Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - Tough Love

TOUGH LOVE

God is love. That’s what we often hear and that’s what the Bible states - “…God is love” (1 John 4:8). But what is love? Is it always that warm hug-type feeling, arms around you support, empathy that we so often need? What really is the love of God?

The Bible states that: “The rod and rebuke give wisdom, But a child left to himself brings shame…”(Proverbs 29:15) and “Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die”(Proverbs 23:13).  Now we don’t need true corporal punishment anymore, but take this in the allegorical sense. If a person does something wrong, let him/her accept the responsibility and consequences of the action and not just cover or gloss over the situation. A child or adult has to learn this and the only way may be to apply the “rod” of truth and justice.

After all, the Ten Commandments are there for us for our benefit, and to disobey them means the consequences. We often ask why bad things happen to good people. The Bible says that, “No one is good but One, that is God” (Matthew 19:17, Mark 10:18, and Luke 18:19) and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

So, even though we’re not “good”, God still loves us but allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions. He may even make things more difficult for us at times to prove His love. How often as children have we been made to “suffer the rod” in order to show us the right way? 

The Old Testament has a number of examples of people “suffering the rod” when they  refused to obey God. Pharaoh was one in the book of Exodus when he refused God’s command to set the Hebrews free. As we all know, God sent plagues to convince him of the need to comply with God. Even the Hebrew people were not spared in the end, because if they did not comply with God’s instructions, they too would have suffered under the Angel of Death during the last plague. In 2 Samuel chapter 24, David took a census in an unscriptural way, thus sinning and because of this God made him choose a punishment - “… the Lord sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time.  From Dan even to Beersheba seventy-thousand men of the people died” (2 Samuel 24:15).

God has shown tough love toward His people a number of times, but He has also shown empathy and compassion. If we have accepted Christ, and are therefore His children, He looks to us the same way we look to our own offspring and what parent, who loves their children, would not wish to trade places with that child if something truly serious or dangerous were threatening. So God in His compassion said: “No longer do I call you servants,…but I have called you friends,…”(John 15:15).  He also said this - “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends”(John 15:13).

And this is exactly what God did. He came down to earth in human flesh and took our death sentence upon Himself. Truly, what “Greater love has no one than this…”?  True love for us but probably tough on God.

Tough love - something to thing about.