Chapter 2 God’s Love Song: When God
Sings about You
She was on her way to commit
suicide, kill herself, END HER LIFE . But she
walked by an outdoor church service under a tent. She heard one girl sing a
beautiful song about God’s love for her that is found in Jesus. Her heart began
to “wake up”, she felt hope for the first time. At the end of the service she
walked down the altar and prayed with the pastor. She prayed the prayer of
faith and asked Jesus to save her, forgive her, change her, and make her
terrible life into something beautiful. If you asked her, it wasn’t the young
lady singing that changed her, it was as if God was singing to her. Believe me,
as you will see in a few minutes, God was literally singing to her through this
girl. Now, these days, she is off of drugs, has a great job, lives a happy
life, is married with children, and serves her church (and more importantly
loves her God). God’s love changes people.
When asked about my favorite Bible
verse I thought, “Man that is going to be really hard.” To pick one verse for
me is like, impossible. I mean THE foundational verse for me is 1 John
4:8 “God is Love.” I always think of Bishop Malcolm Smith when he
would say, “God doesn’t just have love or give love, He IS love.” Because He IS
love then He can love sinners unconditionally because He doesn’t change and His
nature is to love, regardless of our performance. His pouring out His wrath on
Christ satisfies His justice and allows Him to embrace us though we are sinful.
In other words He can love us as a merciful Father.
However, with that said, being a very visual
person I love Bible verses that paint me a mental picture that I can
grasp. I already quoted this verse in
chapter 1 but now I want to examine it closer. Zephaniah 3:17 illustrates God’s passionate love very well. It says,
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a Mighty One Who will save; He will
rejoice over you with gladness He will quiet you with His love; He will exult
over you with loud singing.” (ESV ). The NIV does a wonderful job translating the
original Hebrew, “He will take great delight in you…He will rejoice over you
with singing.” Let’s look at this verse and try to grasp the passionate love of
God.
Can you picture God singing songs
about you? Picture God singing a song about you, singing your name! God
passionately singing a love song about you like a lover sings about His woman.
Let’s back up to the first part of the verse. God is in our midst. The Bible tells
us that God is with us and this is summed up in Jesus. His Name is Immanuel
which means “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14 ).
God loves us so much that He becomes one of us – He comes down as a human to
live with us and experience our pain. He said in Matthew 28 that He would
always be with us (with those that become His followers). And now that He
ascended into Heaven, Jesus is with us in Spirit, in The Person of The Holy
Spirit. His Spirit actually comes to live inside of us. God could not possibly
be any closer to us despite the fact that our emotions “feel” like He is far
away. It’s just not true He is always with us and will forever be with us.
Now it also
says He is mighty to save. Jesus Name means “Yahweh (The LORD) saves.” It tells
us that Jesus is God Almighty and we know He accomplished our salvation on the
cross completely! Look at this radical verse from Hebrews chapter 10 “10 we
have been made holy by the sacrifice of Jesus body once for all time.” Our
salvation is only based on Christ’s work and since He does a perfect job at
everything we know that He perfectly accomplished our redemption. All we do to
receive it is to believe and take the free gift of salvation He offers. Once we
receive it, by faith alone, it is a done deal. We are made holy “once for all
time” or as verse 14 puts it “perfect forever (perfect in God’s sight based on
Jesus’ perfection). Let that sink in. God sees you as “PERFECT FOREVER!” As I said before, it does NOT
mean our behavior is perfect. We are not perfect. We sin every day. Even though
God makes us better and better once we receive Christ, we still sin and will
continue to sin until we go to Heaven. Once we are in Heaven we will be free
from sin and truly be perfect in our behavior. It means that Jesus sacrifice
perfectly cleanses us from all sin; past, present, and future.
When He looks
at you He sees Jesus perfect sacrifice on the cross, his shed blood that pays
for all sins, and He also sees Jesus righteousness imputed to you (Hebrews 10:10 , 14). The theological word “imputation”
just means to “put on.” You are clothed with the very perfection and
righteousness of Jesus Christ Who is God. You are covered up with the holiness
of God. You are clothed and filled with the 100% righteousness of Jesus,
therefore you are 100% righteous in God’s eyes. There are so many references in
the Bible about how God covers us with His righteousness. 1 Corinthians 1:30 says, “Christ has become our
righteousness.” Did you get that? Jesus is our righteousness
and NOT our works.
Now
it gets even better. He takes “GREAT DELIGHT” in us. Have you ever had anything
you took delight in? Something that was fun for you, or a certain meal that you
just love, or maybe it’s music that makes you feel joy, or a hobby that gets
you excited just thinking about it. Ever heard the phrase “giddy as a school
girl?” Or maybe you have delighted in your Christmas presents? I take great
delight in my children – watching them enjoy themselves. I delight in my wife
because she is so sweet and kind, I just enjoy watching her when she doesn’t
notice. Well God delights in us!
Look at Isaiah chapter 62 “4
You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed
Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for
the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.5
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as
the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”God delights in us like a groom gets excited about seeing His new bride! And He quiets us with His love. He calms us down. In other words He gives us great joy but also great peace. That peace comes from knowing that God is love and, therefore, Love will only do what is best for His children. God is good and we can trust Him to take our prayers and our trials and ultimate turn them into good (He has a good purpose and outcome for us).
And finally we look at the joyful singing of God.
Do you sing praise and worship songs in church to God? Well did you know He
sings about you? He rejoices over you with singing. I have heard many Bible
Scholars teach about the meaning of this Hebrew word that The English Bibles
translate as “rejoice.” To rejoice means to spin around, laughing, and …well
rejoicing. God gets very cheerful, merry, and joyful when He thinks about us.
That is how “in love” He is with us. The ESV
translates it as “He will exult over you with loud singing.” It captures the
idea of a loud, expressive, laughing and singing God Who is overcome with joy.
In Luke chapter 15 Jesus says that God is like the
father who RAN, sprinted to his son. This is the ONLY picture of God running in
The Bible. Who is he running to? Was he running to a victorious apostle or
prophet? No he was running to a repentant and unworthy sinner. He is running
full blast to a pig smelling sinner. He proceeded to jump on him and cover his
son with kisses. He gave him a new ring, put a royal robe on his son and threw
him a party. The son had simply gone to his father and asked for mercy. The
father did not begrudgingly forgive his son, NO! He was wild with joy and love,
like a race horse bolting out of the stall he was eager to dash to his son and
not only forgive him (mercy) but lavish gifts on him (grace).
Now those who argue would say, “You’re teaching too
much about grace and not enough about obedience”, really? After hearing this do
you want to go out and be evil? I seriously doubt it. After hearing this you
start falling in love with The God Who loves you. It motivates you to do good
works, BUT FOR THE RIGHT REASON. Those who always preaching guilt, fear, and
try to motivate by those methods are obedient but they don’t love God. God
cares about the source of our motivation.
In the last chapter I said I would talk about how
to obey and be motivated by love. Well I’ve quoted this already but Titus 2:11
says, “The grace of God teaches us to say ‘NO’ to ungodliness.”
Not guilt, fear, or sense of drudgery or religious duty. GRACE motivates us to
holiness. Do you want to be holy? Then focus on Jesus’ love for you. The Bible
is full of passages just like the one above. Read Zephaniah 3:17 for a month every day. Let it sink in.
Ponder every word. Visualize and picture in your mind Jesus’ singing a love song
with your name in it. God’s Word does not fail. If it is says grace teaches us
to leave behind sin and disobedience then that settles it. “The love of Christ
motivates me.” (2 Corinthians 5:14). But what about if you still blow it (and
as a baby learning to walk falls, so will you).
Well when you do, follow this advice. The next time
you ask for forgiveness just remember, before you can even finish your sentence
God is rushing to sweep you off of your feet and squeeze you tightly, kissing
you repeatedly. He sings songs about you in Heaven; RIGHT THIS MINUTE He is
singing about you! He laughs and takes delight in YOU His present, His joy. You
are the delight of God, The God Who sings about you to the angels who go to the
concert to listen! If you listen, maybe you can hear Him singing to the angels
about you, and laughing the laugh of delight!
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