LETTER FOR OCTOBER 1990
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Dear Friends,

God loves his people very much. What we would like for ourselves; and what God, in his deep love for us, gives us, and sends us, can be and usually are very different things.

What we class as disasters, he sends us in love, because in the end they will bring blessings to us.

What we may want, he keeps from us, because it would no doubt be a curse to us.

This is what the Lord's words through the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:28 are saying to us -- "All things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose."

The backbone and foundation of this promise are the words "called according to his purpose". We have been loved from before the foundation of the world and that love has a purpose for us. The purpose is that we may share, and have a part in, God's eternal glory.

Because God's purpose is that we have this glorification, and be with him for ever, he leaves nothing to chance or to our failing ability, but having foreknown us in his love, he predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that Jesus might be the first born among many brothers and sisters (Romans 8:29).

His purpose, that he has set out in his power and will to achieve, is that we may be as beautiful and perfect in character and life as Jesus, and be made by him worthy and fit to share in the heavenly home of Jesus.

In pursuit of this purpose, God called us to himself in our life in this world. By his supernatural power he raised our dead soul to life and we became born again. By an irresistible call he brought us to confess our sins and repent and turn to him for mercy. We believed in Jesus because by this call he gave us faith to believe and receive Jesus. His power and love brought us to Christ, and we had no hand in it. We just received his love as he made his love known to us.

When he brought us to this faith we realised all that his great love had done for us. We understood that He, and He alone, had justified us. We understood the amazing work of God for us, which by infinite wisdom and infinite power, he had done. How that for our sakes and in our place he gave his one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to come and live and be completely holy in our place, and then to give his life for us, to take the death due to us upon himself, and go to Hell. We understood, further, that this work of Jesus meets completely all that is needed to purchase our place in heaven and in God's family, and that if God had left anything for us to do, even the smallest bit, we would be lost.

We know that God's purpose is our glorification in heaven, and that his love leaves nothing to chance in our getting there, so he has our whole life in his purpose, every event and every moment, so that we will reach that heaven, and be made fit to live and to enjoy fellowship with Jesus for ever.

There is nothing, therefore, we experience in our lives that is not sent by God and part of his will for us. Everything we experience is because of God's infinite and perfect love for us. Every experience is ultimately a blessing, though in time may be a blessing in disguise.

"All things" in Romans 8:28 means all things. No part of the Christian's life can be excluded. All is under the perfect will of God. All is allowed and sent by our infinitely loving heavenly Father, who loves us with an everlasting love. This is a love so great and so full that it can never be content or rest, until love has finished its perfect work, and we are with him in Glory.

And yet we are not worthy of any of God's great love. He loves us not because we had anything to commend us, but according to the council of his will. He loved us and loves us in spite of our vile sinfulness, rebellion and corruption. His love meets all the needs demanded to blot out our sins, purify our sinfulness, heal our corruption, and changed our rebellion into loving obedience. We are debtors to mercy alone.

We would have no right to complain against God even if he damned us to Hell, for in justice that is what we deserve. Instead he acts always in love, and even the times of great pain and difficulty are manifestations of his love, because they are part of his loving purpose in saving us.

Amazing love -- but more amazing still is that when we fall, complain, are angry against God, fight him and disobeyed him, his purpose of love for us does not change and cannot change. How can it when he did not choose us because of any good in us.

A hymn by Augustus Toplady, the author of "Rock of Ages", expresses all this, and with this I will close my letter --

A Debtor to mercy alone,
of covenant mercy I sing;
nor fear to draw near to Thy Throne,
my person and offerings to bring.

The wrath of a sin hating God
with me can have nothing to do;
my Saviour's obedience to blood
hides all my transgressions from view.

The work which his goodness began,
the arm of his strength will complete;
his promise is "Yea" and "Amen",
and never was forfeited yet.

Things future, nor things that are now,
nor all things below or above,
can make him his promise forego,
or sever my soul from his love.

My name from the palms of his hands
eternity will not to erase;
impressed on his heart it remains,
in marks of indelible grace.

And I to the end shall endure,
as sure as the earnest is given;
more happy, but not more secure,
when glorified with him in heaven.

Your servant for Christ's sake,