Augustine once wrote, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.”
This is a very true statement. God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh, so is it hard to believe He could love you regardless of your sinful life? He loved us enough to send Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins so we could be given His mercy and grace through that sacrifice. He even inspired the writers of the Bible to create it in such a way that it cannot be explained except by divine inspiration.
Take a look at this illustration and you can see His influence in it.
There is no other way to see His work in the writer’s hands except in this way.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/jer.29.11-13.KJV
These verses from Jeremiah are the most affirming statements of God’s love for us in the Old Testament. Other than the Savior giving His life on the cross to save our souls from hell, I can’t think of a better expression of His love for humanity.
The difference between who is doing the holding is that God won’t ever let go.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. Malachi 3:10-11 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/mal.3.10-11.KJV
Our lives would be so much better if we would give God His tithe from your paycheck. The first ten percent of your money has always been God’s. Your money is given to you from the Father in heaven, don’t cheat Him out of blessing you. The problem with our interpretation of tithing is usually the last ten percent of our income or whatever is left after we pay our bills. God never asked for your leftovers, He wants the first fruits. The first ten percent before your bills get paid.
I know, today we have automatic withdrawals that take some of our income out even before we get it. But God deserves the first part, even if there has been some taken out. Truthfully, I’ve had trouble with this advice. I mean…life gets in the way sometimes and you just can’t give like you want to or rather in the way you know you should. God loves us and He takes care of us even when we don’t give the way we should but I think it would be much better if we did give our tithes the way the Bible tells us to.
I am going to begin to do this from this point on. I’ll let you know how His blessings flow.
Colossians 1:13-17: 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The Supremacy of the Son of God
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him, all things hold together.
The Chinese character for “come” is mostly the image of the cross.
The Cross of Christ is where all of our needs and our sins are taken care of. God has provided everything that we need through our Savior. No profession nor amount of money can provide the assurance of your eternity. Jesus can. God gives you the faith to believe in Jesus for your salvation but if you won’t accept His gift of salvation…it will not do you any good.
People have wondered for years if you or I can refuse to accept salvation through Jesus. If it is a calling from God that you accept Him as your Savior, you will accept it. Some people walk to the altar because they feel that they need salvation and they do, but if it is only your decision and not a calling from God then it is useless. Many people, religious people, have this kind of “salvation”. Even some preachers have said that they have gone through seminary training and preached for years before finally accepting Jesus as their Savior.
God’s call is His choosing of you to be His and a part of His family! He gives us the air we breathe and all of the food that we have access to. If it wasn’t for His provision, we would not be alive! He created everything that is on this planet and in the entire universe. Even scientists are admitting that some of their theories of creation are wrong. God is everywhere and He is our Creator. There was no accident or “something just happened” to bring chemicals together to make our DNA. Creation doesn’t work that way.
God is preexistent, meaning that He was before everything. He knew you and me long before there was anything because He isn’t bound by time like we are. Life would not exist in all of its wonderful forms if God had not created it. There are life forms found under the ice in Antarctica that science can’t place anywhere. They have no idea what some of them are, yet they are alive. I believe God put them there just for that purpose, to give our scientists something to ponder.
God also spread out the universe itself in ways that the James Webb telescope is showing to astronomers today and they can’t explain it. There are galaxies that they have found that are completely formed but according to the “laws” of physics they shouldn’t have been able to be formed that early in the universe. God did this specifically to give them something to ponder as well. Many of them are saying that some textbooks may have to be rewritten.
There is even one galaxy that looks like a question mark. Another one of those findings that the James Webb Space Telescope has found that astronomers can’t really explain. Some of the “explanations” say that two galaxies are colliding with each other and formed this image. Maybe. I like to think that God is having fun with our scientists and put this out there just to make them scratch their heads.
Many of my posts are titled the same but most of them are different in their content. God leads me to post the way that I do because He needs you to read and understand His purpose for you while you are here. If you are a Christian, your purpose is something that you will have to seek on your own through prayer and reading of God’s Word.
Jesus repeated His teachings at times. Paul wrote very similar passages in his letters to the churches. All of this repetition is good because the message is still pointing toward our Savior, Jesus Christ. So…
Some of us hear His call early in life and ignore it because we are having fun. I heard His call on my heart and my life as early as 12 years old and I thought I answered it at a crusade in Jackson, MS. But, it didn’t stick. I know now that I wasn’t sincere in my answer to the touch of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I felt it but I didn’t take it seriously. I tried to read the Bible and listened as well as I could in church but found it boring.
I didn’t really have a “come to Me” moment until my son was born. Then, one night at work I was reading the Psalms and I heard a small voice in my mind saying “You are to be his example”. That is a scary thought. I am supposed to be my son’s example of how to live? I knew I couldn’t do that without Jesus in my heart and by truly following Him for the rest of my life, so I asked Him to be my Savior at that moment.
From that point on I’ve had trouble being a follower of Him but I began learning more about being a Christian and it has made a lot of difference in my life. That was twenty years ago and I’m still learning about Him and what it means to be His. Reading the Bible isn’t enough. Praying helps but that’s not enough either. When you do both of them together, the Holy Spirit can show you things while reading that might not have been so clear before.
God loves you and He sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins. All that you have to do is believe in Jesus and His sacrifice for you, repent of your sinful ways and you will be saved.
The Living Message of Christ 