God's Great Love
"To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set His affection on your forefathers and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes (Deuteronomy 10:14-17)."
Think about those verses for a moment...The King of Glory, the One who made the heavens, the earth and everything in it set His affection on you. He seeks after you; He pursues you; He draws you to Himself. This is all out of His great love. He loves though we don't deserve it. Apart from Christ, we are all wretched. There is none who are righteous-not one (Romans 3:10). And yet, God invades our darkness and calls us into His marvelous light. It is simply amazing to me, that in spite of every evil, wicked thing you and I have done, He wants us-just as we are!
God does not change and He is not like man. Many people love based on conditions or on what you can do for them. When relationships get tough, many people bail out. But God's love is from everlasting to everlasting. His love is not based on what we do (or don't do), what we give, what we say or what we look like. God loves simply because He is love (1 John 4:16).
There is absolutely nothing you could do to make God stop loving you. There is nothing that could ever separate you from His love. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39)."
When God grabs hold of your heart and saves you with His grace, you are sealed forever in Him. God keeps you until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). How freeing it is to know that you or I don't have to earn our way to heaven. Jesus has already paid the price. He stood in our place. On the cross, He died the death that you and I deserved. He took all of our sin-past, present and future-and nailed it to the cross. By His blood, we have redemption.
The only thing you and I must do is believe that Jesus is who He says He is. He is the Son of God who was slain. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the way, the truth and the life~the one and only way to the Father (John 14:6). It is finished! Jesus rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Death and the grave have been defeated, all because of the Father's great love.
He made a way for us where there was no other way.
In Christ, you are made new. Your sins, though they are scarlet, shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool (Isaiah 1:18). Praise God for His marvelous grace! Praise Him that He sees who we will become in Him. Praise Him, that in Christ, we are declared righteous and He no longer counts our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Friend, there is nothing you have ever done that the blood of Christ cannot cover. Jesus will take all the shattered, painful, sinful, shameful pieces of your life and make them beautiful. He restores, He forgives, He heals, He cleanses and He makes whole. Come now to the living water and never thirst again!
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)."
Think about those verses for a moment...The King of Glory, the One who made the heavens, the earth and everything in it set His affection on you. He seeks after you; He pursues you; He draws you to Himself. This is all out of His great love. He loves though we don't deserve it. Apart from Christ, we are all wretched. There is none who are righteous-not one (Romans 3:10). And yet, God invades our darkness and calls us into His marvelous light. It is simply amazing to me, that in spite of every evil, wicked thing you and I have done, He wants us-just as we are!
God does not change and He is not like man. Many people love based on conditions or on what you can do for them. When relationships get tough, many people bail out. But God's love is from everlasting to everlasting. His love is not based on what we do (or don't do), what we give, what we say or what we look like. God loves simply because He is love (1 John 4:16).
There is absolutely nothing you could do to make God stop loving you. There is nothing that could ever separate you from His love. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:35-39)."
When God grabs hold of your heart and saves you with His grace, you are sealed forever in Him. God keeps you until the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30). How freeing it is to know that you or I don't have to earn our way to heaven. Jesus has already paid the price. He stood in our place. On the cross, He died the death that you and I deserved. He took all of our sin-past, present and future-and nailed it to the cross. By His blood, we have redemption.
The only thing you and I must do is believe that Jesus is who He says He is. He is the Son of God who was slain. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the way, the truth and the life~the one and only way to the Father (John 14:6). It is finished! Jesus rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Death and the grave have been defeated, all because of the Father's great love.
He made a way for us where there was no other way.
In Christ, you are made new. Your sins, though they are scarlet, shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool (Isaiah 1:18). Praise God for His marvelous grace! Praise Him that He sees who we will become in Him. Praise Him, that in Christ, we are declared righteous and He no longer counts our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Friend, there is nothing you have ever done that the blood of Christ cannot cover. Jesus will take all the shattered, painful, sinful, shameful pieces of your life and make them beautiful. He restores, He forgives, He heals, He cleanses and He makes whole. Come now to the living water and never thirst again!
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)."
"As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love" (John 15:9). We are to love one another as God and His Son (Jesus) loves us. There are many ways people can practice sacrificial love; listening, helping, sharing, encouraging, giving. Love God with all your heart, mind and soul. Give all the love you can, and then try to give a little more!
ReplyDeleteAmen! Have a blessed day!
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