Tag: #peace

A Life with Love Must Be Together

Love must be together. Love is relational and relationships must be nurtured to grow strong. The Lord brings a man and a woman together in marriage to be with each other. Your marriage will not grow strong and your love will not grow deeper unless there is an investment of your money and your time. These are the treasures that each of us have and when we invest our treasures in the marriage then our heart will be in it also. The love has become cold in many a marriage simply because the relationship was neglected and the two people have drifted apart. Each one invested their time, energy and money elsewhere and their heart was no longer with their spouse.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34

The more shared experiences then the stronger the marriage. Just as in the past when they used to make a rope strong, it was made of many many little strands of hemp. It was almost impossible to even cut through a thick rope. In the same way, the more shared experiences that married couples have then the stronger the bonds of marriage will be and when the enemy attacks then it will have a much harder time breaking the bonds of marriage. Love grows through sharing each others joys and sorrows.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 4:32-5:2

Your marriage and love will deepen as you each learn to be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other just as Christ also has forgiven us. As you and your spouse learn to walk in love and to consider the other one more important than one’s ownself then your marriage will be a fragrant aroma to the Lord and to the world.

Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; Hebrews 13:4a

As you can see, it says marriage bed, not marriage beds. A marriage will not grow strong if each of the married partners sleep in a different bed. Don’t do it. The Lord will help you if one of you has a hard time sleeping. There is something about sharing the same bed that keeps a couple together.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. Matthew 19:6

Separation is opposite of being together. The devil tries first to separate a married couple and then divorce is often next. If someone counsels you to separate then they are not with God but against God. Let no man separate, means let no man counsel you to separate nor let another come in between you and your spouse. A woman should never confide in any other man other than her husband. She should not go to a pastor or a male counselor to get marriage help. A woman can almost always get a man’s sympathy and a man can not see through a woman’s tears, hurts, etc. and give her the truth of what she needs to hear.

The first to plead his case seems right,
Until another comes and examines him. Proverbs 18:17

A man can not see through a woman and a woman can not see through a man. In the same way, a man should not go to a woman for counsel. Older men can help a younger man to learn to love his wife and to understand her and older women are God’s provision to help women in learning how to love and respect their husband.

A Life that Does Not Despair

A very terrifying feeling is a panic attack or an overwhelming feeling of despair. These experiences can be very real and awful to the one experiencing them. They can even be paralyzing to whoever is going through either despair or panic. These feelings and experiences are an evidence of our fragility and nothing to be ashamed of for they are not sin but rather they show us our desperate need for the Lord, our Creator. He made us and is aware of how fragile we are.

Psalm 103:14 For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.

He is mindful of our desperate need for Him and is a present help in time of trouble.

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.

He is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Jesus came for you and especially for those who are afflicted in the soul and spirit.

Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners;

He will help you and He will come to you. Put your trust in Him and cry out to Him.

Psalm 27:13,14 I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.

Yes, let your heart take courage. You will see His goodness once again and it will be in the land of the living. Even though at the moment or at any particular time it may seem very dark and despairing it will not always be that way. You will see His goodness if you will trust Him, wait on Him, be strong in Him and let your heart take courage in Him. When you have nothing left then you are in the best position to trust Him for you will then see that you can not trust in yourself. It is when we trust in ourselves that we are tempted to turn away from the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 Thus says the Lord,
“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the Lord.
“For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord
And whose trust is the Lord.
“For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit.

He will come to you like the spring rain and water your life again. You will see life and new growth. Continue to press on to know the Lord and trust Him with all your heart.

Hosea 6:3 “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

 

A Life with Love Has An Enemy

Love has an enemy that wants to destroy it and the people in the relationship where love is. God is love and there will only be true love where God is but there is one who hates God and he will do everything he can to destroy what the Lord establishes. The Lord is the One who brings people together in marriage.

And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Matthew 19:4-6

The Lord made the marriage to be between male and a female. He joins them together and they become one flesh. They are no longer two but one. The Lord’s blueprint for marriage is that the two people are to stay married until one of them dies and then the length of the marriage has been completed. However, the devil hates what God has ordained and he tries to destroy the love, the marriage and the people in the marriage. The enemy of love is not flesh and blood but it is spiritual forces.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:10-12

Struggles will come in any marriage but if you recognize who the real enemy is then you can stand firm together and resist him.

Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. James 4:7

As both of you, or even if one of you, will recognize the real enemy then you can resist him and he will flee. You must be strong in the Lord and you resist him through submitting to God and in the strength of God’s might. He will have to flee.

But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. II Corinthians 2:10,11

Do not be ignorant of his schemes. He wants one of you to harbor unforgiveness in your heart. We all wrong each other and hurt each other, and often we are not even aware of it. If you will learn to forgive quickly then that keeps Satan from getting a foothold in the marriage. The Bible says that he is “an accuser of the brethren”. He wants to accuse each one of you to the other. He might say, something like, “If he really loved you then he would not do that.” Not so, for a man often does not know what will hurt his wife. He has to learn to live with her in an understanding way. It does not come naturally.

You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way,

I peter 3:7

In the same way, a wife needs to learn how to respect her husband and love him the way that God designed. It is different from the way a wife “wants” to be loved. She will often love him the way she wants to be loved and the man will do the same. The older women are instructed to teach the younger women how to love their husbands.

so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Titus 2:4,5

This word love in “to love their husbands” means that they are to want their husbands. A man marries a woman because he thinks that she wants him. If she does not communicate this after marriage then he will feel rejected.

Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:33

The devil will do what he can to get the man to not love his wife and to get the woman to not respect her husband. It takes two to destroy a relationship. A marriage is only dysfunctional if both people are not doing what the Lord called them to do. If only one person is disobedient then that person is dysfunctional and the obedience of their partner will help them become the wife or husband that the Lord called them to be.

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. I Peter 3:1,2

Marriage relationships are work but when they work the way the Lord designed then they are the sweetest relationships on earth. They are a taste of heaven to the marriage partners and they are salt and light to the rest of the world. When each partner does the work that God has called them to do and be the spouse that God designed them to be then God is glorified.

I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. John 17:4

A Life that Knows a Great Love

Once you know a great love your life will never be the same. You can endure anything if you know that you are greatly loved and there is nothing that can separate you from that love. Everything else in life pales in comparison to a great love. There is only One who offers a great love and it is offered to everyone.

I John 3:1-3 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

This love is unfathomable. We can never understand it that the God of the universe wants to adopt each one of us into His family to be His child and to be called His beloved. Not only that, but once we become His child then He starts making us like Him, who is perfect and is love. He calls us Beloved, which means that He wants us to Be-Loved by Him. How do we become a recipient of this great love? How do we come into His family and become one of His children?

John 1:12,13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

To become His child you must be born again not of the will of the flesh or the will of man but it is the will of God. It is His will that you become His child. You were destined to become His child. He designed you for Himself. He is the only One who intimately knows you and loves you in spite of all of your failings and faults. He loved you when you were at your worse and there is nothing that you have done that prevents Him from loving you. He died for you to reconcile you to Himself and to save you from the devil, the world and your own self.

Romans 5:8-10 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

Your sins are covered by His blood and His love for you. His love covers all of your sins once you belong to Him.

I Peter 4:8b because love covers a multitude of sins.

Not only are your sins covered by His blood but they are separated from you and they are remembered no more.

Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Once you come to know this love you will want to stay in this love. This great love that the Lord has for you is a relationship that is mutual and for that reason you will not want to do the things you did before but you will want to please Him with all of your heart. There is nothing that can separate you from this great love which is in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:38,39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

 

A Life with Love Can Be Misdirected

The heart is where the soul abides and where the seed of love is born and grows in people. The heart is our innermost being where we long for intimacy, that is, to know and to be known. The heart is where we are vulnerable and what we guard, for when we give our heart away then we give a part of us away as well.

Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23

It is in our heart that our deepest longings and desires are. In the secret places of our heart are our dreams and plans that we long to see fulfilled in our lives.

A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water,
But a man of understanding draws it out. Proverbs 20:5

A good friend or a good wife with understanding knows how to draw the plans out of their friend or spouse and encourage them to become the person they were designed to be and do the plans in their heart that they dream of doing. However, a good friend or good wife will also see when their friend or spouse’s heart is getting misdirected. Eve’s heart was misdirected when she started loving and desiring things that the Lord did not have for her. She exchanged the love of God for the love of the world.

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. I John 2:15-17

Eve’s heart started to be misdirected to temporal things that will not satisfy rather than listen to the Lord and choose to do what is right by doing His will, which will always bring satisfaction and much gladness. One of the meanings of righteousness is “doing what is right in God’s eyes”. Lawlessness is ignoring or neglecting God’s laws, principles, commands and truths and doing what you want to do. It will bring much sorrow. Jesus was the happiest man on earth because He loved righteousness and did what was right in God’s eyes.

“You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness;
Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of gladness above Your companions.” Hebrews 1:9

So, even though the fruit seemed good to Eve it was not good. It was not right for her to do what the Lord had told them not to do. Not only did Eve no longer have the love of God in her but because her heart was misdirected she loved the world and was no longer happy. Sin only offers a passing pleasure which soon fades away. The sinner spends his life chasing the passing pleasures of sin he experiences for a moment but it is only an illusion. It will never satisfy.

By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, Hebrews 11:24,25

Sadness came into the world through Adam and Eve’s sin and happiness was no longer there. It is only through being restored to a love relationship with God will we love righteousness and be genuinely happy. The Lord truly takes away our sin and our guilt and fills our heart with joy and happiness so much so that we want to joyfully sing of the Lord, His great love and His righteousness.

A Life that Is Not Condemned

No one wants to be judged but the truth of the matter is that we will all be judged. However, not all will be condemned. There is no greater peace than to know for sure that you are going to heaven. Many religions offer “maybe the possibility of heaven” but they can not offer the assurance  of not being condemned to hell. Also, their “possibility” will always fall short because they are all based on what you do to earn heaven. Jesus Christ offers assurance “without a doubt” of not being condemned. He alone can make this offer.

Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Jesus Christ took the judgment and the punishment for the entire world. We were due the consequences of our sin but Jesus Christ took it for us. All of us are just as guilty as everyone else because we all have sinned.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

The Bible says that not only have all sinned but we are all equally guilty.

James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

Have you ever said a lie? Have you ever taken something that was not yours? Have you ever cheated? Have you ever lusted or been jealous or envious? If so, then you are guilty of all. However, the Lord offers you forgiveness if you will repent and turn to Him. Repenting means turning away from your sin and turning to the Lord. Jesus came to call us to repentance.

Luke 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

There must be repentance for there to be forgiveness.

Luke 24:47 and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You will know when you have repented because you will feel clean on the inside and times of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord.

Acts 3:19 Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;

You will be a new person and will no longer want to do the things you did before. The Lord wants there to be evidence of your repentance. If you are still hanging out with the same people and doing the same things that you know are wrong then you have not repented.

Matthew 3:8 Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance;

Not only are you a new person in Christ and your old life has passed away but you have been set free from the condemnation that once would have come to you.

II Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Jesus took your condemnation on the cross when He shed His blood for you so that now you are forgiven and given a new life in Christ.

Hebrews 9:22b all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

The final judgment will not come from the deeds you have done, whether it was good or bad, but the final judgment that will condemn people to hell is whether they trusted in Jesus Christ to forgive them of their sins and to give them eternal life in Him.

John 3:17-19 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

God did not send His Son into the world to judge you but to save you from your sins. If you believe in Him then you will not be judged and you will not be condemned but if you do not come to Jesus Christ then it is because you want to continue in your sin because you love the darkness rather than the light. Come to Jesus so that your sins might be wiped away and forgiveness and eternal life will be given to you.

Romans 2:4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

The Lord is kind and it is His kindness that leads us to repentance. He is rich in kindness and He is patient not wanting anyone to perish. Come to Him. He is calling all of us into a relationship with Him.

II Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

 

A Life with Love is Full of Faith

Love is faithful or, in other words, “full of faith” in the One who loves. If there is not faithfulness then there is not love. Eve was not faithful to the Lord when she ate the fruit. She no longer loved God.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; Genesis 3:6a

Faithfulness is what the Lord looks for in those who serve Him because He knows that if they are not faithful then they do not love Him. If love is not your motive then whatever you do is going to be for selfish reasons even though it may “look” good to others. If you love God then you will love others. If you are faithful to God then you will be faithful to those to whom you are committed.

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Matthew 25:23

Someone may well say that it does not matter what they do because God is going to do what He wants to do regardless. The Lord certainly can and does do what He wants to do but those who have that attitude are not faithful. Faithful means that we are full of faith and believe what He says and we do what He commands. Faith is what pleases the Lord and when we believe Him in faith and act on what He says it brings Him delight.

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Hebrews 11:6

Eve sinned because she did not act in faith on what the Lord had said and commanded them. She began reasoning in her heart about what was best for her rather than trusting what God had said.

and whatever is not from faith is sin. Romans 14:23b

The outcome of Eve not having faith and believing what God said was that she disobeyed God. She did what she wanted, what seemed good to her and what was delightful. It really did not matter what benefits the fruit had to offer because the Lord said not to do it. When you start reasoning in your heart then you have already started down the path of sinning.

There is no wisdom and no understanding
And no counsel against the Lord. Proverbs 21:30

Eve exchanged the truth of God for a lie and the outcome was sin. Every time we sin we also have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. We have believed the lies of the devil rather than the truth of God. The devil uses only one weapon to get us to sin and that is lies. Often we are deceived and do not realize it until it is too late and our resulting sin brings us death to our soul, in the form of grief, sorrow, guilt, regret and much pain. It also brings consequences in relationships and marriages. We were deceived and sinned because we listened to the lies of the devil rather than to the Lord.

He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

The only way that we will ever have the life that the Lord designed for us and the loving marriage and relationships that He intended is if we know God’s Word and if we are faithful to Him by believing what He says and obeying it.

And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 3:18,19

Faith and obedience go together. You can not have one without the other. The Lord has a rest for us and it is heaven. Those who have believed and their faith is a living faith expressed through obedience will enter into heaven because they have believed on the One and Only Son of God, Jesus Christ.

A Life with Love Must Choose

Love was the plan and life was the choice. Eve could choose to live in the love that the Lord planned for her and Adam or choose death and the corruption, guilt and shame that would follow.

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16,17

The Lord gives all of us this choice. We may eat freely of what He has given to us but if we do what He has told us not to do then we will die. The Lord wanted man to live and told man what he must do to live and what he must not do or he will die. Faithfulness and love go together. If Adam and Eve were faithful then they would live in God’s love. Even if Adam and Eve were not faithful then the Lord would still be faithful to His Word. It is God’s faithfulness to His words and promises that give us security and hope.

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

II Timothy 2:13

Love is a choice and love is faithfulness. God loved Adam and Eve and so He had to be faithful to His Word. If they had kept His commandment then they would have lived. God can not lie. He is truth. What He says will happen.

so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. Hebrews 6:18

God’s plan for Adam and Eve was that they would live in His love. He would be faithful to them and keep His Word that He promised them. They could live in the garden and live securely in His love. He wanted them to be faithful to Him. There is a godly jealousy and that godly jealousy protects the relationship. A man who loves his wife wants her to be faithful to him and the same is true for a wife who loves her husband. We also want God to be faithful to His Word and He wants us to be faithful to Him. Faithfulness is love and love is faithfulness and both are choices.

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Galatians 6:7,8

Adam and Eve would reap the consequences of their actions. They could choose God’s plan and live in His love or they could choose their own flesh and reap corruption of their relationship and the death of their lives. The Lord gives each of us the same opportunity to choose Him or to choose to go our own way and please our flesh. God is not mocked and will be faithful to give you what you choose. If He could choose for you then He would choose life but the choice is your choice and so you must choose.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

II Peter 3:9

A Life that Knows Tender Mercy

Unless you know the heart of the Lord then it may be hard to understand that He has tender mercy and wants you to know His tender mercy towards you. Yes, He is a holy God and can not even look upon evil and yet He came to show us His tender mercy and bring us to Himself.

Luke 1:77-79 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
By the forgiveness of their sins,
Because of the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

God sent Jesus into our dark and fallen world, because of our own sinful ways, to give to us the knowledge of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins. It is because of His tender mercy towards us that motivated Him to come visit us with salvation. He not only wants to save us and forgive us but He wants to guide our feet in the way of peace. The Lord comes and visits us but we need to recognize our time of visitation. Has He come to you? Jesus wept over the people in Jerusalem because they did not recognize their time of visitation.

Luke 19:41-44 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Has anyone ever come to you and spoken God’s Word to you? Consider that it may be the Lord who is coming to you. It may be your time of visitation if you have not yet come to receive Him and know Him.

Matthew 10:40 He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.

If you have come to know Him and are a believer then keep your behavior excellent among others so that they will have no cause to slander you (but if they do let it be because of your good deeds that they misinterpret) and will on account of your life glorify the Lord in the day of their visitation.

I Peter 2:12 Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.

The Lord loves you and it is His love and tender mercy that is calling you to Himself. He came so that He might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh for our sins and was made alive in the spirit.

I Peter 3:18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

Come to Him and experience His love and compassion. He is gracious and abundant in His love for you. For as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is His love for those who will come to Him and honor Him as Lord and Savior.

Psalm 103:8-13 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

There is nothing greater than knowing the tender mercy and compassion of God. It is eternal life to know Jesus Christ and when we know Him then we will count all things to be worthless in comparison to the surpassing greatness of knowing Him. When we come to know Jesus Christ then we will want to press on to know Him more.

Romans 11:33a  Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

 

 

A Life with Love is Good

Love is good and one of the meanings of the word “good” in the Bible is “the highest form of love”. The Lord is good and He only seeks what is good for us and His actions towards us are the highest expressions of love. When He created man He created man to be loved and to love.

For the Lord is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:5

When God sent His only begotten Son into the world it was to show His love for the world. His redeeming love was sacrificial, costly, of great value and of the highest form. Jesus Christ died for us while we were sinners and had no love for Him or desire to trust and obey Him.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

The Lord is good and no evil dwells with Him. Evil is the opposite of love and those who do evil seek to hurt, harm and to cause grief.

For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness;
No evil dwells with You. Psalm 5:4

The devil is the one who is evil and seeks your harm and hurt. He is a liar and will do what he can to bring you grief. He lied to Eve.

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4,5

He said that she would not die but that her eyes would be opened and she would be like God. Every word was a lie. She would die and her actions brought about her own death. Satan always tries to minimize the consequences.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

He said that her eyes would be opened but rather she became blind and it was not until Jesus Christ came to open the eyes of the blind, that we could see spiritually.

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened Isaiah 35:5a

He said that she would be like God, but no, she became like the devil, for the devil did not do what was right in the sight of God and unrighteousness was found in him. The devil rebelled against God by doing what he wanted to do rather than what the Lord wanted him to do.

“You were blameless in your ways
From the day you were created
Until unrighteousness was found in you. Ezekiel 28:15

He said that she would know good and evil, but she no longer knew what was good but only what was evil. She no longer knew God’s love for her. The word “know” is to experience. She no longer experienced God’s love. The devil lied about God for God does not “experience” any evil and as long as Adam and Eve did what the Lord wanted them to do then they also would never “know” evil.

Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness Habakkuk 1:13

Eve exchanged the truth of God for a lie and the consequences of her actions brought death to her life and her relationship with Adam. The love that God had given them was no longer in the relationship as God was no longer present.