Three Levels of God’s Love

 

 

I came across the following

Just about four days ago

And even though I knew the concept

These terms I did not know.

 

Benevolence easily fitted in

And beneficence too

But the term complacence

Did not fit in with my view.

 

But that was only at first

As moments later, I understood,

And if you are now like I was then

I am sure you also would.

 

No doubt, like me, you have read

In the pages of Holy Writ

Of the divine salvation decree:

That enunciated divine edict.

 

For even before time had begun

In effect the Lamb was slain

That what the first Adam had lost

Jesus would eternally regain.

 

It was God’s plan to save us

From before all time

And the best way to explain it is:

We were always on God’s mind.

 

This first level of God’s love:

His love of benevolence

Conceptualized before all time

Manifested in His beneficence.

 

Unlike the many plans of man

God’s plan became a reality

So that a born-again individual

Can be saved for all eternity.

 

 

It’s His love of beneficence

The actual unfolding of His plan

First seen in the book of Genesis

In the original fall of man.

 

By faith in the Old Testament

Righteousness was imputed to man

And the first biblical reference

Was the patriarch, Abraham.

 

Father of Isaac, then Jacob

Who was given the name Israel,

Abraham the patriarch was called

To be father of God’s people.

 

Through this Abrahamic lineage

Came the Lord, Jesus Christ

Who manifested God’s benevolence

In his life-giving sacrifice.

 

The working out of the plan

Of God’s wonderful redemption

Whereby through His Son the Christ

We are recipients of salvation.

 

 

What love!  What supreme love!

Benevolent and beneficent

That even up to this day

There are millions of recipients!

 

But God commends His love

That he sent His Son, the Lord Jesus

In that while we were yet sinners

Jesus Christ died for us.

 

Christ came to call sinners

Not the righteous ones!

For they that are alive and well

Would not need to be born.

 

Poor old Nicodemus

Had truly missed the mark!

Poor old Nicodemus

Was certainly in the dark!

 

Complacence in man is folly

But in the Creator God, it is His glory

And it is all together evident

That herein is salvation's story.

  

For scarce for a righteous man

Would one die:

Yet peradventure for a good man

Would some even dare to die.

 

 

But God commendeth his love:

The mark of God’s complacence,

Unconditional and unmeasurable

And by man, uninfluenced.

 

Sounds like reckless love

Only that God cannot be reckless,

His is a love of complacence

That no other love can best.

 

For God’s glory and our good

Jesus left heaven above

To die for His premiere creation:

O what grace and love!

 

Stewart Russell © May 13, 2021

 

God’s Foreknowledge

 

 

Some believe that God can know

If He really wants to know

But He turns off his foreknowledge

And chooses not to know.

 

“God knows all that can be known”

This I read some time ago

So that God is limited in matters

That even God can never know.

 

For example, God did not know

That Adam and Eve would have fallen,

If so, why would he have placed

That tree in the midst of Eden?

 

Right in the focus of their mind

To harass them every day,

“Surely, God felt they would survive,”

This is what some say?

 

I find this particularly silly

And I hope that you do too

For if God wanted a world of robots

This would have been easy to do.

 

But to my mind, He did not,

That’s why He gave us choice

So that when presented with a situation

We would listen to His voice.   

 

The Bible shows in Holy Writ

That God is all knowing and all wise,

Nothing’s outside of His knowledge

No matter how cleverly disguised.

Well, why did He ask Adam

To declare where He was hiding?

Would God not have prior known

Even if Adam was lying?

 

God wanted Adam to own up

To the fact that he had disobeyed

And the punishment that would result

Commencing that very day.

 

God’s foreknowledge was not turned off

Nor was He unaware of the present,

A string of consequences had been set in train

Hence the course of unfolding events.

 

Still evident to our very day

As our world grapples with the fall out,

That sin has been the cause of all this

There are still many that doubt.

 

God’s foreknowledge is not on off,

This could never be a fact

For, how would an all-knowing all-wise God

Be able to accomplish that?

 

So, the mere fact that God knows all

Implies that all is already known

And this matter of a divine reality

Is certainly without our zone.

 

 

This says to my simple mind

That God knows the passage of time

Whether it be past, present or future,

All is contained in God’s mind.

 

It was God that created time’s line

He knows every single event,

It matters not its relative significance,

To God all of time is the present.

 

 

Time’s history is already written

And to God’s mind is already history,

To us much of history is in the future

But the present is our reality.

 

We often worry about the past

And we attempt to change the future

But the reality of the present presents

A quite overwhelming picture.

 

Concerning God’s foreknowledge

What is it you believe?

I adjure you, believe on the Lord Jesus

And “so great salvation” receive.

 

Stewart Russell © May 5, 2022

 

In Search for Life?

 

I went in search for life

It was my primary goal,

If only I could find the source

I would never grow old.

 

I suspected there was a cost

And that cost was in wealth,

Once I had the money

I could enhance my health.

 

In neither the twain I found it

In neither health nor wealth,

After I had achieved the latter

I spent it all on health.

 

 

I tried all kinds of remedies

To bring back the health I’d lost

But that was frustratingly futile

Despite the astronomical cost.

 

Maybe it was the environment

So that I also changed

Moving to a healthier location

That I had my lawyer arrange.

 

I tried a dose of religion

And experimented with philosophy,

For a while they seemed to work

But life still eluded me.

 

In the medical parlance

If only I could find the switch,

I’d turned off that life-limiting cell

And my dilemma would be fixed.

 

 

But search and search I did

Yet no such cell was found

And still it vexed me sore

That soon I’d not be around.

 

Medical science is preoccupied

With finding the life source

For if only this could happen

That would be an undying force.

 

Then I turned to God’s Word

That before, I had disregarded

And on the pages of Holy Writ

I was soon to be rewarded.

 

I found the source of life

Or better still, he found me,

And anyone who believes on him

Will live eternally.

 

In St John, the eleventh chapter

Jesus makes this clear

He raised the deceased Lazarus

For Jesus, death held no fear.

 

 

 

For he is the Lord of life

And for him death holds no terror,

A search for life in any other

Must be seen as a grave error.

 

So, if you are searching for life

Look no further, I implore,

Draw from the eternal source

Who has unlimited in store.

 

Jesus is that eternal source

And he offers life to you,

Become a branch on the life-giving vine…

Do it before this day is through.

 

Stewart Russell © August 2019