Never Without God

The Greatest

 

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:7)

Love endures all things because of being protected in God’s hands and walking each day with Him. We can endure and grow because God gives us strength, and He encourages and teaches us through all things when we listen to and heed Him.

Because of the love of God for and in us, and the personal knowledge of His love, we can believe in God’s strength, encouragement, and faithfulness and not be dissuaded or discouraged. Belief in God is a gift He gives.

Because of God’s love, we can hope. We rest in that hope that God is faithful, He loves us, and He protects us, so we can continue to have faith in Him—hope in Him.

Because of God’s love for and in us and His faithfulness to Himself and His promises to us, we can endure all things. We can bravely, calmly, and patiently persevere.

Notice each of these actions are doable because of Who God is, what He’s done, and what He’s taught us. We cannot bear up, believe, hope, or endure without Him. We wouldn’t have God or the gifts He gives us to be able to do these things without God.

Today and in the the rest of your tomorrows, live in and live out this love that only God gives. You will be assured, comforted, encouraged, protected, strengthened, and taught, so your faith and hope in God grows. Then you can bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things and, by that, testify about God with your life. You will know in your heart, mind, and spirit that Love never fails. Three will remain—faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love (directly from God to you).

Living in Love, Not Fear

 

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God is saved, then God remains in him and he in God.

Because of this confession of belief in Jesus and God living in him, we believers have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love and love (God) lives in the person when the person remains in God (love).

By remaining with God and in His love, love is perfected within us. In that way, we may have confidence on the day of judgment of our eternal inheritance with God in His kingdom because we are as He is in this world, living in it but not bound by its temptations and sins. We are saved by Jesus. 

There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love—God’s love— drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. We believers should have no fear of punishment for, by their belief in Jesus, God, with His perfect love, removed the judgment for our sins.

So, any believer who fears has not reached perfection in love. For what do we have to fear since, by Jesus’ death, our sins have been wiped from our name in God’s books. 

Jesus makes believers righteous by His sinless death. God’s love lives in us and we in Him if we remain in a close relationship with Him. As we draw closer to God and become more like Jesus, love is made more and more perfect—complete—in us. Because we have God’s love in us, we believers have no reason to fear. Instead, have confidence in the promise of our hope of eternal life with God. For from God’s love in us, we have no reason to fear punishment. We are walking with Him and growing in love of and from God. 

Taken from 1 John 4:15-18

Absolute Goodness

 

“We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

-Romans 8:28

 

We, who have responded to God’s call on our hearts and have believed in Jesus and have the promised hope of our future resurrection, know that God makes all things work together for good. That “good” is not what we know in and from this world. It is pure, undiluted goodness that comes from the character of God. 

 

We Christians know, because we have God’s gracious promise of salvation and resurrection, that God makes all things work together for the absolute good of His children, who He calls to Himself for His good and grand purpose—the purpose of salvation, telling others about the gospel of His love, and discipling them.

 

God’s goodness does not hinge upon what we do. Goodness, by definition, comes from God’s character. God is absolutely good and does only good. When people believe in Jesus for salvation, they receive God’s goodness expressing His love through salvation, which is redemption from the stain and guilt of their sin. Nothing in the world is good except what He has redeemed for Himself. 

 

God’s calling to us (His creation) is all about His plan and love. We are sinful people who are stuck in the mire of a fallen world. Without God’s calling us, we would be blind and deaf to Him. We would be without hope now and for eternity. Our hearts, minds, and spirits would despair and languish. We cannot and did not give ourselves ultimate hope because we cannot see beyond this day and moment what actually will be. But God can and does. 

 

So because we know God only does good and only His absolute purpose prevails, we can understand, know, trust, and hope with absolute certainty that as we daily walk with Him on this earth, He makes all things work together toward that good for His children, those who love Him and are called for His purpose of salvation and eternity with Him. We can know the truth of what Paul wrote further in Romans 8.

 

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

 

“For your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

 

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39, CSB)

 

Nothing stops God’s goodness or good plan.  Once you believe in Jesus, you are permanently part of His goodness and good plan. You are called His, not Satan’s. What’s your part in this plan as God’s called people? Have faith. Have hope. Grow in your faith. Tell other people about Jesus and God’s love. Help them grow closer to God and more like Christ.

 

Don’t lose hope. God works all things together for His purpose for the good of those who love Him and are called His. 

 

Are you called God’s child? What keeps you from His goodness and love?

Intense Compassion

 

Just as a father loves his children, so the Lord loves those who fear and worship Him with awe-filled respect and deepest reverence.

— Psalms 103:13

 

The psalmist wrote, “Like a human father loves and is compassionate to his children, so the Lord has complete and extreme compassion  for the people who revere and respect Him.”

 

Notice the verb used by the psalmist in both parts of the simile. Yet, the intensity of compassion/love is different. The psalmist also said how much compassion God has for His people. 

 

Whereas a mortal father can only love and be compassionate up to the amount of what a mortal is capable of, Almighty and perfect God can give the ultimate amount of compassion and love. God is limitless just as is His attributes. God is so grand that He’s undefinable in human words. 

 

The amount of compassion God has for His people is beyond human comprehension, so the psalmist included in the original Hebrew writing the Pi’el form of compassion. Pi’el expresses intensive action. The father has compassion for his children, but that compassion is limited. God has compassion towards His people that is limitless. People cannot comprehend it. The psalmist’s best way to describe God’s compassion was by saying it was intensive; God’s compassion towards His people is complete, is perfect—nothing is lacking in it.

 

Can any of us say our compassion/love for others, our family, and our children is complete—perfect, lacks nothing? We can only give what our limited, fallible hearts can give. God’s heart toward His people is limitless; it’s bound only by His infinite, undefinable being.

 

Notice also, God’s compassion is aimed toward specific people in this simile. The father’s compassion is aimed at his children. God’s compassion is felt and given to “His people.” The verse actually says He aims His compassion toward “those who fear/revere Him.” Who are the people who revere God? To know that, we need to understand what “fear/revere” means with regard to God. 

 

Revere means to be in such great awe and respect of someone that you worship that person. Each of us has at one time in our lives looked up to people. For some, that person was a family member, for others it was someone famous—an actor, musician, scientist, explorer, doctor, preacher, politician, etc. The list could go on. Who did you admire so much that you wanted to be like him/her? Did you go so far in your awe and admiration of that person that you idolized him/her? That is worship of a person. Take that understanding farther and apply those feelings of awe and respect to God. Intensify those feelings you felt for another person so that they transition from admiration of a fallible and limited human to reverence of infallible and limitless God. That intensification involves more than just your head, heart, and body. It includes your spirit. Revering God requires your whole being. It’s the willing and intentional giving of your whole being back to the One you recognize as the Almighty—the One who creates, lives, sustains, saves, protects, leads, is, has always been, and will always be existent. Revering God is more than mental assent of His existence. It’s more than emotional acknowledgment of His stirring your being. Revering God is more than bending on knees before Him or placing an offering in the offering plate. Revering is all these and spiritually confessing God is the one and only Lord, Master, and Savior of your life by giving yourself wholly to Him as the ultimate offering and sacrifice you can give to the Ultimate One. What more can we give than our whole being? Oswald Chambers calls this giving our “utmost for His highest.” 

 

God gives His complete/perfect and intensive compassion to the people who revere Him. He has complete/perfect and intensive compassion for and toward those people who willingly and wholly give themselves—hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits—to Him out of love and awe and reverence as the ultimate offering that they can give .

 

The psalmist’s simile could make you smile now that you realize the two sides of it are unequal. God’s love and compassion does not match that of a father’s compassion for His child. God’s love and compassion are incomparable to anything earthly. The psalmist had nothing with which to compare it than to the greatest compassion a human can feel, that of the care and love of one’s own child. In this, he became similar to God. The father co-created his child with God. God created all people. The father can understand the intensity of feeling for his child like that of God’s for His creation—people. 

 

That intensity of heart, mind, and body to do anything necessary to care for his child is similar to God’s care for people. God loves us so intensely that He did and does everything to care for us. He gives of all He is and of what He has at His disposal that is necessary to care for the hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits of people. Notice the difference. A human father cannot affect the spirit of his child. Only God can call to, convict, save, and renew a child’s spirit. When that child, no matter the age, whether 2-102, confesses absolute faith in Jesus, God’s Son, and confesses his/her sins, that child becomes part of the group of people “who fear Him,” as the psalmist said in Psalm 103:13. That person becomes a child of God. Along with being forgiven and having eternal life with God, that person will be made complete gradually over time so that the father or mother of a child will gradually show the level of compassion God aims towards His people.

 

This simile has unequal sides, but it’s purpose helps us understand the intensity and completeness of God’s compassion. It should lead us to ask ourselves questions. Foremost of these questions is, do you revere God and are you counted as one on whom God aims His intensive and complete compassion? In other words, are you a child of God, one of His people? Secondly, how’s your compassion for your child? God’s compassion was compared to that of a father’s by the psalmist. Really, though, our compassion should be compared to God’s. God’s compassion is the standard and goal. Our intensity of compassion should increase as our offering of our heart, mind, body, and spirit increases. Is your offering to God increasing? Or, did you only give a sacrifice and offering at the point you were saved? 

 

This simile will always be unequal. Yet, as we give more of our being to God each day and as we receive more from Him each day, our compassion will become more complete. God will perfect us more each day we seek Him and grow closer to Him. What of yourself have you offered to God today?

Your Acceptable Sacrifice

 

“Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Romans 12:1 BSB

 

Fellow believers, because of the mercy and grace God gave you from His love and because it cleansed you, offer your consecrated (set apart by and for God) bodies as living sacrifices—ones revived, cleansed, and given of your free will because of your love of God. 

 

Your offering of this sacrifice is holy (because God consecrated you when you believed in Jesus for salvation) and pleasing (because you willingly offer your living [not dead] and rejuvenated [by Christ] selves) to God. 

 

Your offering of your redeemed self to God out of love for Him is your spiritual service of worship. 

 

Remember God redeemed you. He consecrated you. Therefore, you can go into His presence. Your offer of yourself to Him is accepted because He cleansed you through Jesus’ redemption of you. God did the work so you could be with Him and so your service and offering would be acceptable to Him. 

 

God asks for nothing greater than your whole being because of your love and obedience of/to Him. That is relationship. That loving obedience is worship. It is spiritual and service to/for God. 

Your worship of God should occur as your response to His loving mercy and forgiveness of you.

 

Give your redeemed self lovingly and in obedience to God for His purposes. Love Him with your redeemed offering of yourself.

More Than Your Past

 

The king (Josiah) also desecrated the high places (the pagan shrines) that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption-the ones Solomon, king of Israel, had built for Ashtoreth, the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, the vile god of Moab, and for Molech, the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 2 Kings 23:13 (NIV)

Have you felt you will never overcome what you did or what someone did to you? Have you thought you will never be good enough? Everyone has considered themselves like this at least once, most people more than once. Whatever has caused you to see yourself as insignificant, tainted, and sinful, God can change and remove. Consider what happened on the Mount of Olives during Josiah’s time.

In 2 Kings 23, the writer tells us, after king Josiah read aloud the Book of the Covenant of God with the Israelites, he went to the Mount of Corruption to tear down and destroy the shrines to false gods and idols. During the reigns of his father and grandfather (Amon and Manasseh), they and the Israelites erected shrines throughout the land of Judah. They chose to believe in and offer sacrifices to the gods of other nations, just in case their God, I Am, was not the only true god. Josiah knew from his studies, belief, and relationship with the LORD God that He is the only God; no other exists.

The Mount of Corruption is the Mount of Olives. This mount is about 1 mile from the temple in Jerusalem. Josiah did not have to look far from his palace or the temple to see the corruption by shrines to idols and false gods. He removed and destroyed the shrines and poles from the temple, then walked to the Mount of Olives and did the same.

God created the Mount of Olives. He called it good. People are the ones who corrupted it, but God could make it holy again. Often God makes places holy with the help of people, like Josiah. Other times, He does it by Himself because He is the only one who can.

Just as God created the Mount of Olives, He made each person. When He created people, He said humanity was good. Over time, because of humanity’s sin nature, each person corrupts him or herself and/or considers him or herself corrupted by what other people did to him or her. God made a way for each person to be made new-to be remade and cleansed. Nothing can keep us permanently away from God, not sin, pain, abuse, rape, neglect, or anything. He has power over all these. God loves us when we consider ourselves unlovable. He desires to be in a relationship with us. Because of God’s love, He made a way for our sin and the sins others put upon us to be washed away so we can be clean and made new by Him. Jesus made this possible for each person who believes in Him as the Son of God and confesses and repents of his or her sins. We can never do enough or be good enough to earn this salvation. This salvation God offers to each person redeems us from how we consider ourselves and our sinfulness to His beloved and holy child. Jesus’ redemption He offers freely to people who believe in Him is His paying the price for our sins. He bought our freedom from sin and death.

Consider the Mount of Corruption. Josiah desecrated the shrines, poles, and land on which they stood. He redeemed the Mount for God’s purposes with His righteous indignation of destroying these shrines and idols. We see Jesus sitting on this Mount of Olives centuries after Josiah destroyed the idols. Josiah dedicated it for God’s use, not idol worship. Often Jesus taught His disciples on the Mount of Olives, called the Mount of Corruption in Josiah’s time. What God redeems; no person can blemish eternally.

Just as God created the Mount of Olives and sent His servant Josiah to give it anew to Him by desecrating the shrines, idols, and land on which they stood, so He can redeem you from your past and sins. If you have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation and the forgiveness of your sins, He redeemed you. Jesus saved you. No lies Satan or any person says about you and your past can change that. God made you and redeemed you. Paul said it this way in Romans 8:31b-39.

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all-how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. [NIV]

If you have not accepted God’s love and trusted in Jesus Christ for redemption, you can today. Just pray to God saying you believe Jesus is His Son who died for your sins so you can receive salvation and forgiveness and live with Him forever. Confess your sins to Him and repent of them asking for His help not to do them again. You need only do that. Once you profess faith in Jesus and confess and repent with your whole being, God redeems you. He saves you from your past and your sins. Nothing will ever be able to separate you from God again, not your past or your future. You are more than a conqueror, more than a survivor of whatever you lived through in the past. God redeemed you, made you His own child, and consecrated you for Himself. He made you holy. He remade you and declared His recreation good.

We are more than what people have done to and with us and more than what we have done to ourselves. We can be who God sees us-cleansed, forgiven, and loved eternally. We do not have to stay a mount of corruption. We can be as God intended, like the Mount of Olives, a place He uses to show and share His love and the Gospel. God will renew-remake-us and call us good as He intended when He first created humanity. On our own, we are never enough. God makes us whole and new by the sin judgment His Son, Jesus Christ, paid for our salvation. He redeems of us from our past and sins.

Will you accept His love and redemption He freely offers to you?