Our Lord is not like an arbitrary, capricious god who delights in catching us doing something wrong. Instead, He has given us instructions on how life in His creation works. In fact, He wants us to know how life works so we can be eminently successful at it. It’s as if He has given us the answers to the test to ensure that we pass with flying colors. That’s how the law of God reveals the love of God. It shows to all who will trust in Him that He wants only what is best for us.

Once again, in the Ten Commandments, we hear God saying: I love you; I always have—I always will.

FOUR

God’s Love Never Quits

But you, O God, are both tender and kind,

not easily angered, immense in love,

and you never, never quit.

—PSALM 86:15 (THE MESSAGE)

In his book With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God, Skye Jethani tells of his meetings with college students from the House of Despair, an “underground safehouse” for those struggling with the difficult issues of life and faith.

Around their Christian campus, these students were known for numbing their pain with alcohol, drugs, sex, and, most curiously, raw conversation. When they met with Jethani, he insisted that they recognize only three rules: be honest, be gracious, and be present. Their range of subjects had no limits. One week it might be the doctrine of hell; the next about the pressure to find a spouse.

One night the subject was destructive habits. One student told his story, which turned out to be typical of many: “My parents were students at a Christian college in the early ’90s when a revival broke out… A bunch of grads that year became missionaries and pastors. They were on fire for God. And here I am consumed by sin day after day. I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be here. I know I’m not who God wants me to be.” Other students shared similar stories, often through tears, about how disappointed God must be with them.

After listening to these stories, Jethani asked, “How many of you were raised in a Christian home?”

They all raised their hands.

“How many of you grew up in a Bible-centered church?”

All hands stayed up.

“This is incredible!” Jethani said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’ve all spent eighteen or twenty years in the church. You’ve been taught the Bible from the time you could crawl… but not one of you… said that in the midst of your sin God still loves you.”

Jethani concluded: “I did not blame the students for this failure. Somewhere in their spiritual formation they were taught, either explicitly or implicitly, that what mattered was not God’s love for them, but how much they could accomplish for him. That night I finally understood why they called it the House of Despair.”1