Teaching Resources International

The Love of God … (May 2023 Update) 

Nothing compares to a mother’s love. A mother’s love is amazing. Mothers protect their children from harm, nurse them while they are sick, and provide a loving environment to grow up in. While the role of a father is important (mostly in being an example), a mother’s love is one of the most powerful influences on a child’s life. 

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls who are to be the men and women of the next generation, is of greater use to the community, and occupies, if she would only realize it, a more honorable as well as a more important position than any man in it. The mother is the one supreme asset of the national life. She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, or businessman, or artist, or scientist.” Certainly nothing compares to a mother’s love – Except the love of God. 

Interestingly, when the Bible speaks about God’s love for His people, it is most frequently in terms of a mother’s love. While God is usually called “Father,” the most intimate expressions of His love for His children are in motherly terms. Here are just a few examples: Many passages speak of God giving us birth: “You have forgotten the Rock who bore you and put out of mind the God who gave you birth” (Deut. 32:18). Also in Deuteronomy 32:11-12, we are told that God cares for us like a mother eagle: “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him.” And in Psalm 57:1, the Psalmist tells us that God protects His children by covering us with His wings: “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, or in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.” 

The Timing of God … (April 2023 Update) 

Timing is everything! It matters in sports – timing can be the difference between a touchdown pass and an interception. A split second in baseball can be the difference between a home run and a strike out. This is also true in life. Being in the right place at the right time can be the difference between being a success or being a failure. 

Our timing can be good or bad, but God’s timing is always perfect. Our timing often fails because we can’t see ahead – but God is omniscient. We miss critical events because we cannot control other events – but God is omnipotent and can do whatever He pleases. These are just a few of the reasons why we can trust God’s timing.  

The Justice of God …  (March 2023 Update) 

If there is no hell, then God is not just! Many Christians today shrink back from the doctrine of hell and from the justice of God. They often ask how a loving God could create a place like hell. Some atheists even use the doctrine of hell as an excuse for not believing in God. 

But God’s love demands that there be a hell with eternal punishment. If God is truly loving, completely loving, then He must punish sin or He would not be just. A truly loving God would not allow injustice to go unpunished. So, God’s love and God’s justice go together. They are like two sides to the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. 

However, the justice of God is almost completely ignored by many today. But this is not new to our age. At the beginning of the 20^th Century, A. W. Pink wrote: “It is scarcely surprising that far less has been written upon the justice of God—than upon some of the other Divine perfections. We are accustomed to turn our thoughts unto those objects and subjects which afford us the most pleasure, and to avoid those which render us uneasy.” But God’s justice should not make us uneasy – it should give us confidence that, even though evil might reign for a season, it will ultimately be judged by God. But, if there is no hell, then evil will have escaped any just punishment. And God would not be just. 

Good Theology … (February 2023 Update) 

Mention theology or doctrine among Christians and you are likely to get a variety of responses – mostly negative.  But theology is simply “the study of God.”  In that sense, everyone is a theologian, even the atheist!  The question is not whether we have a theology, but whether our theology is good or bad, and whether our theology is biblical or not! 

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says, “[If] you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones— bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas.” That’s why the study of theology is so important. 

Behold, I Make All Things New … (January 2023 Update) 

There is something satisfying about taking an old, worn-out piece of furniture and restoring it to its original condition. Furniture restoration brings new life to what previously appeared to be a lost cause. It’s exciting to see how beautiful a restored piece of furniture can be. 

But that is not the kind of “newness” that the Bible usually refers to when God says, “Behold, I make all things new.” It uses a word that indicates something that is wholly new, something that is newly created. When God takes our sinful lives and gives us new life, He does not refurbish or restore our old lives. He makes us new! That’s why many translations of 2 Corinthians 5:17 say, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation ….” God is doing something new – He is not simply restoring or patching up our old life. God is creating something new – both now and in eternity.