Transformational Love

In thinking about how God chooses love instead of guilt in confronting us with our sins, one might ask if this is too soft. Don't some people need to be coerced or given an ultimatum to get them to do what's right? My answer to that is if getting them to do what's right is the only thing you're interested in, then sure. Some people need that. There's nothing like the "hold 'em over hell on a rotten stick" method to scare someone into acting right. But what about their heart?
If someone were to use fear to get someone to act right, the person may change their ways...for a while. But try as they may, lasting change will ever be elusive and the person will find themselves right back in the same mess again, struggling with guilt and shame because they fell once again...and again...and again. It's really an endless cycle.
That's because, as God knows so well, it is the heart that needs to change in order for the behavior to have any lasting change. We see this in the story of the prodigal son. While the older brother stayed home and did everything right, his heart was just as far away from his father as the younger son who left. And ironically, in the end, it was the younger son whose heart was changed and devoted to his father over the older son who followed all the rules.
But God knows that it is love and compassion that have the power to truly change a heart. It's not at all that God is soft on sin. I am one who believes that God's grace is truly greater than legalistic coercion. Many writers have written books on God's grace, but what many fail to include is WHY His grace is greater.
While it certainly makes us feel more comfortable in God's presence knowing that He accepts us as we are and that there is nothing we can do to earn his love, God doesn't want to leave us in the same lifestyle He found us in. He loves us too much for Him to just wink at our sin and leave us to ourselves. God knows that our sins separate us from a deeper relationship with Him and He wants to remove that sin so that we can experience the fullness of life that He promises in Him. But instead of doing that through hammering us into submission, He does it through grace, compassion, loving kindness, and a whole lot of patience.
You see, God's love isn't just accepting. It is also transforming! I am persuaded that if someone gets even a glimpse of God's true love for us, it will transform that person's heart and life forever. If someone sets their mind to diving into His love, studying it, searching it out for greater understanding, praying it, and breathing it in on a daily basis, he will experience an ever-changing heart that looks like Jesus more and more.
Why does this work? Because that is what our hearts were made for! Being in union with God, living loved, living life as His beloved children, knowing we are cared for and eternally cherished by the only One whose opinion about us truly counts! When we get a hold of that, our lives become secure and we no longer feel the need to seek out selfish desires that alienate us from God and his creation. We begin to be transformed on the inside and that transformation automatically works its way outward. Then we begin to love the things He loves, and hate the things (like sin) that He hates. We begin to see the world through "grace-healed eyes," as Irenaeus puts it.
I want to conclude this post with recounting the story in Luke 7. Jesus was at the home of a Pharisee named Simon, dining with him. All of a sudden a woman with an immoral reputation walks in and proceeds to wash Jesus' feet with her tears and dry them with her hair, then pour expensive and fragrant perfume on them. Of course Simon was indignant, thinking to himself, "If this guy really were a prophet he would know what kind of woman she is." Jesus responds, reading his thoughts, with a parable.
The parable is about two men who owed the same person sums of money. The first person owed the creditor like $50 and the second person owed him like $50, 000, but neither could pay him back. So the creditor forgave them both. Then Jesus asked Simon a question. "Which person would love him more?" Simon answered correctly by saying, "The one who had been forgiven the most." Jesus goes on to affirm that this is, indeed, correct, and then pointing to the woman, He said that this woman had been forgiven much, therefore she is showing much love.
You see, something happened in the heart of that woman. More than likely, she had heard Jesus preach and/or saw Him ministering to someone and telling of His forgiveness no matter what they had done. She obviously got the revelation that she, too, was forgiven by the same Father that Jesus came to reveal. Because of this revelation, the woman's heart and life were completely changed...transformed! She was no longer the same person she was. In gratitude, she came to the One who showed her such matchless love and gave Him the only appropriate response--sheer, undignified worship. In doing so she was stating, "You gave me my life back when I was completely lost, now I give You my life completely. I am forever Yours."