I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book – you can download a free PDF here - so we’re doing a little Bible study every Thursday. The collection is here. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything, but come back and add your voice in the Comments! >>>

Chapter 9: God Is Love

I love this chapter. Seriously.

Torrey proposes:

1. God is love. He is the source of all love.
2. God loves His Son. God’s Son is the original and eternal object of His love.
3. God loves those who are united to the Son by faith and love.
4. God loves the whole world, and each person in it.
5. God loves the sinner.
6. God’s love manifests in providing for the need, joy and protection of those He loves.
7. God’s love manifests in correcting the one He loves.
8. God’s love manifests in His being afflicted when His loved ones are afflicted.
9. God’s love manifests in His never forgetting those He loves.
10. God’s love manifested in the sacrifice of His Son.
11. God’s love manifests in forgiveness of sin.
12. God’s love manifests in the redemption of those in Christ.
13. God’s love manifests in calling the redeemed, “children of God.”
14. God’s love manifests in His rejoicing over His people.

God’s love is such a huge idea. And the hugeness is exacerbated by the fact that most of us don’t even really know what love is.

Torrey addresses this, “What is love?” idea (biblically). He quotes 1 John 3:16-17 and Matthew 5:44-45, and concludes that:

Love is a desire for and delight in the welfare of the one loved.

That’s not really what the world believes about love, and it makes God’s love even more astounding.

We long for love in our relationships because of what it does for us. We want to feel in love. We want to feel special, adored, important. We withhold love from difficult people, from people who don’t love us back, because we think love is about us.

Scripture suggests that love is not something we feel, it’s something that we do. It takes effort.

Which makes it even more staggering that God loves me at all.

Thoughts? Which of those 14 propositions speaks to you, or challenges you the most?

I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book – you can download a free PDF here - so we’re doing a little Bible study every Thursday. The collection is here. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything! >>>

Chapter 8 is on the holiness of God, and it’s really great stuff. If you haven’t been reading along yet, I highly recommend downloading that FREE PDF, and reading the chapter first.

John is hosting the conversation this week, and he highlights a really great thought:

We seem to suppress to an amazing degree this comprehension in our day to day lives by living as if His holiness matters little evidenced by the things that fill our waking hours.

What does God’s holiness mean for us, practically, today? Add your thoughts to the conversation here.

I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book – you can download a free PDF here - so we’re doing a little Bible study every Thursday. The collection is here. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything, but come back and add your voice in the Comments! >>>

I have mixed emotions about God’s omniscience. If we’re being honest.

In Chapter 7, Torrey proposes:

1. God knows all things.
2. God sees all things
3. He knows everything about nature.
4. He knows all people.
5. He knows all our “deeds” and experiences.
6. He knows everything we say.
7. He knows all our sorrows.
8. God understands our thoughts.
9. God’s knowledge extends to the smallest details.
10. He has always known everything that will be.
11. He has always known what everyone of us would do.
12. He has always known how each of us would fit into His plan.

Basically God knows everything about everything.

On the one hand, it’s a comforting thought.

God sees every injustice. He knows everything you did right that you never got credit for.

On the other hand, honestly, it’s kind of annoying.

It makes me uncomfortable that God knows my thoughts and intents. He knows my secrets. He knows things about me that I can’t even admit to myself. Part of me is so used to living in a world where appearances rule, that it makes me really uncomfortable that the Righteous Judge, before whom I will one day give an account, knows everything.

I had a really bad day a couple months ago. I mean a really bad day. I was so tired and so beat down and so out of faith that I came home and threw myself onto my bed and cried. And between sobs I asked Him to go away. I knew He wouldn’t go away, and I knew I didn’t really want Him to go away, but I was so ashamed of my weakness and my unbelief that I – somehow – didn’t want Him to see.

Part of me still wants to put on a good face for my Father and try to convince Him that I’m doing really well. Like every kid that wants her dad to be proud of her, part of me is still stuck in the way that the world measures success, and it bothers me that God sees the failure that I really am sometimes.

I think God’s omniscience may be the most humbling aspect of His character so far.

His omniscience combined with His unending love makes me so uncomfortable I don’t even want to talk about it.

Thoughts? Does God’s omniscience comfort or annoy you most? What does His omniscience and His love, together, mean?