God's favorite things

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..."

What does God enjoy doing for fun and pleasure? Does He sit on the pew and enjoy the pipe organ concert, or enjoy the breeze when people wave their arms in worship? Does He admire the woodwork or majestic stained glass in the church? Is He excited about the large-denomination bills in the offering plate?

Now that it’s spring, perhaps one of God’s pastimes is coaxing baby animals to open their eyes and take first steps, or perhaps teasing gorgeous flowers from their buds. The wisteria has become a riot of heavy flower spikes, whose scent competes with jasmine and citrus blossoms for an intoxication of the senses. The bees and hummingbirds are hovering in the blooming trees, and the finches and mockingbirds are building nests in the thickets of roses and bougainvillea.

Spring is a time of transformation. Seeds miraculously swell and send tiny green buds through the soil. Eggs hatch, and baby birds open beaks larger than their bodies. Worms, caterpillars, and insects are metamorphosed into completely different creatures than one might expect. Mammals are born heartbreakingly cute.

What is not to enjoy about spring? And yet, it’s not God’s creative genius and artistry that gives Him the most pleasure.

Why did you have children? To prop up your feet, do your chores, bring you meals and gifts of money, sing to you? Well, if those were your reasons, you already know how that expectation turned out! You had children because you had love to give, and experience and heritage to pass on. You loved your child before you saw it draw its first breath. You loved that little stinker (or angel) more as time went on, for every reason and no reason. And if a parent can love that way, how much more does our Father in heaven love?

God’s favorite thing is you. He loves to think of you. And plan for you. And do for you. (By “you,” I mean each of us individually, not collectively. So insert your own “me” pronoun as you read on. Take ownership of God’s love for you!)

God’s favorite activity, what gives Him the greatest joy, is loving you and celebrating you. (Luke 15:4-10, The Message.)

^4-7"Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!' Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.

^8-10"Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."

He lived and died for you. He rose for you. He has prepared a life plan for you, complete with joy and grief, partings and reunions, family and strangers, ease and rough going. When you leave Him in the dust, He watches anxiously for you and breaks into a run to meet you at the first hint of your turning. His entire ambition is to bring you back to His immediate presence, where He, Emmanuel, will personally wipe away all your tears and glorify you. He wants to revel in you, ruffle your hair, put His arms around you, and kick up heels and dance for joy. The thought of you—and me—is what makes God’s heart beat faster. He’s that personal, that intimate!

This is a shocking concept because we tend to think that "God so loved the world" (the world as in, everybody in a vast blob). But God loved this entire creation of individuals, from when time began for our ancestors, now, and into future eternity.

We’ve been taught to think of others before self, and rightly so. When we put others first in our esteem, and have that sense of communion and unity in Christ, we are obeying the commandment of God to love the Lord with all our hearts and minds and souls, and to love others—as ourselves.

So to review: we are to love the Lord with all we are and have, and to love others the same way, and to love ourselves as we love God and others.

About twelve hundred years before Christ’s birth, the Lord brought about the redemption of his chosen people—culminating in the Passover celebration at the first full moon after the spring equinox. Passed over for death, their resurrection to newness of life meant that they walked out of their Egyptian tomb and religion of death, under a full moon, balmy breezes carrying spring flower perfumes, led by a pillar of cloud and fire.

When the Passover Lamb was slain on that Friday 1200 years later, the Temple veil was torn from top to bottom. So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into ‘the Holy Place.’ Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The ‘curtain’ into God’s presence is his body. So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching. Hebrews 10:19-25, The Message.

As we learn to see others with God’s loving eyes, we will recognize in ourselves what God has always seen, from eternity past—that the one person He died for was you. He didn’t die for a planet of rock and water or a vast blob of people. He died for me, an extremely flawed person that He created in His own image to just love. And He died for many billions of individuals who were just as undeserving as I am.

Make it personal. Jesus did! Say to one friend, one family member, one co-worker, that you love them. Say it on Easter weekend and the days following. And when they respond with surprise and wonder, just think what Jesus is doing: rejoicing with the angels—over you. Not a planet of anonymous, faceless people. You. His greatest joy and most valuable treasure is you. You cannot be replaced. He doesn’t want to spend eternity without you, so He’s committed every resource to make sure your salvation is assured.

That is good news. That is the gospel. Go tell one person. It’s not a sermon series with a baptismal goal at the end. It’s just love. But it will make you an evangelist, a messenger of good news. And it will bear fruit!

The promise: intimacy

For years, each of us has studied Hebrews 11, and with each example of fidelity and trust in God by the heroes of the Bible, we learn. We apply their tactics of strength in the face of opposition and trust in the face of doubt, following the whisper of God where we cannot discern the next footstep on our own. Faith is taking hold, taking possession of the title deed that we cannot see, but is more real than we are.

BY FAITH, Abraham. BY FAITH, Moses. BY FAITH, David. They did amazing, worthy, historic acts. But is that what pleased God? No, it wasn’t what they did – it was what they believed about God: that He was able to, and cared enough to, fulfill His promises.

When I needed reassurance, I read Hebrews 11 and sucked in my tummy, dried my tears, and let out a cleansing breath. It was all good until I got to the end of the chapter, and then my resolution collapsed. There we learn that people of faith held out despite torture and death, waiting for their promise to be perfected (matured).

That’s where the book says that “Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.” (Hebrews 11:39-40 MSG)

But not one got their hands on the promise? Not one of those amazing heroes literally took hold of the title deed to what God said would happen? But they still believed?

So what was the promise? Was it for wealth and land, successful crops and fertile livestock, a loving spouse and happy children, freedom, security, long life, influence and power, beauty, or physical perfection?

The promise was repeated throughout the ages, in all the scriptures. In the Garden, God walked and talked face to face with our parents (Genesis 3). Immanuel, God-With-Us would come and live with us (Isaiah 7 and Revelation 21). God would be our God, and He’d be intimately known by us (Jeremiah 31:33-34). There would be a Ruler from among us who can approach God’s Presence (Jeremiah 30:21-22). Christ in us is life (Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:10). He will appear a second time to save those waiting (Hebrews 9:28). And we will not only worship Him, but actually partake of His holiness (Hebrews 12:10).

The new covenant is this: “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:10-12 NIV.)

The new, superior covenant is that God offers intimacy, instead of being separated from us by prophetic symbols, analogies, types, and a written code of regulations. Those things, like toys and art supplies, were given to teach us what God is like, but not to distract us from what His heart is saying. Instead of being separated from us by a temple veil, He became the open Door, the Way in to Abba’s throne, the mercy seat of grace. Now God is real to us.

The promise that millions have died for and believed in was that Jesus is the reality when all else is shadow or reflection. What we humans perceive as solid and measurable is the vapor; and the God we can’t see or touch, define boundaries for, or understand – is the reality. We are aliens in this physical world, but we are citizens, the royal family, in His kingdom of love.

To our finite minds, this concept is upside down and inside out, that what God offers is intimacy. We’ve seen Him as remote and untouchable, harsh and judgmental, and by beholding that lie, we’ve been changed! But seeing God’s compassion, mercy, forgiveness and boundless love is why those heroes of faith were willing to go through such trials, such pain, such separation from what they loved, but held loosely. For the promise of intimacy, close contact with the Most High God, they held tightly to His hand, they obeyed the Voice, they lived as nomads and settled new territory, they braved the best-equipped armies on earth with songs of praise – and won!

Whether married or single, we crave close contact on every level, and the need for intimacy is as vital as air and water. We want to be touched emotionally and physically by those we trust. A friend says that her elderly mother wells up with tears of joy when her son-in-law takes her into his embrace.

We want to be known in more than a superficial glance, more even than for the image we project, but for the secret heartbeat of our God-given passions and obsessions. We want to be KNOWN. Intimately known by a trustworthy person. We need to be loved and touched, to connect on every level.

And that is what God offers. That is what those heroes lived and died for. They knew it. They had the Promise in their hearts, the Promise that Immanuel would walk and talk with them as a personal Friend; that He would tenderly wipe away their tears with His own hand.

“Regarding [your name here], I can't keep my mouth shut, regarding [you], I can't hold my tongue, Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun and her salvation flames up like a torch. Foreign countries will see your righteousness, and world leaders your glory. You'll get a brand-new name straight from the mouth of God. You'll be a stunning crown in the palm of God's hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God. No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You'll be called Hephzibah (My Delight), and your land Beulah (Married), Because God delights in you and your land will be like a wedding celebration. For as a young man marries his virgin bride, so your builder marries you, And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride, so your God is happy with you.” (Isaiah 62:1-5 MSG.)

Who doesn’t want to hear the divine whisper in our ears, “You are my delight”? Who doesn’t want to be a cherished, precious jewel, held high in the hands of God for all to admire its beauty? That unimaginable privilege is offered to you as a gift.

And the only way you can accept the gift is by trusting that Jesus Christ is the reality when all of this world is shifting shadows. That is faith. When we are filled with that love, our hearts expand to take in more, and the love spills over to those around us. It’s not only a good feeling, love. It becomes a choice and an action, helping the unloved, the desperate, the needy, the lonely – the lost, whom Jesus came to seek and save.

“It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 MSG)

He cares. He responds. He offers what you crave. Why resist? Reach up and take hold of the Promise.