God and Arrogance

“Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to Him. He grieves that we have forgotten Him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence. God’s sorrow lies in our refusal to approach Him after we have sinned and failed.”
Richard Foster

I’ve heard some people accuse Creator God of being arrogant because He demands our total allegiance. These people of course are simply not capable of thinking of any positive reasons for why God tells us to love Him with everything we’ve got.

Titus 1:15 - To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.

2nd Samuel 22:27 - To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you come across as shrewd and deceiving.

Matthew 12:34 - “How can you who are evil say anything good. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The evil predilection brings evil out of the evil that is stored up in him.”

In reality, giving our all to God is the only reasonable thing to do since He is our Creator.

. No one will ever love us with as pure a love as Creator God.
. No one will ever see each one of us as totally unique and special, like God does.
. No one will ever try as hard to make us fully alive as Creator God.

As Paul said, “If God did not spare even Jesus in order to bring us safely home, do you think there is anything else that is good that He would withhold from us?”

Jesus went to the cross FOR YOU. That isn’t arrogance. That’s love. And He did that knowing who you are, who you have been and who you’ll be in the future. God is not afraid of stepping into the messy places of our lives. He did it while He walked the earth and He’ll do it again now, if only you’ll let Him.

That isn’t arrogance.
That’s love.