The revelation of Gods love is not something we will ever get to the apex of, I think at every level, we will discover new heights.

But with the new heights, will come a need for deeper understanding, because with heights come depths, so the new heights of love must come with a depth of understanding, if not we will love a God without understanding and receive His love and not know it. Reminds me of a group referenced in the bible as “having zeal but a zeal without knowledge…” Romans 10:1-2

Anything gotten, done or believed without knowledge has capacity to do the opposite to what it was intended, so in this kingdom, we treasure knowledge and understanding as much as virtue.

I was recently speaking to a young woman and she said “God won’t give me what I want so I won’t make an idol of it”. I thought that was really interesting! I think it’s a notion that a lot more believers have, that God withholds sometimes so keep us from falling into idolatry.

I think we sometimes project the workings of man on God, we think God does an inverse logic like we would if we were in His shoes, and so while we teach people to be vulnerable before God, we also tell them stuff like “maybe God has kept it from you because He sees how much you love it and to keep you from idolatry, He withheld it”.

I get scared when we use inverse logic to teach biblical doctrine, because while we succeed in communicating the message we want, we also give allowance and room for characteristics of God that is just not true.

In teaching people with the above doctrine, we indirectly also say that “God anticipates seeing their desire to withhold it from them”, we’re also saying indirectly that “He’ll use our vulnerability as a weapon against us”, but God doesn’t know so He can weaponise. He knows because first, it’s who He is (omniscient) and second, He’s able to guide us to see, understand and choose better.

Our idols aren’t known to Him for him to keep us from them, that’ll make Him a micromanaging God who doesn’t trust His child to choose Him above all else.

And herein lies the irony of love, that it is such a beautiful thing, but equally such a dangerous thing. But only in the hands of men, never God. Gods love believes, hopes, protects and endures all, so there’s never a weapon made of our vulnerability against us.

God can handle it all, He knows and sees the idol of our hearts before we even become aware of it, it’s aberrational to now think He’ll withhold just to remain king of your heart. He’s not intimidated by your hearts rivals, He’s concerned by it, for OUR OWN SAKE, so He urges us back to Him after the revelation and teaches us to keep Him as number one, in spite of the good desires of our hearts. In this, He grows us to a place where we seek and choose Him first and always, above all else.

If God felt rivalled or equalled to our idols, He wouldn’t be God, He isn’t insecure by anything. His own jealousy isn’t fuelled by insecurity. He bears all aseity, we must make no mistakes.