Whoever has ears let him hear.
It's a question I struggle with often. If God is first for Himself, how can He be for us?
okay wow. From the topic of self-worth... now... primacy of God's glory. All topics I can find many christians ready to disagree.
But anyway.
The gist comes in 2 parts.
1) God is in a unique position, being the most admirable, valuable thing in the entire universe. That for him to love fully, He must give himself.
2) Because praise is the consummation of enjoyment, His demand of praise from us is a loving gesture permitting our enjoyment to be full.
But the most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars ... My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. (Reflections on the Psalms, pp. 93-95)
This is just the skinny. But I think I get it, I found the answer from the place I thought was most unlikely. Okay dear Lord, so you do love us... but why do you love us?
I had the same struggle as you, and I think that perhaps the reason why God loves us is just because He does. I liken it to a mother's love for a rebellious child, and though our rebellion against God cannot be trivialized to this simple analogy, I think the basis is still the same. The even when we stray away from God and sin against Him, He still loves us because He is Love, and love is a commitment, not a feeling (which consequently is influenced by the amount of love we receive in return).
ReplyDeleteWhich is also why we say that we have been saved by grace through faith, because the moment God has a reason to love us, grace is thus flawed. Hope it (kind of) answers your question :)
-C