God Cares About My Stuff?

Leviticus is not the easiest book to read through. It can be quite boring. And, on top of being boring, it is burdensome and sobering. It reveals God's absolute holiness, righteousness, and justice. The very reading of God's law creates a sense of inevitable failure in the reader. It is meant to be so, as Paul writes in Romans 7:9-13, to show us our sin and need for a Savior.

However, even in the Old Testament law, God reveals Himself to be Love. Sometimes it is tucked into a verse, barely noticeable. At other times, it is God Himself declaring who He is to His people. God is holy, but even in His holiness He lets His steadfast love and mercy be known.

"When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, 'There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.' Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, lest all that is in the house be declared unclean. And afterward the priest shall go in to see the house."

Leviticus 14:34-36 ESV {emphasis mine}

Emptying the house is significant when you think of all the things that would be in the house. Everything needed for staying alive and comfortable (furniture, clothes, kitchen things, food, etc) PLUS any extra luxuries like jewelry or house decorations, and items with personal, sentimental value. Even with a law where clean or unclean is a big deal, God is looking ahead and insuring that His people will be able to keep the things that they need and the little things that are important to them.

I was overwhelmed by God's goodness as I read these verses! Yes, God does care about stuff, and, more specifically, He cares about "my" stuff. The law shows God's harshness towards sin, His judgment, wrath, and holiness, but it also shows us His great mercy, love, and care for us.

Love

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because that is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is being "in love," which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

~Attributed to St. Augustine

An Infinite God

We usually look at the word infinite and think of something eternal, something that has no end, something that just keeps going beyond all time and space. While this is a correct definition, it only deals with the concept of time. God does exist beyond all time and space, He is boundless and eternal with no end, but what if we expanded the meaning of infinite to include character, personality, virtue, strength, and reason?

Not only is God infinite in reference to time, but also in His entire Person. His love is infinite, His justice is infinite, and His mercy is infinite.

"And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man..." Romans 1:23

Even we as Christians are guilty of this. How often do we look at God and try to understand Him by looking through the glasses of our humanity? No human can be 100% just and 100% merciful at the same time. We may express each of these qualities, but none of us can express them to their fullest capacity, and both simultaneously. We are limited in this, but God is not.

I have noticed, that because we tend to limit God by understanding Him with our finite minds, we tend to latch on to one aspect of God and ignore the others, simply because we cannot reconcile in our minds that God can infinitely be all of them. Some latch onto God as holy and righteous Judge, or as the Father who blesses when He is obeyed and punishes when disobeyed. The thing is, God is infinitely both of them. Another aspect of God that tends to be downplayed in the circles I've been in, is God as Husband and Bridegroom.

This is the aspect of God that loves us with an everlasting love, the God that would lay down His life and die for us. Since getting engaged, marriage is one of those things that has been on my mind, and God has used it to better clarify to me the mystery of Christ and the Church. A husband finds pleasure in his wife, even if she burns dinner or spends a little too much on a pair of shoes. She is the desire of his heart, the one he is passionate about, the one he desires to protect from all harm. A whole book of the Bible was dedicated to the love between a husband and wife. Imagine God feeling toward you as Solomon felt toward his bride.

God is simultaneously 100% all of these. There is no division into parts. An infinite God has no bounderies placed on His nature; There is no dividing line where His mercy ends and His justice begins. They are infinite and boundless; they simultaneously work together 100% of the the time.

If God is love (which He is; 1 Jn. 4:8), and God loves every one of His children, do I have to share the love He loves me with, with every other believer? Is His love divided?

"An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others." ~A. W. Tozer

The answer to both of my questions: no. When you divide a number by infinity, you get infinity. In the same way, when you divide God's love by infinity, you get infinite love that knows no bounderies and no limits.