Is it even possible to know the depths of God’s love for us? Until we get to heaven and see Him face to face, we can’t know His love completely. The only approximation is the love of mothers for their children and of Dad’s love as well. Other than those, there is no way to come close to knowing how deeply God loves us except through reading the Bible and seeing how He loves us through His Word.
In many ways, people don’t see God’s love in His Word. They see how He punishes the Jewish people for forsaking Him as their God and Savior. They see all of the pestilence and other problems that can happen because of Israel’s fickle nature regarding their God. God uses all of these to bring them back to Himself if they will turn away from their false gods. But, today most people view the Bible as an old and outdated book that isn’t relevant for the twenty-first century.
This idea could not be further from the truth. Many “preachers” today are leading people away from God and into idolatry by giving them a good feeling about who they are and what they can accomplish on their own. While this “advice” is nice it is not pointing people to their Savior. Nor is it telling them about their sinful condition and why they need a Savior. God can use preachers who are called by Him and who preach from His Word about the needs that we all have as long as we aren’t fluffing it up with lights and “productions” that detract from the Word of God.
God’s love for us is immense but His distaste for our sins is also immense and we need to realize that it is our sin that separates us from Him. Just because you have been a member of a church for many years doesn’t mean that you have truly accepted Him as your Savior. Many people are just going through the motions but that is not salvation. Some have even been in the church for many years and haven’t given their hearts to Jesus. They have been listening to the lies of the Devil telling them that they have plenty of time to make that decision when we don’t even know if we will have tomorrow to make that decision. Today is the day to settle this in your hearts. Don’t put it off because you and I don’t have a guarantee of tomorrow.
Many times we know what we should do but we do something else. Just like a small child, even when we are grown, we do the things that we know we shouldn’t do. Why is that?
Christians and non-believers both do it. Even when we know better, we still do things, that we’ve been told not to do or maybe our conscience is telling us that we shouldn’t do something. Because of our rebellious nature, I suppose. So, what can we do about it? The only thing that I know of is to read the Bible is meditate on its principles. Granted, it won’t fix the problem immediately but over time our minds will be filled with God’s ideas and not our own.
This is called “becoming mature in our faith”. Becoming a Christian is just the first step. Maturity comes from learning about God’s way of living and you can only do that by reading the Bible and thinking about it every day. Most of us find out about this much later and it is sad that it takes so long. The church should teach this to new Christians so they can mature in their faith rather than stumbling along trying to figure it out on their own.
I’ve read that schools should teach “life lessons” so young people will know how to do some things when they graduate. The study of God’s Word should be a class for new Christians so they will know how to apply His Wisdom to their new lives. This is not a fast and easy course but it is necessary. I pray that most who read this will seek out a teacher or a friend to help them in becoming more mature in their faith.
James 4:17: Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
So much hate and persecution. For the past four hundred years or more, our world has caused so many of our problems and even made many of our problems worse because we refused to see that we are far more alike than we are different. Can we do anything about this or will it continue? I don’t have an answer to that. The different cultures in our world and so adamant about their way of seeing things that most of them persecute each other because of those cultural ways.
Can we get past these cultural taboos and get on with our lives? In my opinion, the only way will be after Jesus comes to rule the world for one thousand years. Will there still be divisions? Very likely, but those divisions will be dealt with more decisively than what happens today. In today’s world, it is always the “system” or some group that is calling for change and they usually make up a tiny percentage of the population.
Have we experienced persecution in America? It is beginning. You can see it and hear it in the news because every day there is some person or group of people that put down Christians and believers. They don’t want to hear the gospel and we hear about them almost every day because many of them are part of our government. Before Jesus calls the church home, the persecution here will become worse than it is today and it may happen in the next few years. Can you understand what that means?
Life and living in this world are going to become harder and much worse than we are feeling today. This will happen even before Jesus calls the church home. Some of it may not be truly horrible but after the church is taken up, if you are still here then you will be seeking Jesus and the world around you will be ready to kill you if you have determined to follow Him. That kind of persecution is coming so make sure of your salvation today before it is too late. Because it is your choice to follow Jesus as your Savior and it is your choice that determines your eternity.
Revelation 20:12-13: 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And there were open books, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds.…
The Living Message of Christ 