Deuteronomy 7:9, 10

"Know therefore that the LORD thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations; and repayeth them that hate Him to their face, to destroy them: He will not be slack to him that hateth Him, He will repay him to his face."

In these two verses we have set before us God's only two courses of action regarding the people. His actions are based on the response of people to Him. The possible responses are love or hate. Those that love Him will be blessed by Him, and those that hate Him will He destroy. There is no middle ground in this matter. A person can not be "positively inclined" toward God. Neither can a person "take Him or leave Him." There are only two possibilities. So it is eternally crucial for a person to know where God thinks he stands on this two-point scale. For ultimately, it is God who will decide who is who.

The first inclination is to think that there is something that we have to do to commend us to God. Or, similarly, to think that we have an in with Him on some basis. Certainly, we may reason, I am a better person than the one who murders, or steals, or lies. But there are two problems with this. Firstly, while we may not have committed horrible crimes against society, we know that we still fall far short of the ideal human being. We refer to these failings as "human nature" or use some other term. "Nobody's perfect", we say. If we follow the "I'm better than the next guy" logic, while at the same time acknowledging our own failings, the only safe conclusion we can come to is that this eternity stuff is all subjective. God cannot expect perfection of imperfect people. Which suggests that the line between blessing and destruction cannot be defined. Taken further still, we would have to conclude that it must be that everyone is on God's good side, even the murderer, thief, and liar (against whom we had compared ourselves to start). Or, we figure that if God's standard really is perfection, then we are bound for destruction, and there is nothing we can do about it. We end up with fuzzy notions about something that we conclude is either unimportant or unattainable anyway.

The second problem is Jesus Himself said that to think about a crime is tantamount to committing it. While we may think that our actions will commend us to God, we are here caught short because not only do our actions get scrutiny, but so do our thoughts. Now we find that this is not nearly as simple as we thought. But to make matters worse, God has said already that "... all our righteousnesses (good works) are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). That blows all of our ideas about our actions commending us to God right out of the water. From this verse in Isaiah we have to honestly perceive and conclude that God's standard is the only one to satisfy Him, and that we are (all of us) falling far short. Where does that put us in the context of Deuteronomy 7:9, 10, then? Do we love Him or do we hate Him? Deuteronomy 7:9 indicates that keeping His commandments shows our love. But we have just seen that we are incapable of doing that.

If all of this is true then how can a person rightly say that he loves God? 1 John 4:10 tells us "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The first step that was taken was by God toward us. And the evidence of His love for us is the giving of His Son. Paul is very blunt when, in Romans 5, he says that while we were God's enemies, Christ died for us. 1 John 4:9 says, "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." Incredibly, he sent Christ to die for our sin, our "failings", as discussed above. There was nothing that we could do for ourselves, so God did it for us. Through punishing His Son for our sin, we are now offered eternal life. But it is a gift for the taking, not universally applied.

Do we love God or hate Him? He says in His Word that through Christ, and through Him alone, we have entrance into heaven. He says in His Word that there is no other way into His eternity. Do we believe Him? Or do we insist that He accept our filthy rags? Belief shows love. Bringing our filthy rags shows no respect, which equates to hate. In fact, it shows that we consider God to be a liar. For He has said one thing, and we believe something else. This is a response of hate. For those who have Christ as Lord and Savior, there is the promise of blessing, as indicated in the verses above. Any other attempt at approaching God shows disdain for His Word, and will be dealt with by God Himself.

May we lean on and trust Him for time and eternity, showing our love.

HJK