So I was reading a great book today called Epic by John Eldredge. I highly suggest it. There was only one thing so far that struck me. And it is something common among Christian thought in our day.
Here is the premise…God gave humanity free will in the Garden in order that humanity’s love towards God might be genuine. But run with me on this.
In college, I wanted to be loved by many women. And I should be clear, I really mean loved in the most true sense. But here was the problem. I could not choose to be loved. I could not decide for them who they would desire.
So also it is with God. The idea that we would choose God is of no import when one realizes that our love for God accomplishes nothing if He does not choose first to love us. Just as I could love with fervor whoever I wanted to in college, unless they chose to love me, nothing developed. My love was useless without theirs.
So it is with God. Without his choice to love us, our love is meaningless. Our choosing him (assuming this is possible – which I do not believe) would accomplish nothing, He must choose us. And best news of all, he has in Christ.
Oh, we can reject his choosing to love us. I chose to reject some that loved me in college.
One cannot choose to be loved, only to reject love that has been offered. That is the free will God gave, the freedom not to choose, but to reject. This will man exercised, and destroyed all things.
And yet, God had chosen to love. And so the story of love began.
I think both John Eldredge’s statement and yours are true.
In college, when I was struggling with the whole “acceptance theology” idea, I let the idea play out in my head. I went back over my life and tried to think of any time which may have been my moment of accepting Christ. I came up with several — the letter I wrote to God in high school committing myself fully to him, a college lock-in (on November 9 — the connection I felt with God was so powerful that I made myself remember the date), and two to three similar times. That was when I realized that my accepting God just didn’t stick… and I’d be nowhere without his accepting me.
True, us loving God amounts to nothing in terms of salvation. That’s all based on God’s love for us. But I don’t think that makes Eldredge’s comment any less true. Like a groom and his bride, I believe that our God deeply desires that we love Him and pursues us over and over. God wants us to passionately and completely love Him.
And this is coming from a “classic type two”, according to you. 🙂