When God first comes to His people one of the things He calls them to consider is nature. The Lord Jesus Himself bids us to consider the created order and behold the manifold wisdom of God and the wonders of His grace. He asks us to consider the birds of the air that they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet the heavenly Father feeds them (Matthew 6:26).

He calls us to bring to bear upon our minds the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, Jesus tells us of how much more He would do so in clothing His dear sheep (Matthew 6:28-30). Elsewhere the Lord continued to ask us to consider the sparrows that are sold two for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the Father (Matthew 10:29).

Now what is the significance of this? Surely it’s very much axiomatic for any believer to know that God loves His sheep, even so much that He laid down His life for His sheep (John 15:13). Though as it is, understand that sparrows did not sin, nor has it been that any bird sinned against God. All the created order of God, lilies, sparrows and every bird of the air has pleased God since their coming to this world, never even once committing an offense against the God of the universe. From their first breathe of air, in the genesis of their conception they have obeyed every jot and tittle of the will of God according to the council of His own good pleasure.

See, dear beloved, you sinned. It is you who broke the law of God. From the very moment of your birth you have become an offense to God (Psalm 58:3). All your intentions are evil since your youth (Gen 8:21). Every intention of your heart is evil continually (Gen 6:5). Prior to conversion you know these things to be so true of you. And to a degree, they still are true as we are still warring with sin and the flesh.

And yet, the thrice holy God, the sovereign King of the universe would care more for you than He ever would the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. He tells us that we are His people and He our God (Jer 30:22). He declares Himself as the portion of His people, the strength of their bones in times of trouble (Psalm 73:25-26). He confesses  His love to us saying that He has loved us with an everlasting love and in His lovingkindness has He drawn us (Jer 31:3).

And yet, still, in our frailty, in our sin and unbelief, we discount such glorious truths and cry out in our self-absorbed worlds, “I thought You love me?!”

Coram Deo:

Dear reader, as we live before the face of God each day, facing real reasons to give in to doubt, fear, anxiety, sin and unbelief let us remember that the love of God that loves us is not of human love, such that is here one moment and gone the next. Let us remember that this love that God loves us with is such that was consummated in the incarnation of Christ, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6-8).

Thus, we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (Romans 8:28-30).

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39).

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.