Tuesday, July 24, 2007

#61 The Jealous Love of God – Exodus 34:14

Exodus 34:14 NLT“You must worship on other gods, for the Lord, Whose very name is jealous, is a God Who is passionate about His relationship with you.”

Journal Entry # 61

We tend to think of jealousy as a bad thing, but there is one instance where jealousy is right and even expected. When a couple marries, they promise all of a certain kind of affection exclusively to each other. If one partner gives any of that of affection to another, the faithful spouse is rightfully jealous of that affection. If the faithful spouse did not react with jealousy, then we would question that person’s love for the wayward spouse. It should not surprise us then that God is jealous over us – unwilling to share our hearts with anything else. This does not mean that we have no affection for anything else, however, it does mean that certain kinds of affections (ex. worship, adoration, and the deepest love in our hearts) must be for Him alone. There are many reasons why it is right and good for God to be jealous for us like this. First, God is the one who created us and we are all created through Him and to Him (Romans 11:36) and for His glory (Isaiah 43:7). Therefore, as His special creations, God has the right to be jealous of our worship, for it is rightfully His as our creator God.

Secondly, as Christians, we are now doubly His – not only as His creations but now also as those who have been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-20, 1 Corinthians 6:20) and we are no longer our own (1 Corinthians 6:19). In becoming His in this way, we see that God is not only worthy of our worship, but also our praise, adoration, love, trust, and obedience. He deserves to have first place in all these things and He passionately desires to be first – not simply because He deserves it, but also because He loves us so very much. His love is limitless and it demands to be returned as well as we are able. Which one of us has not experienced the pain of love given and not returned – whether that person was a friend, a parent, a relative – whether platonic or romantic in nature – we’ve all been hurt by someone we loved who never really loved us back or even turned on us. Yet how often do we do this to God? Too often we take His grace and profess our love, but our actions say otherwise (Isaiah 29:13, Ezekiel 14:2-3). We spend more time doing other things than being with and getting to know the One who loves us and longs jealously for us more than we can imagine. Anything we might say like, “I just have too much to do.” we know is only an excuse. It shows where our priorities really lie, and whatever we have placed at the top of our list is clearly what we love and worship over God. Don’t you know how jealous you have made Him?

All you who claim to love and worship the Lord – the only true God – come now and pray, “Our merciful God, we come before You in repentance. We see that we have not loved You as we should and not near what You deserve. Help us now to truly love You with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength (Mark 12:30). May we requite Your love with all that is in us. We desire right now to make You the center of our lives – to desire You over everything. Lord, may You be our one great love and the passion of our souls. Be first in our lives, having the first of everything – our love, our time, our resources. Lord, You are worthy of all our love, praise, adoration, worship, affection, trust, and obedience – may we give to You everything that You deserve. Oh God, we are so amazed at the depth of Your love for us – it is far greater than we can imagine for You pursued us when we were worse than strangers to You (Romans 5:10, Colossians 1:21). You breathed life into us when we were dead in our sin (Ephesians 2:1&5, Colossians 2:13). Lord, help us every day to surrender our selves completely to You. May we desire to be Your just as You desire for us to be Yours. Lord, may all Your desires become our desires. Unite our hearts to Yours. We pray these things in the name of Jesus – He who displayed Your love for all the world to see – and for the sake of Your name and the precious blood of the Lamb which purchased us as Your own forever. Set our hearts on fire for You. Amen."

See the songs Unrequited, Your Alone/Entirely to You, Every Day of Forever, and Forever Isn’t Long Enough.