The depth and width of God’s love


Romans 5: 5,8:

5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.  8 But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God’s love for us is shown through the sacrifice of His Son for our salvation. But…God’s love also shows up in unexpected ways almost every day. Most of us don’t notice. A cool breeze on a hot day. A large cloud that shades our workplace wherever it may be. The rest we get after a long day, even if it takes a while. Finding our keys when we have lost them.

Some people may not think of these small gifts as showing the love of God, but they do. He cares for us far more than we can imagine. I believe that the fact that God loved us long before we were even born is the hardest part of His love for us to take in. He knew about each of us before Creation morning. Remember, Scripture says that God puts our sins away as far as the East is from the West. That is an infinite amount of space between Himself and any record of our sins once we have accepted Jesus and the atonement of His blood.

Jesus told His disciples to allow the children to come to Him and it is their innocence and complete faith that He desires. The problem that we have is our “grown” ideas and the fact that most of us want to help out even when we ask Him to take care of a problem. All of us want to pitch in and help but when it is cancer or something that we can’t do anything about we need to learn to depend on Him…like a child. 

Even a pet or companion, like a little dog/Dachshund, depends upon us for their care, food, and well-being. We need to learn to depend on God for those things as well. We are hard-headed though and we tend toward trying to help God when He doesn’t need our “help” to take care of things. 

God’s love for us, and all of His Creation, is far more intimate and deep than we can imagine. Remember, He is the One Who knitted our DNA together in the womb before we were born. He knows the kind of personality you will have and how smart you will be long before you are born. Every molecule that makes you and me who we are was designed and placed in us by Him. There is no part of you that you can keep from Him even when you want to keep something secret. 

Remember, God is Life and it is by His pleasure that we live and have our being. Each breath and every heartbeat that we have is given to us by Him. That is why we need to seek Him each day before we go anywhere or even get out of bed because He provides us with the ability to talk, walk and live in His Presence every day.

There’s no “Oops”in the Bible


It’s not strange to note that God doesn’t have anywhere in His Word where He says “Oops”. He knows what He’s doing and He knows how things will turn out so nothing is a surprise to Him.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmaments sheweth his handiwork.” – Psalm 19:1

He is the Creator and our Savior and there is no other. He is in control even though the rest of the world says that He is not and they don’t care to know Him. Everything that He made in the first chapter of Genesis was good. God’s creation has more beauty in it because that is how He made it to be. Don’t turn away from the One Who loves you more than anyone else can.

No Weapon Formed Ajst You Will Prosper


No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of Yahweh, and their righteousness which is of me, says Yahweh. (Isaiah 54:17 )

https://youtu.be/ZMD_6Jsotr0

Unconditional Love


Composed in August ⠼⠃⠚⠃⠚

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You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the primary commandment. (Mark 12:30)

If not now…when?


The world is experiencing such turmoil from natural disasters and from wars and diseases that seem to change on a daily basis. There are many who are asking why, but all of this was foretold in the Bible. Of course, there are so many in our country and around the world who don’t put much stock in the Bible or the prophecies contained within it. So why would people of influence pay any attention to an “old book” as many refer to the Bible? Most are interested in what they can see and touch, not in an “old book” that Christians pay attention to.

If not now…when? When will people believe? God has placed so many signs in the heavens and in each of us as well as the world itself, yet most seem to ignore the signs all around them. The joy when a baby is born as well as the miracle of the birth, the eyes that each of us sees with that even the theory of evolution cannot explain. These things that we take for granted all of the time only come from God and His grace toward us.

Jesus came to live as one of us and He did so in such a way that He was able to die on a cross for our sins…all of our sins. He was and is the Lamb of God just as John the Baptist said but one day soon He will be coming back to rule the world as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. I suggest that any of you who do not know Jesus as your Savior, please seek Him out soon and invite Him into your heart.

If you don’t know Him yet…why not? If not now, when will you seek Him to be your Savior?

God answers your prayers


In the world in which we live today, there are many people inside and outside the church who don’t believe in God’s ability to answer our prayers. Many times God answers our prayers almost before we pray them. Sometimes the answer is “no” or “not yet” but sometimes the answer is “Yes!”. We may not recognize His answer as if it came from God but I believe that many of our answers, if not all of them, do come from Him. Just like any parent or guardian, God says yes to some prayers which will give glory to Him and will help us in our journey. Then there are prayers, usually spoken in haste or anger, that God will answer “No!”. 

Sometimes we can understand His reasons when we don’t get a positive answer but many times we act like a spoiled child and pitch a fit when we don’t get our way. It is the negative answers which teach us how to be truly patient and one day we will understand why He didn’t answer our request with a “yes”. 

In 1 John 5:14-15 it says: 

14 This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him.

Notice that John writes “If we ask anything according to His will…”, meaning that our request should be prayed about, and in asking Him to do one thing or another we must be in His will for Him to answer us with a “Yes!”. In other words, we should be walking with Him, studying His Word, and in a state of prayerful living so that we will know what is His will for our lives. 

Unfortunately, there are many people in the church and in the pulpit, who are not walking with Jesus on a daily basis. We tend to visit Him on Sunday or on a holiday or when something goes wrong in our lives and He is the only recourse for us to turn to at the time. Other than that, we just go through our day without a thought about Him or His Word…until we really NEED Him to show up! 

God does answer prayers and He hears the prayers of those who belong to Him in their hearts. The Holy Spirit speaks to Him even before we do especially when it is a request that is painful to ask for and it is during those times when God’s answer shows up before we even know that we need it. Sometimes it shows up in a way that we weren’t expecting but many times it will show up in an unexpected way and it will bring joy into our lives that we never knew we had.

Considering our prayers and our relationship with God, we need to remember that He is not a genie. God doesn’t answer at the same moment that we ask and He is not willing to give us the desires of our heart unless our desires and His are the same. Would He give us the desires of our heart? Yes, if it would bring Him glory and bring more people into His Kingdom.

We have to have a close relationship with Him in order for our requests to truly be in line with His will for our lives. Today there are many people in the church who really aren’t that close to God at all. Even though they may think they are. Some of those who think they are close to God are not and some of those are in the pulpit. Are they saved? Maybe or maybe they think they are, only God can answer that question.

That is the most important question of all. Are you truly saved like the thief on the cross? Believe in Jesus for your salvation because He is the only way. Or…will you leave the church with the idea that you’ll get around to it one day but not today. Are you sure that you will be here the next time we meet? Not one person knows that they have tomorrow as another day to make that decision. I don’t and none of you know without a doubt that you will live another day or another week. The only person who knew when He would die was Jesus and that only because He was God in the flesh.

Love makes a difference


Sometimes I have heard people ask in a wondering tone, “Why did Jesus die for me?”. The simple answer is love. As John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him will have everlasting life.”

It is the love of God which restrains His wrath even now. It is the love of God which calls to those who will hear Him to come to know Jesus as your Savior and you will be forgiven. It is God’s love which keeps our lives and our world going and moving and being in this world where there are many who don’t want His love.

God sustained Adam and Eve perfectly for a time. He sustained them and their offspring even after they disobeyed His command about the Tree of Knowledge. God has sustained the universe and our little speck of a world since creation and He will do so until it is time to change things as it says in the book of Revelation.

Yes, love does make a difference. Whether it is God’s love for us or our love for Him and for each other, true love does make a huge difference. In our lives and the lives that we touch and in the work that we do every day, it is our love which makes a difference now and will make a difference to someone else who sees what we do or say. We won’t know about the effect that we have had on other’s lives until we meet them in Heaven one day.

A kind word, holding the door for someone, paying for their meal when they didn’t ask you to, thanking God for your meal when you go out to eat, all of these things are little things but God can use them in ways that we can’t imagine.

Love is powerful and it does so many wonderful things in the world and in our lives and in the lives of those around us. Love comes from God and perfect love is His to give freely to each of us every day. Make sure that you give some away to your family and to strangers alike because you never know the impact it could have in their life and in yours too.

Are you His?


I ask this type of question because people, in general, don’t believe in God or the prophecies in the Bible. While it is true that there are many in the world who claim to believe in God, the “God” which they believe in is just a generalized idea of the real God and Creator of the universe. Even Satan knows Who God is because it was God Who created him! My question is in reference to your salvation or lack of it. Are you His and do you truly know Him?

The most important part of this is does He know you? Your eternity depends on the answer to that question. Granted, your soul is eternal and if you do not choose to serve Jesus and accept Him as your Savior, you will be in eternity one day but your eternity will be in punishment. Why? Because you have refused the offer of grace and mercy when it was offered to you.

I truly pray that more of you who read this will seek Jesus as your Savior because that is the ministry which I was called to. I was called almost ten years ago to be a voice telling others about our Lord and Savior, hoping that the Holy Spirit would draw at least some of you to Him. This is not a light nor easy ministry because there are so many who truly need salvation. I am not able to go to those places which this medium can reach, but I do pray that He will reach you.

God does love each of us but it’s up to us to love Him enough to ask Him into our lives and our hearts. He doesn’t force us in any way to come to Him because love and devotion cannot be forced, they must be given willingly and humbly by those who know that they don’t deserve the grace that they have been offered. The most well-known verse from God’s Word says it all:

John 3:16

Amen!

Is God in control?


First and foremost, God is sovereign. Nothing that happens in the whole universe is a surprise to Him. Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father’s will (Matthew 10:29).

So, why do we look around at all of the tragedies and the aborted babies and think that God either has a part in it or He doesn’t care about them at all? God does care and one day soon the whole world will see this and understand. They may not like what they see or how they come to understand that He is in control…but they will come to that conclusion.

Is our life in His control as well? Not in the sense that He makes us do things in our everyday lives, but He does cause things to work together for our good in the trials which we face. We may not see that this is happening and it may not feel that way at the time but God is in control. Whether the outcome is good or bad or better than we expected it to be, it is He that directs our path and the outcome as well.

There seem to be more people in America who think that they know better than God about how to live their lives, especially when it comes to being “moral” or “good”. God is still in control and always has been yet people want to argue with Christians about the “mythical” book which is the Word of God. There are too many archaeological proofs which have been found all over the Middle East which point to verses in the Bible. Proving that a city or a place which was mentioned in God’s Word actually exists.

In America, it seems that since our country has always been identified as a “Christian nation” many people here seem to take the message of Jesus for granted. We don’t seem to put much weight in preaching or learning about Jesus or about our own sinful condition which He came to save us from. Also, it seems that nobody looks at or even cares about where their eternal destination may be, even though that is what most of the New Testament was written to prepare us for!

Our lives, as short as they are by comparison to eternity, are the spiritual proving ground for that life which we enter into after this one is done. The problem in America seems to be that nobody wants to learn about it (eternity) and they don’t want to hear about their own sins or how to live righteously while going through this life. I did not say that we could live without sin, but living a righteous life is possible even when we fall and make mistakes in this life.

Living a righteous life is actually what we are called to do as a Christian. By prayer and telling others about Jesus, essentially showing the fruit of the Spirit in your life and in your walk with Jesus every day…that is living a righteous life in Christ!

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Jesus, our Redeemer, and our Shepherd knows His own and He can see the fruit which we produce in our lives and in the lives which we live through Him while we are walking with Him in this life. Is it easy to be fruitful as a Christian? That depends upon your priorities. If you place more importance on life around you or your career or your family then this life is going to feel like a burden. Some people even treat it as a hindrance to your happiness, but when you do this you are only thinking of this life and not eternity. Live with eternity in your mind so that the life around you doesn’t get in the way.

How does the love of God compare?


There is no comparison between God’s love for His creation and for us in all of the Earth. No human can understand God’s love because His love is deep and without limits. He loves us because we are made in His Image and we are to be His servants into eternity. We will not be as slaves in this but we will be willing servants as bondservants in ancient days. They loved their masters and did not wish for freedom and would serve him even if they were to be set free.

God’s love for humanity is fierce and limitless and yet the angels have no understanding of His love for us. Why should God love mankind so? Because He is God and if it pleases Him to love us in this way then He will do it! God is our Creator and has made us be His adopted children, we are not forced to be His but we are voluntarily His children because of His love for us!

So, why do we live as if He doesn’t love us or doesn’t care for us? Mostly because of the fact that we can’t see God even though we can see all of His Creation and it shows His majesty and His creativity and His artistry in Creation! It is His Creation after all! We didn’t have any part in it except when He created us. He knows your talents and abilities and all of your problems. He gave you your talents and your sense of humor and your abilities so He knows more about you than you do about Him.

Why not pick up the Bible and learn more about your Creator and your Savior and get to know Him personally. Then when you hear His voice speaking to you, you will recognize Him and then you can respond accordingly! God wants the best for you but only if you know Him and He knows you can both of you benefit from what is best for you. Give your heart to Jesus and let Him come in and clean up every part of your life so that you can represent Him in every area of your life as well.God is good all the time