We search for a feeling similar to the feeling which we felt from our parents and grandparents when we were growing up. But how do you identify the real thing? How do you know when you have found it?
What is true love?
The love which is expressed by God is True Love. He gave His Son as a sacrifice to pay for all of the sins in the world from the beginning. God doesn’t ask for anything from us, except for our belief in Him and our faith in His faithfulness toward us. Jesus paid for all of the words that have been said in anger and rage. He paid for all of the murders and the rape and all of the worst sins which people have committed since the beginning of humanity until now.
True commitment to Jesus takes concentration on Him and His message, regardless of the people in the church or what may be going on around you in the church. Here is a bit that I found on Facebook which brings this point home a bit more clearly:
A man went to the Pastor of his church and said, “I won’t be attending Church anymore.”
The pastor said, “May I ask why?”
He said, “I see people on their cell phones texting and typing during the service, some are gossiping, some just aren’t living right, some are sleeping, some are staring at me, they are all just hypocrites.”
The Pastor was silent. Then he said, “Can I ask you to do something for me before you make your final decision?”
He said, “Sure, what’s that?”
He said, “Take a glass of water and walk around the church two times and don’t let any of the water out of the glass.”
He said, “Yes I can do that!” He went and got the glass of water and walked around the church two times. He came back and said proudly, “It’s done.”
The pastor asked him these questions; “Did you see anybody on their phone?; Did you see anybody gossiping?; Was anybody living wrong?; Did you see anyone sleeping?”
He said, “I didn’t see anything because I was so focused on this glass so the water wouldn’t spill out”
He told him, “When you come to church, you should be just that focused on God so that you don’t fall. That’s why Jesus said, ‘Follow Me’, He did not say follow them.”
Don’t let your relationship with God be determined by how others relate with God. Let it be determined by how focused you are with God.
The reason that I bring up commitment is that love and commitment go hand in hand in a relationship, which is what we are supposed to have with God and His Son. Give your heart to Him so you can find out what true Love really is because He will never leave you!
The global climate changed, past tense, after the Flood and it was very cold in some places and warmer in others than it had been previously. For the record, I don’t believe in the so-called global warming that you hear about in reference to almost any climatic change these days. Earth has always had its cold spells and warmer spells in the past and will likely keep on doing that for many years to come.
Until that day comes when you feel that there is something missing and you can’t put a finger on what it might be. Sometimes this feeling hits us when we are teens or young adults and we try to fill that space with many things. Sometimes we try to fill it with sex or drugs, other times we try drinking, but eventually (if we survive all of the experimenting) we begin to look for something or someone meaningful to fill that void.
Sorrow? Fear? Anger? Loneliness? Is it something else which controls your days and nights? Alcohol or drugs or maybe sex? The problem is that most of these are what we try to fill up on when we find that there is an empty place inside, but we don’t know what to put there. It isn’t a what….its Jesus. This picture shows the very essence of the joy that we can feel because our Savior gave Himself for us so that we can know Him from this moment into eternity…if we will accept Him.
We have not been saved through Jesus’ sacrifice to keep that salvation to ourselves! While it is true that our view on salvation, sin, and eternity are views which aren’t held by much of the world today, God loves them regardless and He wants them to come to know Jesus for their salvation. It is true that, in the view of the world, we are narrow-minded and hypocritical in our lives it must be realized that only one Person was ever able to live a perfect, sinless life!
Why do we disagree with each other so vehemently? It seems that it doesn’t matter what religion or race or political party you belong to at the time, our differences of opinion and culture divide us so much that we can’t seem to find any common ground to work on!
