WHEN OUR LORD'S LOVE CHANGES HIS PLAN
Sakkie Parsons
A while ago, someone asked me a question and because I sometimes feel led to share my answer with my people, I did it in that case as well. Someone else then confronted me and said, among other things, that God is unchangeable. I agree that our Lord Himself is unchangeable. After all, the Word says:
PSALM 102: 26-28
26 They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you.
My favourite passage in the Word concerning this matter is:
HEB 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
However, this is not to say that our Lord does not sometimes change His mind and how wonderful! – If He, the unchanging Almighty God, does this, it is because He loves us so very much.
Let me explain it this way – Someone brought it to my knowledge that my wife ‘can get away with murder’ with me and because I love her very much, it's probably true. Fortunately, we cannot turn our Lord around our little finger, as I realize in hindsight how my wife did it to me.
So – let me first show you with one case, that our Lord will not allow us to wrap Him around our little finger (to control Him) – no matter how much He loves us. In other words, if we want to live in sin, we are not going to get away with it. You can read the following in Genesis 18:16-33.
Our Lord has such a beautiful, intimate love relationship with Abraham that our Lord has decided He want to share with Abraham what He is going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah. How absolutely wonderfully intimate was this love relationship between our Lord and Abraham and after our Lord shared what He is going to do, and because He loved Abraham so much, He patiently, with the love of a Father, listened to Abraham's appeals, and though He loved Abraham very much, He did not allow Abraham to change His mind. For, you and I, like Sodom and Gomorrah, must know for sure that if we continue in sin and do not repent of it, "we are cruising for a bruising."
However, our unchanging Lord is so full of love and compassion for us, as His children, that when we repent of our sins, His love for us can even cause Him to change His mind about something He has decided to do.
You can read this wonderful piece of history in the book of Jonah, especially chapters 3 and 4.
In this I came again to the realization of how infinitely great the love and compassion of our Lord is for man, and when I look at the conversation between our Lord and the angry Jonah, I am again impressed by how absolutely with loving patience our Lord looks at someone like Jonah and for example, at me with all my weaknesses.
We read of a city that lived very wickedly and when they heard our Lord was going to destroy them, they really repented and our Lord saw that they repented and that their confession of sin was sincere. Then we read:
JONA 3:10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Another example I would like to share with you is the prayer of Hezekiah after the prophet Isaiah brought him the message of our LORD that he was going to die:
2 KINGS 20:1-6
1 In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, "Thus says the LORD, 'Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.'" 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, saying, 3 “Now, O LORD, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight." And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
Then we read:
4 And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the LORD came to him:5 "Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, 6 and I will add fifteen years to your life. …."
In this last example that I am going to share with you, I want to show you that I realize how our Lord's love compels Him to bend backwards to meet a person.
Our Lord usually does not work where there is unbelief. That's just not how He works. Just read here an example of what I mean:
MAT 13:54-58
54 and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?
55 Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
56 And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household."
58 And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.
As I said, our Lord usually does not work where there is unbelief, but now look at how, forced by His love for His creation, our Lord breaks, so to say, His own rules:
In Mark 9:17-27 we read of the father who brought his son, (who had a destroying spirit that made him deaf and mute), to Jesus and how Jesus healed the boy. In this section we read the father approached Jesus with some doubt and disbelief and said to Jesus:
MARK 9:22 And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us."
Then Jesus answers the father:
MARK 9:23 And Jesus said to him, "If you can! All things are possible for one who believes."
Here Jesus does not see real faith, but real sincerity to want to believe – And in this case, Jesus helps the man because Jesus sees the man truly wants to believe, but the man knows that he is actually still full of unbelief:
MARK 9:24-26
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"
Then Jesus did this – He came to the man's unbelief:
25 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again."
26 And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, "He is dead."
27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.
I look at all these things and I think – How absolutely wonderful it is to be a child of the Almighty unchanging God, who loves me so much that He, you might say, will bend backwards and intend change of plan to come to my aid, because He also has compassion on my weaknesses:
HEB 4:14-16
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
If you do not yet have a beautiful love relationship with this wonderful, loving God and you really want to have such a relationship with Him – tell it to Him and if you do it sincerely, because you truly want a love relationship with Him, He will embrace you in His love.
Greetings,
Sakkie