Covenantal Love
Commentary for the January 11, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness." Jeremiah 31:3, NIV
At times, it seems like we live in a world devoid of love. This can seem especially true on social media where anonymity incites people to be extremely cruel to one another, believing there will be no consequences for such actions. They do not realize that what one puts out into the world whether done anonymously or not will eventually come back to them in spades. Nature itself teaches this lesson for if we plant a single, shriveled corn kernel in fertile soil, it will produce more kernels of corn than we can hold in both our hands. So, it is with the good or the evil we do, even though we consider it inconsequential or "just joking."
Years ago, I worked in social services and interacted with people who had experienced only dysfunction in their lives before they came to our agency for benefits. Unwed mothers often told a similar story of growing up without experiencing real love in their families. When a young man came along promising the love they had never known, they were drawn by that promise only to find that his commitment only lasted until she became pregnant. Heartbroken, but still seeking love, she looked forward to the birth of her child so she would have someone to love and who would love her in return. However, since she did not have a loving home herself, she did not understand how to love her child and as the child grew and became an independent person capable of choosing whom to love, dysfunction reared its head for another generation. Since the young mother had not learned how to properly love another, her child, like the mother, had little concept of how to love and be loved.
The dysfunction can be extreme. If the person equates sex as a substitute for love and they have become accustomed to seeking love in that way, they can be vulnerable even though married. Marriage is not never-ending bliss. Every married couple faces challenges in life. When someone comes along, promising a pathway out of those challenges in a new relationship, temptation to walk away from the marriage rather than facing the challenges together with one's spouse can seem like a way out, a path to love that may have been put on the back burner while facing the stresses that arise during marriage. But that path can be a dead end. Running from one's problems rarely provides the peace one thinks it might. A better idea is to draw closer to one's spouse and encourage and support one another while working out a solution to the current challenge. If it is something beyond the ability of the two to deal with on their own, it is far better to seek outside help as a team committed to solutions instead of walking away from the marriage. In time, the committed couple will discover that working together through the various issues that arise will make their bond stronger and their love deeper than they thought possible.
For this reason, the Bible's portrayal of the relationship between Christ and his people as a marriage relationship with Jesus as groom and his followers as his brideis apt. This relationship goes back to the very beginning where we are told humanity was made in God's image. (Genesis 1:27) While some might place mankind above womankind with man having the superior image of God, it is not what the text says. It tells us that both shared equally in that image. They might point to Eve eating the poisonous fruit as proof of her lesser status, but she was deceived into doing so while Adam ate willingly and with intention. Once it happened, the relationship between Adam and Eve and God crumbled into dysfunction. Adam blamed both Eve and God for what had happened. Eve blamed the serpent. Although they had enjoyed walking with God in Eden, they had chosen to walk away from that relationship, walk away from love. Their creation in God's image meant they were created to love as God loves (1 John 4:8), but now knowledge of evil came into their lives with tragic consequences when their first born son, Cain, murdered their second born, Abel, blaming him for Cain's severed relationship with God. As Adam and Eve did not accept responsibility for their walking away from the love of God, so Cain did not accept responsibility for his actions, and evil, more than love grew to dominate the world much as we see today and worse.
As I have mentioned, what we put into the world grows and returns to us magnified. Over thousands of generations there have been far more Cains putting out selfishness, greed, and unadulterated evil than those who are remaining committed to putting love into the world. The Bible tells us that as evil grows, love will grow cold with only those who remain committed to love despite the overwhelming evil able to find salvation. (Matthew 24:12-13) Belonging to a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a temple will not save us. Only God's love can do that, and his everlasting love came before any of those things came into being and will exist long after they are gone. All too often those entities try to drive humanity into compliance with their dogma with a stick, threatening a fearsome outcome if they do not obey and commit to supporting the institution. But the institution is not God and when motivating by fear to drive the flock, they betray a failure to understand the character of God and to live out that character in their own lives. Jesus stated to those who succeed in making such converts to their religion that they end up making them "twice as much a child of hell" as them. (Matthew 23:15) Like the young unwed mother, those converts never learned about love, only dysfunction, so they also could only invoke fear as they carry forward the proselytizing their mentors taught them.
Love is difficult to maintain in an atmosphere of fear. To genuinely love, we must have the option to choose to love or not. God knew that, and out of love, he allowed humanity the opportunity to choose in the Garden of Eden. When we chose to walk away from that love, since his love is everlasting, it must have broken his heart to see our choice. His heart was still tender when Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus, knowing that the only reason Lazarus had to die was because we had walked away in Eden. It is the only reason that death visits us all. But it was us and not God who walked away from the relationship. He has continued to love us despite that betrayal. He continues to send blessings into our lives if they do not compromise our free will because he wants us to love by choice, not by being driven to him or because we think he is a big vending machine in the sky, but because we are drawn by his love to love him in return.
An elderly couple were driving to town for their weekly shopping trip. While sitting at a red light, waiting for it to change to green, the wife saw a young couple in the car next to them and the two were snuggled together on the front seat while he was driving to wherever they might be headed. This caused the older woman to remark to her husband that he did not seem so amorous and willing to snuggle like the young couple as he did when they were young. The old man thought about what she said and replied, "Honey, the steering wheel has not moved." Like the old man who has continued to love his wife through the years, God has not moved. He continues to love us and is only waiting for us to come close to him for he misses what we had before. We let the cares of life and the challenges we face cause us to forget what is possible and settle for less than we might have. But settling for less is dangerous because it can allow love to slowly seep out of our lives to be replaced with dealing with life on our own. To succeed, we need to commit to a relationship so we can face the challenges together with humanity and God as a team founded in love, not blame as has been in the past.
If we wish to find the greatest love, God's love, he is not far from any one of us. (Acts 17:26-28) But we need to believe that he is. "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:6) Once again, as in the Garden of Eden, the choice remains. Will we walk in loving relationship with God, or will we walk away?
You may also listen to this commentary as a podcast by clicking on this link.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy these interesting books written by the author.
To learn more click on this link.
Books by Stephen Terry
This Commentary is a Service of Still Waters Ministry