God's Love is NOT Reckless

True Worshippers of the Living God will ensure that the words of their Praise/Worship songs are written or sung to glorify God and to align with His Holy Word. Ironically, many across Christianity have ignored the need to validate praise and worship songs with scripture and have focused on their rhythm, prose, and popularity. One such song is "Reckless Love," by Cory Asbury. 

The Love of God is indescribable by any one word. However, there is one word it does NOT align with. That is calling the love of God 'Reckless."

Perhaps it was a few years ago in 2018, when I was singing the song “Reckless Love” at my church in Michigan, when the Holy Spirit asked me to consider the words of the song I was singing.  Immediately, it dawned on me that the song was calling the love of God as being “Reckless.” After church, when I looked into God's Holy Word, "The Bible," and searched on the word “reckless,” I came to see that this word was always used in the Bible about the recklessness of man and it was never used to relate to the love of God. Let's look at a couple of Bible references to see how God sees the word "reckless?"

1. Proverbs 14:16 One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.”  
• In the above verse, God is calling a fool as being reckless. 
2. Judges 9:4 (ESV) 4 And they gave him seventy pieces of silver out of the house of Baal-berith with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him. 
• In the above verse, we see God describing the nature of people who were both unaccountable or irresponsible as being reckless.
3. Jeremiah 23:32 (ESV) 32 Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord. 
• In the above verse, God is describing false prophets who presumptuously state things that are contrary to God's Word and thus being reckless.
4. 2 Timothy 3:1-4 (ESV) 3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 
• In this verse, we see God describing the nature of those people who are wicked and evil as being reckless.

The Merriam Dictionary tells us "reckless"  means "careless of consequences." One of its synonyms is "irresponsible."  Many of us use the word reckless to describe teenagers as to how they behave and to describe their immature character or about people who fail to have accountability.  

Interestingly, Cory Asbury has used this word to describe the love of God in his song, "Reckless Love." So, I searched on google to see what Cory Asbury meant by it. Interestingly, Cory Asbury had topped the charts in the music world with this song during that time. I was shocked after reading his justification about using the word “reckless” to describe the love of God. I recognized that Cory went too far when he used the word "reckless" without truly understanding the love of God and the nature of God. Cory's argument was "I think “Reckless Love” is a song about the Father’s love, and I think so many of us, especially in this generation are so unfamiliar with the Father’s love because we had so many skewed ideas of what He’s like because of what our own dads were like." 

 

Ironically, we see from above as he says, "I think," is simply Cory's view rather than a Biblical view. Cory has not only failed to understand the unfathomable love of God by calling the song as a “Reckless Love of God,” but he has also failed to write a song that is theologically or Biblically aligned.

  

Unfortunately, some of today's worship songs focus more on the impact they can make in the music world than being evaluated for being theologically right, and I believe this song is in that category. Every song that King David sang in the Psalms are perfect because they are Biblically aligned and recognizing the Fear of God. If our worship songs are NOT Biblically aligned, they should NOT be sung in our Biblically aligned churches or even be run on radio stations for us to listen.

 

It breaks my heart when we as reckless people fail to fathom the depth and breadth of the love of God. Love of God is gracious, merciful, amazing, spectacular, but never “reckless.” Reckless is used for someone who doesn't care about what is going to happen the next moment, that is what man is. God knows everything, our past, present and future. God says and does everything with a purpose and a plan, so how can He be reckless?

In contrast, I am reminded of the 10 commandments where God cautions the Jews to not misuse his name, which also includes his character. Exodus 20:7 (NIV) “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.  So, through the Old Testament, we see the Jews holding the name of the Lord in high regard, such that they never said the name of the Lord, rather used a tetragrammaton YHWH to refer to God, so that they could avoid desecrating the name of the Lord, even by mistake. Even when the Jewish scribes who copied the holy Scriptures and came across the name of the Lord, they did a ceremonial cleansing before they wrote His Holy name. His Name and Character was held in High Regard. 

 

Has not man become so reckless to use the name of the Lord in vain or use it as cuss word or perhaps fail to comprehend the fear of God? Unfortunately, Cory Asbury has included a poor choice of words to bring about a sensation within the music world, no matter what his arguments for intentions maybe. Words communicate our intentions. People have argued that this author had good intentions, but we have to remember good intentions without good works does not make us right. 

 

Interestingly, check out this argument by the well-known Presbyterian Pastor John Piper, also tells us the same.  

https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-we-sing-of-gods-reckless-love  => We have 1000's of worship songs out there to pick from....Why pick one which is theologically incorrect. I personally believe if we allow this song to be sung in any church then we are deceiving our congregation with a false view of God. 

As a Pastor for Spiritual Formation, I have stopped singing or listening to this song. I hope & pray that you too would decide prayerfully about avoiding this song from your Church's Worship services or Playlists.

 

In Christ's Holy name.

Pastor Stanley Samuel

Empowering Discipleship & Missions

"Outside the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is NO other hope for mankind."