“Therefore, I will bring my case against you,” says the Lord. “I will even bring charges against your children’s children in the years to come.” Jeremiah 2:9
God is bringing His case against the people of Israel. He is trying to tell them that He loves them and wants them to turn back to Him. God is saying that He will continue with His case always and even to their children. Why would God want Israel to come back to Him? God loves them and God will never stop until we return to Him. God loves us all and wants us to return to Him.
John Ortberg has written a book “Love Beyond Reason.” As you have guessed, it is a book about God’s love. The love of God toward us is love beyond reason. Why in the world would a God so powerful and the one that created everything, love us so much? John tells us in his book that there are two truths about human beings that matter deeply. The first being, we are all rag dolls. Each of us is broken, wounded and bent. We all have fallen in some form or another. In other words, we are no more than sinners. The next truth being, we are God’s rag dolls and He loves His rag dolls. For me this is not only love beyond reason; it is love beyond understanding. I don’t really understand this love that God has for us broken sinners, but He does and I praise His name for that love each and every day.
Most of us do not go on to read what Jesus told us in verse 17. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world. (Which this will happen someday.) He sent His Son so that His rag dolls would have a way to be saved. What love, God has toward us.
“Love is a willingness to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” (Scott Peck) This to me is the love of God. It is a love by choice. God chooses to love us, even if we are broken, wounded, rag dolls.