The Inseparable Love of God (1) [ Romans 8:38-39 ] Why can nothing separate us from the love of God? 1. Because God’s love is eternal. Romans 8:29a says: “For those whom He foreknew…” The word “foreknew” refers to before eternity began —before the creation of heaven and earth . The phrase “those whom He foreknew” does not simply mean knowing about someone intellectually, but rather loving them. In other words, it refers to “those whom God loved from eternity past.” Amos 3:2a says: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” If “known” merely meant intellectual knowledge, that would imply that God only knew Israel and did not know the other nations—which cannot be true, because the all-knowing God lacks knowledge of nothing. Therefore, “I have known you only” means “I have loved you only.” God loved Israel among all the nations of the earth. Hosea 13:5 says: “I knew you in the wilderness , in the land of great drought.” The “wilderness” was where the Israelite...
Do not grow weary
"But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good" (2 Thessalonians 3:13).
We have been saved through faith by God's grace (Eph. 2:8). As God’s masterpiece, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works (v. 10). Therefore, we must do good (Ps. 34:14; Rom. 13: 3, 1 Pet. 3:11). We must do good as we depart from evil (Ps. 37:27) as we delight ourselves in the Lord (v. 4). Those who do good belong to God (3 Jn. 11). However, there are times when we grow weary of doing good. Why do we grow weary? I thought about four reasons:
The first reason why we grow weary of doing good is because the person who receives good from us doesn’t appreciate us.
We can be disappointed when we don’t get any appreciation from the person whom we love, serve and do good with Christ’s love. And the cause of our disappointment is because we expect something from that person such as appreciation. It is because our good deed is conditional. That’s why we are sensitive to the reaction of the other party. And we are both disheartened and discouraged when we don’t see any reaction as much as we expected.
The second reason why we grow weary of doing good is because the person is not only appreciating us but also he criticizes us and condemn us.
Of course, that person will not directly condemn us with a voice of criticism. But when we hear his criticism and condemnation through someone else, then we can be discouraged and grow weary. And the question that may arise in our mind is ‘Why do I have to do good while listening this kind of criticism and condemnation from other people?’ I think it is impossible for human being to keep on doing good to another person when he pays back our good with evil.
The third reason why we grow weary of doing good is because we can’t see any transformation from the person to whom we are doing good.
We can grow weary when we don’t see any good change in the life of the person to whom we diligently do good with Christ’s love despite all the good work we did for him. It’s like a farmer who planted seeds, gave manure and water, and waited and expected to bear fruit but where there is no fruit, he can get discouraged. Likewise, we as God’s spiritual farmers plant the seed of His gospel and Word and diligently give tears of prayers and the Word. But if there is no good fruits but only the bad fruits, then we can be discouraged and grow weary.
The fourth reason why we grow weary of doing good is because of “myself”.
My personal thought is that "myself" is the biggest reason why we grow weary in doing good. Whether the person to whom we do good appreciates us or not, whether he criticizes and condemns us or not, whether we see good fruits or bad fruits in his life, we just need to obey God’s command of doing good to others unconditionally as we experience God’s goodness in our lives (Ps. 34:8). But the reason we cannot do that is because we are not continually and fully tasting God's goodness in our lives. That’s why we get discouraged and grow weary with various reasons. Especially when we cannot experience God’s good work of causing all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28), not only that we aren’t but we can’t do good to others. That’s why not only we grow weary because of ourselves but we can be in despair.
We have to do good. And we should not be discouraged and grow weary when we do good. The reason is that our labors are not in vain in the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58). I hope and pray that we may continually do good to others as we rely on God today and tomorrow.
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