Category: Love

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Hold fast in love

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.” Psalm 91:14-15 ESV

Most psalms are written as letters or poems to God but these 2 verses contained within this psalm are written in the first person and appear to be coming from God. He is talking to His people. God is saying that because they have chosen to love Him, He will deliver them. It is our choice as humans to love God or not and when we do choose to love God, we are able to have a relationship with Him.

In these verses, God has promised to deliver those who love Him. He has promised to protect those who know His name. He has promised to answer those who call on Him. He has promised to rescue and honor those people when they are in trouble. These are amazing verses!

As amazing as they are, these are conditional promises that God has made, but God made them and as long as we do our part, God does His part. Our part is the beginning of each of the sections, what we are to do. Sometimes we forget to do our part and we wonder where God is and why He is not keeping His part of these promises. A quick read of these verses and we are reminded that we are involved in this relationship too, it is not all one sided with God being the one who is doing anything.

As you choose to love God continually, embrace the knowledge that He will deliver you, protect you, answer you, rescue you and honor you. He has promised and He doesn’t break His promises.

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All are the same

“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” Colossians 3:11 NIV

Paul continues here in Colossians to repeat what he has said in Galatians and Romans about there being no difference or distinction. When concepts or verses are repeated in the Bible, it is because they are important and important ideas need repeating so they are able to be absorbed by the person or people hearing it. Paul understood this and therefore many concepts and verses are repeated in his letters that are captured in the Bible.

Again, this idea of there being no difference in qualifications for people with God is expressed by Paul. Our human nature wants to put rules and conditions on most things. Since where our soul will spend eternity is a pretty big deal, we definitely want to put qualifiers on that so we can make sure we meet them. The challenge is that there is no qualifying to do, only acceptance of a gift, a gift from God the Father of His Son, Jesus and His sacrifice. Acceptance and belief in Who Jesus is and what He sacrificed for each person. Acceptance that Jesus came into this world as a helpless human baby to save this world from eternal separation from God.

The question isn’t….

‘Do you qualify by your nationality, race, gender, physical abilities, hair color, economic status’ or any thing you have ever done?

The question is….

‘Have you accepted Jesus as the Messiah, believe that He was born a babe in Bethlehem, as an adult willingly gave up His life for you to pay for your sins and after resurrecting from the grave ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father?’ That is the question.

The decision to accept is completely yours. I pray that if you haven’t made that decision yet, that during this Christmas season, you would make the decision to follow Jesus.

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Two or three

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Matthew 18:20 ESV

This verse speaks comfort to me. My home church congregation is not very large in number but I strongly believe this verse. I feel our Lord fill our chapel as we gather to worship Him. It is wonderful to know that for my Lord to be present there doesn’t have to be a large group of people. He is right in the midst of only a few people, just as He is in the midst of a large number of people.

Because Jesus is omnipresent, He can be everywhere all at the same time, in many gatherings, large and small in number. He doesn’t require us to be in a certain place, for it to be a certain time or for us to have a certain number of people gathered to be available to us to worship Him, discuss and learn about Him, pray to Him. That is wonderful because there are individuals who think that our Lord is only available at a certain time each day, in a certain place and only with the ‘right’ number of people present.

I, absolutely, want to see large gatherings of believers and non-believers who are looking for Jesus, that would be exciting. However, I love that Jesus is willing to be with us, revealing Himself to us in worship regardless of the number of people that have gathered. Jesus is very interested in relationships and wants to build relationships with us and for us to build relationships with each other. The most important relationship is the one we enter into with Jesus. He gave His life for ours so we don’t have to pay the penalty of eternal damnation for all of our sins. That is someone I want to be in a relationship with, someone who loves me that much.

So big or small in number, plentiful in resources or not, believers should gather together to worship Jesus and know that He is there among us. Have a wonderful day.

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Building others up

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29 NIV

Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, addressed several things. Again they were a church body that was very diverse and struggled with unity due to customs that were centuries old. Apparently one area that they struggled with was controlling their tongues. This is a battle for everyone, some people have honed this better than others, but we all struggle with it just like the people in Ephesus. Paul wanted the members of the church in Ephesus to be united in Christ and to help each other grow in their faith, not tear each other down.

As members of the body of Christ, we are to love each other, forgive each other and encourage each other. Jesus taught love, forgiveness mercy, and as His followers, we should be living in that manner as well. This is not only for us, who give love and then receive love, who give forgiveness and then receive forgiveness, but also for anyone who is not a follower of Jesus because they are witnesses to what the love of God can look like.

At Christmas time, we are more inclined to be kinder to each other, we tend to say nicer things to each other than we do at other times of the year. Whatever the reason for this behavior change, I believe that if we can do this during the Christmas season, then we should be able to do it throughout the rest of the year.

I encourage everyone in your prayer time with God to ask for clarity to see if this is an area you can grow in. Even as much as I think that I build others up no matter what time of year it is, I believe I can grow in this area. My challenge to us all is to live our lives so that those around us who are not followers of Jesus are able to see what the love of God can look like.

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Choices

“As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Ezekiel 16:48-50 NIV

In this chapter of Ezekiel, God is addressing the Jewish nation and how they have been treating Him. In these verses He is comparing them to the city of Sodom, where sin and disregard for God were plenty. The Jewish nation had done worse things than the occupants of Sodom and God rained down fire on the city of Sodom as punishment.

In the city of Sodom, the ground was fertile and this resulted in the residents being very successful in the area of agriculture. They residents of the city who were involved in the wealth of the agricultural business had an abundance of everything, the city was an independent city, not needing assistance from other areas. However, there were some among them that had little and those who could share their abundance, did not. The people of Sodom did not worship to the One True God, they worshipped many idols.

The Jewish nation is being accused of worse things than not providing for their poor and needy, which God takes very seriously. As the chosen people of God, the Jewish people knew God and what He expected, the laws that they were to keep. The crime that they committed was to see what the citizens of Sodom were doing, know it was wrong, but do it as well.

God counted this against them, essentially twice. First, when they committed the same wrong acts as the citizens of Sodom. Second, that they knew what was right and what was wrong and chose to follow their fleshly desires and go down the wrong path anyway.

As we draw closer to Christmas and then to the beginning of a new year, I encourage everyone to take some time today and think about the choices you have made over the past week, month and year. Are they the choices you wish to continue making or are they choices you wish you could go back and change? Either way, I pray that you would allow God to be part of your decision making process because He wants to be there with you each step of the way. Have a great day.

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Love your neighbor

“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31 NIV

I have written on verse 30 from Mark chapter 12 before, which is where Jesus gives the commandment to love the Lord your God. Now in this verse Jesus is continuing the commandment by adding that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. That is hard sometimes because we don’t know who all is our neighbor.

I believe Jesus is not being concrete in His statement of ‘neighbor’ as only being the person or family that lives right next to you. I believe that Jesus is talking about our ‘neighbor’ as simply other human beings. We are to love each other and Jesus says in John 13:35 that they, the world, will know that you are my disciples by your love for each other.

We are tasked with showing love to everyone we come in contact with as a follower of Jesus and we are to show the same amount of love as we show ourselves. What does that mean? When we love ourselves, we are taking care of ourselves, feeding ourselves, clothing ourselves, sheltering ourselves. We are commanded to be humble and not think so highly of ourselves that we think that we are above others and at the same time we are to think enough of ourselves to not let ourselves be used and abused.

It is that same mindset that we are to use in approaching the idea of loving our neighbor. We are not to think that they are above us or think they are beneath us. We are to show our love by helping them when they need help, forgiving them when they need forgiving and be there when they simply need someone to be with them. We are to do for them what we would want done for us.

I encourage everyone to approach others as our neighbor in all that we do each day, whether we know the person or not. This is how others will know that we are followers of Jesus Christ, by showing the world the love He has shown us.

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Reconciliation

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 people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ” 2 Corinthians 5:18 & 19 NIV

This is a wonderful reminder for us during this Christmas season, that God wanted to reconcile us to Him and sent His Son, Jesus, to accomplish that. The definition of reconcile is to restore friendly relations between 2 parties or to coexist in harmony. God wanted to restore our relations with Him, He wanted to coexist in harmony with us and He still wants that closeness with us.

Part of the reconciliation idea is to not only coexist but it also means to not hold things against each other. When we become follower’s of Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness, God doesn’t hold our sins against us any longer. I believe that is important for all of us to remember especially during the Christmas season because we are celebrating the way that God chose to make reconciliation happen, sending Jesus as a baby to this world.

The beginning of the verses for today says ‘All this is from God’, and we need to remember that our new creation that we have become has come from God, not anything we have done. That there is a choice of where we will spend eternal is a gift from God. That choice has been given to us to make and the choice was given to us by God.

If we continue to choose to live in the way of the world, not accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and continue to live in sin, we are separated from God. God doesn’t want this and has given us the way to correct that so we can be close to Him and live with Him for all of eternity. He did that, not us. We were not and are still not able to reconcile ourselves to God, so thankfully, God is willing to do it for us.

We simply need to make the choice.

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No distinction

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28 NIV

In this verse, Paul is telling the church in Galatia that they are all in this together. There were people with a lot of money, people with a little amount of money, families, people who had never been married, people who were married, widows and widowers, Jewish background and Gentile background now together in the church. These individuals would not normally have associated with each other outside of business according to their culture, so the idea of all of them now worshipping God together was a hurdle that they had to overcome. Paul wanted them to understand, that as far as God was concerned they were all one in Christ. There was no distinction among them to determine if one person was “more worthy” than another of being forgiven and a follower of Christ.

Unfortunately, the idea of some people being “more worthy” of God’s love and forgiveness is a false teaching that we still deal with today. There are individuals who believe that if you do not have the ‘correct’ clothing or drive the ‘right’ kind of car, that you should not be worshipping God in their building. It is sad to me that there are people who want to keep the amazing gift of God’s love from others based on how they look or what they possess.

God makes no distinction between people, He simply loves us ALL.

So my challenge to everyone today – If you have accepted God’s love and forgiveness, I encourage you to spread it like wild flowers, sharing the gift with everyone you know. If you have not accepted God’s love and forgiveness, I encourage you to reconsider. God wants all people to be with Him, not just the ones who look a certain way or have certain possessions.

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Not because of us

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,” 2 Timothy 1:9 NIV

Paul is writing this letter to Timothy, his second letter to him, to encourage him. Timothy is a pastor who has worked alongside Paul for years. He is now in Ephesus ministering by himself and Paul is sending encouragement. Timothy is facing continuing the Church after Paul’s death, which Paul believes to be in the near future.

Timothy, as any pastor, has the responsibility of shepherding the new believers into a different way of living, a life of serving Jesus and at the same time, helping the Christians who have been walking in faith with Jesus, continue on the same path of following sound doctrine. This was all very challenging as the Church was not very old in it’s existence and the ‘mature’ Christians had not been walking in faith very long themselves.

Paul is reminding Timothy here in this verse that God Himself, had a plan for each and everyone of us long before we were born, long before He created time. That plan had nothing to do with how great we were or were going to be or what great deeds we were going to do, but everything to do with what God had in mind for humanity.

Clearly, God does not force us into following His plan, we have to choose to believe in Him and follow His plan. However, even if we don’t choose it, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there to begin with. Paul is encouraging Timothy to continue to follow the plan God has laid out for Timothy in ministering to God’s sheep.

Have you ever thought about what plan God has for you?

If you have, are you searching for what it is so you can follow it or are you already following it?

If you haven’t, please think about how much God loves you and wants what is best for you. Wanting what is best for us, would lead me to believe that the plan He has for our lives is going to be more than we could ever dream of.

The choice is yours.

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Grace upon grace

“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John 1:16-17 NIV

John is talking here about the new way of living that Jesus is introducing to everyone through His ministry, a way of peace, truth, love and grace. The law that was given to Moses was what was needed at that time but was very inflexible. If you broke one law, you broke them all.

Jesus came so that we could have life and life abundantly. Jesus replaced the Mosaic Law with the Law of the Messiah, it came through Jesus and His sacrifice. The law of Moses did not allow for any errors or room for growth through making mistakes. The way of life that Jesus offers is the opposite, it embraces that we are going to make mistakes. That is why there is grace.

Also, God’s supply of grace is endless, He doesn’t give each person only so much grace and once they use it they are out of grace. No, God’s grace is sufficient for all because it is meant for all and it is for all time.

Have you accepted God’s grace? If you haven’t, do you want to accept God’s grace? If so, pray to God and ask for direction, find a friend who is a Christian and talk about Who it is that they follow, find a Bible teaching church and speak with the pastor. Do any of these or all of these, but please do it, your eternal life, where you will spend eternity, depends on it.