“….One great hindrance to the savoring God’s love today is the false idea that we are at the center of it rather than God. God’s aim in all His acts of love is to exalt His glory.
This truth permeates Scripture. For example, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ…to the praise of his glorious grace” (Ephesians 1:5,6). That is, God’s loving predestination aims at the praise of His glory. So does his loving forgiveness: “I, even I, am He who blots our your transgressions for my own sake.” (Isaiah 43:25). When David realized this truth, he prayed accordingly: “For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity” (Psalm 25:11)
Moreover, the ultimate aim of Christ’s love in accepting us into His fellowship is to bring glory and praise to God. “Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7).
And Christ’s loving work of sanctification is for the praise of the Father: “this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9, 10,11).” John Piper, in “Learning to Savor the Love of God”
Piper is making a simple but full statement of familial love—that is, the joy of love found in relationships: those separated and in trials are able to rejoice upon reunion. If you never recognize God as your Father, and resist His love and calling out to you, you can never enter into any of that eternal joy of reconciliation. With regard to love, God and His people are mutual beneficiaries when He gets glory–there are many reasons for this, one reason is due to the very difference between the created one (man) and the Creator God.
In summary, all through the scriptures, the love of God redounds to His glory.
A parallel prophecy was given to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31, which is directly to Israel, but its application can be generalized to speak to all of God’s lovers. See in part below:
1″At that time,” declares the LORD,
“I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”
2Thus says the LORD, The people who survived the sword
Found grace in the wilderness–
Israel, when it went to find its rest.”
3The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
4″Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt,
O virgin of Israel!
Again you will take up your tambourines,
And go forth to the dances of the merrymakers…
8″Behold, I am bringing them from the north country,
And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth,
Among them the blind and the lame,
The woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together;
A great company, they will return here.
9″With weeping they will come,
And by supplication I will lead them;
I will make them walk by streams of waters,
On a straight path in which they will not stumble;
For I am a father to Israel,
And Ephraim is My firstborn.”
10Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
And declare in the coastlands afar off,
And say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him
And keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”
11For the LORD has ransomed Jacob
And redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.
12″They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion,
And they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD–
Over the grain and the new wine and the oil,
And over the young of the flock and the herd;
And their life will be like a watered garden,
And they will never languish again.
13“Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance,
And the young men and the old, together,
For I will turn their mourning into joy
And will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.
14“I will fill the soul of the priests with abundance,
And My people will be satisfied with My goodness,”
declares the LORD.
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