Believing in God's love for us

Deuteronomy 1:26-27 (ESV)
"Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. [27] And you murmured in your tents and said, ''Because the LORD hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.

Because the LORD hated us. When we rebel against the command of the Lord, then we begin to doubt God's love towards us. When we believe and obey God's commandment, then we become sure of God's love toward us. How foolish were they to doubt God's love when it was they who were hating God and His commandments. God did not hate them, but loved them, and wanted them to inherit the land of Canaan. But we see here that Israel is covering up their own hate for God with the abominable excuse that God hated them.

When we don't believe in God's word, then we don't believe in God's love toward us. When God commands us to do something, it is because He loves us and wants us to prosper and be blessed. But when we doubt His commandment, we also doubt God's love in that commandment. But when God commands something to us, and we obey, believing that He loves us, that by obedience will be beneficial to us. For example, God commanded Christ to die on the cross for sinners. Christ believed in God's love in that commandment, and chose to obey Him. And though it was horrible for a season, because of this act He was glorified as the Name above all names, and all nations honour and love Him for His obedience.

God's love is fulfilled in us through our faith. God loved Israel and desired them to inherit the promised land. But this could not be fulfilled if they did not believe and obey God. Likewise, God loves the world, and sent His only begotten Son in the world to die for sins. But this love means nothing if a person does not believe in that love. God's love is completed in us through our faith. When we trust Christ, and obey Christ, then that love of the Father is applied to us and it is fulfilled and revealed in us. When we by faith in Christ charge into the Kingdom of God, we become more sure of God's love and it shines brighter and brighter upon us.

And see how it says: "you murmured in your tents". When we don't do anything for God out of faith and obedience to Him, we will simply sit in our tents and murmur against God. These Israelites should have been out of their tents and ready to charge into battle. They speak so much with their mouths, but their feet were resting in their own tents. Dead faith doesn't do anything, it only talks. As Paul mentioned of those in the Corinthian church that only talked but did not do:
1 Corinthians 4:19-20 (ESV)
But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. [20] For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.

Rebellion against God can be done simply by sitting in our tents and doing nothing. Not doing what we ought to be doing is as much sin as actively being involved in heinous sins. We don't need to be pointing our finger in heaven and cursing God to be committing rebellion against Him. We can be sitting at home, at ease and watching television and committing more sin in our hearts than going to an atheist convention. Therefore we ought to watch out for idleness. Idleness and laziness is fruit of unbelief. When we believe in God's love toward us, we will not be idle, but move diligently to bear fruit for Him, since we know He loves us. But when we doubt His love towards us, we become lazy and don't do anything in the name of "fearing God", but this kind of "fear" is actually wickedness and unbelief:
Matthew 25:26 (ESV)
But his master answered him, ''You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?

Have also a look at how Israel portrays God in their speech: ''Because the LORD hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us". They are saying that 1) the motive for God in rescuing Israel was hate 2) that if God loved them God should have let them stay in Egypt 3) they loved it in Egypt 4) that God's goal in salvation was their destruction in the hand of the Amorites. How insane and illogical does Israel make God out to be? They think that God delivered them from Egypt, only to kill them. They have a truly warped image of God. They don't know who God is. They completely disregard God's promise that He made to Abraham that they would inherit this land. And see how they fear the Amorites, not knowing that God's will is to destroy the Amorites by the hand of Israel. How twisted have they made this whole situation!

And how cheaply do they talk of God's mighty salvation that He has brought for them? How forgetful they were of the 10 plagues, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, and all the provision that He had given them so far! Do we also thus talk cheap of our salvation? Do we dare to say that Christ HATED and thus died for us, so He may destroy us? It would be an abomination. But some Christians speak in this way when they complain of their hard lives as Christians, when they compare themselves with the unbelievers who prosper. We truly commit great sin in talking this way. We should always, always, always be thankful that Christ loved us, and died for us. It is because Christ loved that He chose to die. Only God's Agape love would have driven Him to do this. If He hated us, He would have left us in our bondages to sin, ready to be slaughtered on the Judgment Day. But because He loved us, and wanted the best for us, He died. He didn't want to see us perish, so like the Passover lamb, He shed His blood and applied them to our souls. How can that possibly be hate?

Did not God hate Egypt and destroy them by His plagues? Did not He make Egypt into a wasteland just so that He could rescue Israel from slavery? Did He not avenge Israel and kill all Egypt's firstborn? Then why is this wicked generation saying such vile things? They hate Him without any reason:
John 15:25 (ESV)
But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ''They hated me without a cause.''

When we hate God, we live as though He hates us. But He does not hate us, but loves us, but we justify our hate towards Him by imagining that God hates us. Because then we can go on sinning. It is as Jesus said:
John 3:19 (ESV)
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
The light of God's love has shone to people in Christ Jesus. But they, because they hate God and Christ, accuse God of hating them, and believe in that lie, and they love this lie more than the truth of God's love, because it enables them to continue hating God. It is no wonder that God will destroy them in the end. How deceitful and evil is man's heart?

Unbelief also imagines the worst scenario possible. When a person does not trust in God, fear overtakes him and his imaginations run wild. See the destiny that they write for themselves: They are certain that they will be given over to Amorites and be killed by them. Distrust in God indeed makes God look weak. Israel thinks that God would just leave them be defeated and be consumed by the Amorites. God had just destroyed Egypt, the superpower of the day, and drowned its king in the sea. What then made them afraid? Their unbelief is a mystery indeed.

But when we trust in God, because we know that God is in total control, and that not even one sparrow falls without His command, we are sure that God will lead us safely into the Kingdom of God. We don't ponder or trust in our imaginations, but in God, whose vision for us is far greater than our wicked imaginations. God never had destruction in mind for Israel. It was their fault for imagining something God was not imagining. Likewise we ought not put into our minds anything that is not in God's mind. We trust in God's sovereignty and His power. See how Joshua and Caleb saw the future:
Numbers 14:9 (ESV)
Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them."

Joshua and Caleb saw God's future, and forsook their own imaginations, because they had the Spirit of God. We also need to be filled with the Spirit of God, that we may know His mind. Let us lean not on our understanding, but trust in the Lord. As it is written:
Psalm 112:6-7 (ESV)
For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever. [7] He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.

God's goal for us is not destruction, but is salvation:
1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 (ESV)
For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, [10] who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.
Let us then be confident in this Gospel, knowing that Christ died for us, and thus we cannot perish, as long as we continue believing and trusting in Him. Let us trust in Christ's love which is able to keep us unto the end through faith in Him. Amen.