God didn’t need anything from us, and yet he gave everything for us. Why? I. Don’t. Know. There’s no rationality to it. The gospel transcends reason. It blossoms high up in the ether of divine-human relationship. It draws us to worship, not to weigh and measure. True love can never be “this” for “that.” There is no transaction in true love, no giving for taking. All palms are always open. 

I was reading through a book manuscript the other day, and it was making me think of a previous article I wrote about Job (“Job and the Deadly Spiritual Equation”). The author of this manuscript made a point that, while I already knew it conceptually, still drew me into wonder. Here it is, in my own words: True love must be able to offer everything in exchange for nothing.
Stare at those words. Your impulse might be to agree with the statement immediately. But let the silt in your mind settle for a moment. Examine yourself in the context of one concrete relationship. How often do you act in self-interest with the guise of love? How many times do you do something for someone else without expecting to receive anything in return—no reciprocation, no delayed gratification, no ego stroke, no thanks? Can you show love to someone and at the same time be at peace with invisibility?
Relationships vs. Transactions
When we’re honest with ourselves, most acts of “love” are done with some hope, if not an outright expectation, of reciprocation. We may not think that the person we buy coffee for will return the favor, but we’ll at least get a “thank you,” right? I mean, that’s just common courtesy.
This approach to love is transactional. It sounds cold when we put it that way, as if expecting a “thank you” from someone is selfish and mechanistic on our part. I’m aware that we have social norms and that there is such a thing as common courtesy. That’s not really the question here. The question is whether love can be true if we feel slighted or jilted when we don’t receive some form of reciprocation, even a “thank you.” As I’ll suggest in a moment, I don’t think it can be true if that’s the case.
When our approach to love is what we might call relational (I elsewhere call this circular), our love serves a relationship, but that doesn’t necessitate reciprocity. True love is wanting the best for someone regardless of your involvement. In the context of your relationship with another, love says, “I want you to have this.” And here’s the key: The beloved may not even hear your voice or give ample recognition to your love. And that’s okay. You loved for their sake, not for yours. You love because, in your relationship, you want this person to go higher, and you’re content if that means you go lower, or go unnoticed altogether. Love is not love if it’s quid pro quo.
Job and God’s Love
Now, back to Job. This transactional vs. relational view of love is really at the heart of the book. In fact, it’s right at the beginning where Satan starts bad-mouthing this man whom God said was above reproach. Satan attacks Job twice. First he takes his property and family. Then he takes his health. What was his motive in both cases? To show that Job was really a transactional God-worshiper. Look at his two attacks.
9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”
Job 1:9-11
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Written by Guy M. Richard |
Friday, July 8, 2022
We ought to look at rest for what it is: a blessing from God to fit us for heaven. We need to remember this whenever we may be tempted to bristle at the idea of resting. God is preparing us for an eternity with Him in His presence, one in which we will be perfectly resting and perfectly working at the same time forevermore.

I find it fascinating that all of the blessings Jesus secured for the believer in and through His mediatorial work—including, most especially, heaven itself—are frequently depicted in the Bible in terms of rest. This is overwhelmingly the case in Hebrews 4, for instance, when the apostle speaks of heaven in terms of “entering [God’s] rest” (v. 1) and then exhorts Christians in his own day to “strive to enter that rest” (v. 11) by believing in the Lord rather than disobeying Him and, thus, “failing to reach it” (v. 1). The apostle’s ongoing reference to Psalm 95 (Heb. 3:7-11; 4:3, 5, 7) and his explicit mention of both Moses (3:16) and Joshua (4:8) indicate that this rest was foreshadowed and typified in the land of Canaan (see especially 4:8-9). But it was also foreshadowed and typified in the system of “sabbaths” that God instituted beginning with His own resting after He had finished the work of creation. Thus heaven is also referred to as a “Sabbath rest for the people of God,” one in which we rest from our works in the same way “as God did from his” (4:9-10).
In referring to heaven as rest that is typified in the land of Canaan, the apostle is teaching us that the promised land was designed to point God’s people to and prepare them for heaven. It was never intended as an end in itself. That much is obvious in the fact that we are told Moses and Joshua were unable to give God’s people permanent rest on earth (Heb. 4:8). They could only provide a temporary respite, because it was only in the heavenly “promised land”—of which Canaan was a type—that the people could receive lasting rest. So while the rest provided by the earthly promised land was not an end in itself for the people of Israel, it was, nevertheless, intended as a means to prepare them for their ultimate end, which was heaven. The rest they enjoyed in Canaan whet their appetites for more, for better, and for more extensive rest in heaven. It gave them a sample taste, an hors d’ouvre if you will, that set the stage for the main course.
In referring to heaven as a “Sabbath rest” that is typified in the system of sabbaths given to Israel, the apostle is teaching us that the purpose for the sabbath principle was to prepare God’s people for a rest that will be permanent and lasting. The system of sabbaths called them to live eschatologically, with their eyes on the last day. Each week they were reminded that they were heading toward an eternal and superior rest in the presence of the Lord.
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Every one of the good reasons I wrote about in my book decades ago are meant to point us to our kind and loving God. Because of Jesus Christ, he picks us up, holds us close, and assures us that everything is going to be okay. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us in our suffering. He says in Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” I’ve experienced God’s comfort in this way. I cannot begin to describe the sweetness of my Savior’s presence when I feel the crunch of my affliction. Suffering, like nothing else, has shown me the goodness of the Father. Oh, I hope you’ll take the time to view this video where I talk about my book Songs of Suffering and all I’ve gained in my suffering.

Decades ago, when I was still young in my wheelchair, I was excited about all the things I was learning about God
The more I learned about him, the more I wanted to pass the insights on to other people who were struggling through hardships. I even wrote a book about it, listing reason after reason as to “why God allows suffering.” I detailed as many spiritual benefits from suffering as I could think of: how it refines our faith, develops self-control, exposes sin, makes us dependent on God, teaches us to follow the Word, helps us empathize with other hurting people, binds Christians together, and fosters humility. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Now, these are all true and good benefits of suffering, but years later when I started to struggle with chronic pain—and later, battled cancer— the overwhelming weight of my suffering seemed to far exceed any benefit that might result.
To make sense of my suffering, I had to go a lot deeper and ask, “What good could possibly be worth overwhelming pain and agony?”
I’ll answer that question with an analogy: imagine that a little boy hops on his bicycle, races down a hill, and at the bottom when he turns the corner, he loses control on loose gravel and crashes to the asphalt. His knee begins to bleed, and his wailing alerts his father. What would we think of his daddy if he came and stood over his son and listed all the reasons as to why the boy is hurting and bleeding?
What would we think if he said, “Now, son, your speed was excessive as you began the trajectory of your turn. The loose gravel has accumulated here because of the rains. Your knees weren’t protected by knee pads.”
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