Things I Wish My Family Knew

There is something deeply important I want you to know — not just for your understanding, but for your peace, your joy, and your ability to rest in the perfect will of God throughout your life.

One of the most profound things I’ve ever read came from a theologian named B.B. Warfield. He wrote:

“God in His love saves as many of the guilty race of man as He can get the consent of His whole nature to save.”

That sentence has stayed with me — not just as a theological insight, but as a reminder of who God really is. It holds together things we are often tempted to pull apart: God’s love, His righteousness, and His sovereignty.

You see, we live in a world that often thinks of love as nothing more than emotional kindness — a God who, if He really cared, would save everyone. But the God of the Bible is not a sentimental being who acts at the expense of His righteousness. He is perfectly just, perfectly holy, and perfectly loving — all at the same time, and in every act He performs.

This means that God doesn’t save arbitrarily, nor does He save reluctantly. He saves in a way that fully satisfies every part of His nature — not just His love, but His justice, holiness, wisdom, and truth. He is never in conflict with Himself. His love never overrides His righteousness, and His justice never cancels His mercy. All His attributes work together in perfect harmony, and that’s why His salvation is so trustworthy and so glorious.

You must know this — and believe it — because it will help you live in peace. When you know that God is not partly this or that, but fully and wholly God in everything He does, then you can rest. You won’t need to explain suffering by saying God is weak, or pretend injustice doesn’t matter because “God is love.” No — you’ll know that God is doing all things well, in the perfect counsel of His own will, with a character that is beyond reproach and above compromise.

And if you’ve been brought to trust in Christ, it’s not because God looked down and saw something good in you. It’s because He, out of sheer mercy, set His love upon you and acted in a way that the whole of His nature approved. That’s what makes your salvation secure. That’s what makes His grace so amazing. And that’s what gives you confidence — not in yourself, but in Him.

When you grasp this truth, it will protect you from bitterness when you suffer, pride when you succeed, and fear when you stumble. It will give you the assurance that you are loved — not by a God who changes His mind, but by One who saves you with all that He is. And when you understand that, you can live in His will — not with anxiety or striving, but with joy and thankfulness, even when His will leads through valleys.

So don’t ever settle for a God who’s only love, or only justice, or only power. Trust the God who is fully God — the God who is, in the words of Warfield, not “a part God, a God here and there, with some but not all the attributes which belong to true God,” but “God altogether, God through and through.”

That’s the God I want you to know, to worship, and to rest in.

“… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord..

.”This summary was prepared with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI, based on publicly available Scripture and theological sources.