being, when He is love. He’s not anger. He’s not wrath. He’s not violence. He’s love.
That is the second real, big, giant problem with the theory of atonement – and the the word ‘atonement’ really just means ‘why Jesus died on the cross’ – ‘what He was doing on the cross’ – it makes wrathful violence the solution to all our problems: in short, violence is actually the answer. Well we know that can’t be true because of Jesus’ teaching, and Jesus’ life, and everything He represented. PSA claims that God must violently punish to satisfy His justice. Now, we can counter that by saying if God had to use violence to solve the problem, we elevate violence as a viable solution for people’s problems. “If God did it, then why can’t I do it?”
That actually is why people can justify the Crusades, and all sorts of persecution of people, and ‘salvation by the sword’, and all that type of thing that happened in the past because they were coming from an Old Testament perspective. And God wasn’t even that God in the Old Testament, because He’s the same, He never changes: He has always been love.
Their view of him was wrong and Jesus came to truly reveal what God was fully like. Even when Peter used a sword to cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear, what did Jesus do? He didn’t commend Peter for violently cutting off his ear, he put his ear back and healed him. Very clearly, the pictures and some of the illustrations that use the terminology of a sword coming to divide were examples of division, nothing to do with violence.
Another claim of PSA is that God punished Jesus on the cross as an expression of His wrath. Again I think we can counter that – the idea of God using violence directly contradicts the ethics taught and lived by Jesus, who is God. There is not one instance where Jesus who is God suggests this in His teaching, especially The Sermon on the Mount. Therefore it contradicts the core of Jesus’ teaching, which is to show mercy, to love our enemies and to never use violence to solve anything.
I think mercy triumphs over man’s desire and need for justice, for sacrifice for offering, and all the other things we have created in our own forms of religion.
Key takeaway
According to PSA, violence is actually the answer. Yet this directly contradicts the ethics lived and taught by Jesus.
This is part of an occasional series taken from ‘The Chariot of Ascension‘: in which Mike began to discuss 7 problems with PSA (as identified by Bryan Finley).
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It is not that all religions lead to God, but that we can choose to accept and love people who hold different beliefs. God loves everyone, no matter what they believe. He loves Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs (and everyone else) just as much as He loves Christians. No more, no less – they just do not know that love in the same way. Telling others they are wrong or are leading people astray and that they will go to hell is counter-productive and falsely represents God’s nature.
God can reveal Himself to anyone. Taking a positive approach towards others makes them more likely to think of God as good, so that when they do meet Jesus, they are more likely to consider following Him than if they have experienced hostility from an unfriendly church. Rick Warren is someone who takes flak for engaging with other faith groups, yet all he is doing is reaching out and showing love – which is what the good news is all about. Whatever our doctrinal disagreements might be with him, he is reflecting God’s love in a way that others are not.
God is not looking at whether you have all your I’s dotted and your T’s crossed in doctrine: He is looking at love. He is looking at your heart. If we are loving, that is more a reflection of Him than if our belief system is in line. If you have great doctrine but you do not show love, what is the point of that? You are nothing but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal (see 1 Cor 13:1). If you do not show love, your faith is empty and hollow and it has no power and no effect. It is about what you do with people, not what you say to them.
Key takeaway:
If you have great doctrine but you do not show love, what is the point of that? You are nothing but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
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Engaging with God intimately is a journey of transformation, as we spend time in the light of His love. It is not about rigid doctrines or rituals; it is about being in His presence, letting that love shape us into the very image He always intended. This transformation can even affect elements like our DNA and family history, as we align with the Father’s revelations. It is a journey of ‘becoming’, in which we are guided by His wisdom and respond practically to His leading.
This is a state of being in which we are constantly aware of His unconditional love, limitless grace, and triumphant mercy. Dwelling in Him allows for a richer relationship, yet our focus remains on being present in that love, not necessarily noticing, recalling or dissecting every detail. Shifting our perspective from a frantic pursuit of ‘doing’, we can embrace a life of ‘being’ – dwelling in love, intimacy, and rest. Any actions we take in the spiritual realm come from that place of rest, often without a cognitive understanding of what is happening.
Living multi-dimensionally involves being present in multiple realms simultaneously, led by the Spirit, and always from a place of rest. The mindset of what we should or should not do is replaced by a focus on enjoying life, rejoicing, and embracing love, joy, and peace – even amidst life’s storms and challenges.
Key takeaway
Shaped by love: Let God’s unconditional love shape us as we are guided by His wisdom and respond practically to His leading.
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Penal substitutionary atonement refers to the doctrine that Christ died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ, and he, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve (Theopedia).
Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) Theory faces a significant challenge when we consider it in the light of Jesus’ life and teachings. There is a stark disparity between PSA and the person of Jesus, who is the incarnation of God and the very image of the Father. PSA appears to align with the Old Testament perception of God from a Hebrew standpoint rather than embracing the New Testament revelation embodied by Jesus.
PSA’s assertion that God cannot be in the presence of sin (due to His holiness) may resonate with evangelical doctrine. But in that case, none of us could be in God’s presence and He would not be able to even look at us. The idea that God turns His back on the world is nonsensical. And if God could not be in the presence of sin, then surely Jesus could not be either? And yet He spent time around prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners!
PSA also says that God cannot forgive sin without some form of punishment, contradicting Jesus’ consistent demonstration of unconditional forgiveness. Even on the cross, when He was undergoing punishment (by men, not by God) Jesus forgave without demanding punishment for anyone: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” PSA argues that God’s standard of justice is higher than ours and demands payment. In reality, it is we who demand payment, in the religious systems we have created.
Jesus challenged prevailing Hebrew notions of justice rooted in violence and retribution. He urged a shift from an “eye for an eye” mentality to a radical perspective of love, turning the other cheek and extending kindness to enemies. Genuine forgiveness harbours no resentment against enemies; and God, in His mercy, holds nothing against mankind. Let us allow the discrepancy between PSA and Jesus’ person and teachings to prompt a critical re-evaluation of our theological perspectives, to ensure we are aligning with the profound love and forgiveness exemplified by Jesus, even if this challenges the preconceived notions deeply ingrained in our theological traditions.
Love and forgiveness: God, in His mercy, holds nothing against us – and never has. Let’s ensure we are aligning with His profound love and forgiveness as exemplified by Jesus, even if this challenges our preconceived religious notions.
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We have to be careful to ensure that what may seem like disorder or hardship is not part of God’s plan to bring about a realisation that the world has moved away from the loving values that He espouses. Timing is important when it comes to heavenly legislation, as the apparent issues can help people recognise that their way of life and the systems they depend on may not align with God’s values. This awakening relates to wider political and financial situations, as well as individuals’ lives. It leads to questions about genuine happiness and success.
Occasionally, when systems and personal lives collapse, people are forced to search for better outcomes. During struggles on a local or global level, conscience and God can prompt individuals to look past their current circumstances. Trying to make a nation “great again” (whether America or ‘Great’ Britain) is flawed because true greatness comes from reflecting God’s love, not from human strength or pride. The pandemic revealed the deceptive nature of previous beliefs about life and relationships. Instead of asking for a return to the old ways, we should pray for the ongoing outworking of the awakening. This will help people fully grasp the truth and emerge from the darkness of deception. Sometimes, darkness makes light more visible and effective, leading to a positive transformation.
Obviously we would not want the world to be in chaos and anarchy, but sometimes it is only terrible things that can shock people out of their existing mindsets and beliefs systems to enter into something better.
Key Takeaway
Collapse as Catalyst for Change: In moments of system breakdowns or personal crises, people are compelled to look beyond their immediate circumstances. Sometimes only severe disruptions can jolt people out of existing mindsets.
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God is love and that love is unconditional. The ministry entrusted to us is to share the good news of the unconditional love, inclusion and reconciliation that God has already brought about in Jesus! That message will enable people to come into a reality in which they experience that love and grasp the fact that they are already reconciled to God; that God loves them and He holds nothing against them.
Yet much of our preaching of the ‘gospel’, particularly in an evangelical setting, has been the opposite of that. It has been a message of exclusion and very much works-based, in fear of avoiding punishment rather than entering into love. And what I have understood and experienced is that love can only be unconditional. That means that for God to love you, there are no conditions that you have to fulfil. None.
For a moment, stop and embrace that. If you can just grasp that one truth in an experiential way, it will transform your life as it has transformed mine.
God is unconditional love and therefore He loves all his children equally. No matter what you have done, where you have come from, or what has happened to you, God loves you. He is not angry with you, or disappointed with you. He loves you.
But…
Many people obviously accept that God is love because the Bible says so, but there is always a ‘but’. Why is that ‘but’ there? Because it is too good to be true for an independent, alienated mind to accept – and many of us have been alienated or separated from God within our own minds because of our religious programming.
“Yes, God is love, but He is also holy.” How many times have I heard that? As if His holiness contradicts His love!
“Yes, God is love, but He is also righteous.” As if His righteousness contradicts His love!
“Yes, God is love, but He is also just.” As if His justice contradicts His love!
All these are all religiously-programmed statements that I used to believe, because I had never experienced the contrary. I had never experienced the truth, so that made it easy to believe the lies.
“Yes, God is love, but He is also a judge.” As if that makes Him what? A bad judge? A judge who is going to find us guilty? Love never finds us guilty because love keeps no record of wrongs (I Corinthians 13:5), so how can He find us guilty?
“Yes, God is love, but He cannot look upon sin.” By ‘sin’ they normally mean certain behaviours, but in reality, sin is lost identity. Well, if God cannot look upon sin, if God cannot look at a lost world, how could Jesus ever have come? And God is not just looking at this world, He is engaged within each and every person to bring us all into the reality of our relationship and inclusion in Christ. So the fact is that we have already been reconciled in Christ, we have already been made righteous in Christ, we have already been made holy in Christ. We didn’t need to do anything, He did it all!
Religion always adds a ‘but’, but none of those ‘buts’ contradicts the fact that God is love, other than in the false religious doctrines that create a god who seems to be two-faced, a god who in the Old Testament seems to be angry and needs to be appeased in some way but in the New Testament seems to be loving – though even in the New Testament there seems to be wrath and anger.
In reality, the word translated ‘wrath’ can equally well be rendered as ‘passion.’ God is passionate about anything that hinders our coming into relationship with Him. He is passionate about making available that relationship for us and therefore His wrath is going to be poured out on anything that hinders our coming into relationship; not the kind of ‘wrath’ that we have tended to believe, but rather God passionately outworking His love to bring about change and transformation for our good.
Religion twists
So that religious deception alters and denigrates God’s character and makes love able and willing to punish us – not to discipline or correct us, but to bring retribution upon us. What loving Father would ever eternally punish His children like that! These religious concepts have created a god that people find it difficult to trust, a god who says he loves us and yet threatens to torment us forever if we don’t do things the way he wants us to do them.
None of that is the reality of who God is. Religion twists God’s holiness and righteousness through a wrong understanding of the concepts of judgment and justice. This deception is what creates this false ‘hell’ narrative in which such a god would torture his children eternally. No, God will love His children eternally, and will never stop and never give up until they experience that love. Yes, His love is a purifying, refining fire, a consuming fire: it will consume every hindrance and objection and anything that comes in the way of us entering into the depth of unconditional love.
So holiness, righteousness, judgment and justice do not contradict unconditional love:
Holiness expresses it
Righteousness reveals it
Judgment is its result
And justice enforces it.
Justice brings about the judgment – and the judgment that has been made by God on behalf of the whole of humanity, the whole of mankind, the whole of creation, is…
“Not guilty!”
Each of this series of blog posts is adapted from Mike’s latest FREE video series on ‘Unconditional Love’.
Click the image or link above for the whole series, or scroll down to watch the video of the talk this post comes from. Better still, become a patron and join us live for the next recording – they are normally on the second Sunday of each month at 7pm UK time.
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We saw last time that love wins. If love does not win in the end then it cannot be love; but love can never be forced, just continually demonstrated again and again, until it eventually overcomes every obstacle, objection, excuse and reason.
That is why I believe in the restoration of all things. God’s love will never stop because He cannot stop being Him: He can never deny Himself and who He is, so He continues to love. And because He is an eternal being, that means He will never stop, so God and love will never fail.
His love never fails, never gives up and can never be escaped because it is filled with age-enduring grace and mercy. That grace and mercy will never cease to be a vehicle for love to be expressed and demonstrated abundantly, lavishly and with extreme desire and intent, without limits. God’s love has no limits: if you put a condition on it, then you have limited it. If love is limited, it is not love. Love must be extreme or it is not love. Love must seem wasteful and undeserved or it is not love.
His love cannot be thwarted by sin, rejection or death – it has experienced all there is and yet has conquered and overcome all things, so that all things can be restored to love’s face-to-face, relational innocence. That is really the nature of what God has done: He has made us innocent. That is how He sees us. Do we feel it? Or do we feel ‘less than’ because we struggle with the concept of unconditional love?
Nothing can separate
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35, 37-39).
That really leaves nothing out. That is the nature of that love: there is nothing we can do – or anyone or anything else can do – that can separate us from the love of God. Religion, even though it will probably have you read that Bible verse, will tell you the opposite, that there is something that can separate you from the love of God: your choice. But your choice can only separate you in your own head, it cannot separate you from a God who loves you unconditionally. And that is really what we need to understand and engage.
If you still think you can separate yourselves, or feel separated because of your past life, or things you might do, or thoughts you might have, remember this: God takes no notice of what you – or others – think, He just takes notice of who He is. And He is unconditional love.
Discover who we are
So to know our true identity as sons of God, which is who we are, it is imperative that we know unconditional love by personal, intimate experience and not just in an intellectual way. I would have always said that I believed that God is love but my understanding of that love is very different now that I know it by experience. I have had so many experiences of the nature of that unconditional love, both towards myself and how God has expressed and shown His love to others, that I am absolutely convinced that this is the key, that everyone needs to know. All of us ‘know’ that God is love because the Bible tells us; but the question is, have we all experienced that love as unconditional or do we just know it as a concept or a theory? God wants it to be very practical.
As sons of God, we need to have our lives built on a solid foundation: that foundation is the nature, character and essence of who God is as I AM. I AM is a constant, never changing. He is unconditional love, He is limitless grace and He is triumphant mercy: put all those three together and they make a totally solid foundation on which to build our lives, to grow and mature. All these attributes have to be experienced: that is what God is working to do in our lives constantly, to enable us to experience the reality of who He is and so discover who we are.
Limitless grace, triumphant mercy
Never stop living in the reality of unconditional love, limitless grace and triumphant mercy. A few years ago there was a huge fuss over so-called ‘hyper-grace’. Well, His grace goes way beyond ‘hyper’: it is limitless! There is nothing that limitless grace cannot deal with or overcome.
And His mercy is triumphant, which means no matter what obstacle or hindrance might get in the way of us experiencing unconditional love, His mercy has already triumphed over it! So if we live in that reality, then we can abide, dwell, and remain at rest in that state of conscious awareness that we are loved. We do not have to do anything, it is completely free and unconditional. That may not be easy to accept, because of the way we have been conditioned to think about love and about God. That state of being, immersed in that unconditional love, limitless grace and triumphant mercy, is an expanded state of consciousness, an awareness that forms the foundation of everything we think, feel and do. Therefore we can just be.
Our true identity and our consciousness of that identity is about being, not doing. If we can really get hold of that reality then it will free us up so much to discover just how powerful we are and how amazing our sonship is. Yet it is so hard to just be when we are conditioned to do. All of us have been programmed by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, programmed into independence, so that we believe we have to do something.
Religious systems
Probably all of us have been involved in some religious system or other and those systems tend to require performance or adherence to a set of behavioural norms so that we will be accepted. When those norms are projected onto God, as they often are, it leads us to believe that God requires certain things of us, which contradicts the truth of His unconditional love. But Paul wrote:
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2).
Or, ‘do not be pressed into a religious or political mould, shaped or formed by the political and religious systems you live under, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ We cannot renew our own minds, however hard we try. I used to try to renew my mind by confessing Bible verses over and over again, making confessions and declarations and decrees so that I would believe what I was declaring. I learned a lot of Bible verses that way but it never renewed my mind: the only thing that renewed my mind was an experience of God that changed my mind because now I knew the truth (and that truth was different from what I thought before) and now I agree with Him, which is what metanoia (usually misleadingly translated as ‘repentance’) actually means.
Blameless innocence
God’s good, acceptable and perfect will is proven or known when we experience it – but we have taught people that you can only know it by faith. Faith is the evidence of things not yet seen, but I want to live in the reality of experiencing everything that God intends for me, not to die never having received it (as happened to all those heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11).
… just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will… (Ephesians 1:4-5).
That is His will: that we would be before Him in love. In the Mirror Bible it says:
He associated us in Christ before the fall of the world. Jesus is God’s mind made up about us. He always knew in his love that he would present us again face to face before him in blameless innocence… (Ephesians 1:4 Mirror).
That is such an amazing statement! Perhaps if we look at our life we would say we are far from blameless; but God is not looking at what we have done, He is looking at what He has done, at what Jesus has done. We are who He says we are, so His love enables us to be face to face with Him without fear (because perfect love casts out fear). His love, expressed as His will, chose us to be restored to face to face, blameless innocence. And when we have been face to face with Him, then we can begin to realise how blamelessly innocent we are.
In God’s heart we are already restored: we just need to catch up with what is already true rather than trying to make it true. He is much more patient than we are, and His patience means that His love will never fail. And His limitless grace and triumphant mercy ensure that we will all know his love unconditionally, one way or another, however long it takes.
Each of this series of blog posts is adapted from Mike’s latest FREE video series on ‘Unconditional Love’.
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Sons of Issachar 