{"id":5740,"date":"2014-08-26T00:05:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T07:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2014-08-25T17:48:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T00:48:33","slug":"love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/08\/26\/love\/","title":{"rendered":"Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will tell of the LORD\u2019s unfailing love.
\nI will praise the LORD for all he has done..
\nI will rejoice in his great goodness to Israel,.
\nwhich he has granted according to his mercy and love..
\nHe said, \u201cThey are my very own people..
\nSurely they will not betray me again.\u201d.
\nAnd he became their Savior..
\nIn all their suffering he also suffered,.
\nand he personally rescued them..
\nIn his love and mercy he redeemed them..
\nHe lifted them up and carried them.
\nthrough all the years..
\nBut they rebelled against him.
\nand grieved his Holy Spirit..
\nSo he became their enemy.
\nand fought against them..
\nThen they remembered those days of old.
\nwhen Moses led his people out of Egypt..
\nThey cried out, \u201cWhere is the one who brought Israel through the sea,.
\nwith Moses as their shepherd?.
\nWhere is the one who sent his Holy Spirit.
\nto be among his people?\u201d (Isaiah 63:7-1)<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Surely they won\u2019t betray again. This time they can be trusted. God is love. According to Paul\u2019s definition of love, \u201clove always trusts\u201d and \u201calways hopes.\u201d That was reflected in what God said to his people: surely this time. Peter asked how often he should forgive when his brother asked for forgiveness. Jesus\u2019 answer was: endlessly, because that\u2019s how it is with God. He endlessly forgives, he endlessly hopes, he endlessly wills to extend mercy. <\/p>\n

Love seems unreasonable. The abused child, the beaten wife, the kicked dog, willingly return to the one who hurt them, hoping against hope that this time will be different. How foolish, how dangerous it appears to those of us outside watching it. But that\u2019s just what love is like\u2014what real love will tolerate. God\u2019s love is real love: he gave himself when we were his enemies. He forgives repeat offenders. He paid all our debts and didn\u2019t take away our credit card even as we try to rack up more\u2014and he has forgiven it all\u2014in perpetuity and forever. We can\u2019t max out God\u2019s credit card. That bill is always paid in full.<\/p>\n

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I will tell of the LORD\u2019s unfailing love. I will praise the LORD for all he has done.. I will rejoice in his great goodness to Israel,. which he has granted according to his mercy and love.. He said, \u201cThey … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5741,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions\/5741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}