2010-10-08
Good Morning Cherished of God,
The Holy Spirit directs me to continue writing about our security in the covenant relationship with God. Last week, I wrote about how I felt without this special relationship in my life. This week, we’ll look at the cure for feelings of worthlessness, lack of security, and not being loved enough to satisfy our needs. Experientially, I must say the simple answer is having a covenant relationship with God, but there needs to be some description of exactly what that means.
God doesn’t measure our worth by how much money we have, how much education, how we dress, what we do for a living, what our race, gender, or race is, or what our cultural upbringing and practices are. So what does he use as His criteria? To begin, He sets a standard for love in making it unconditional. He created all humans in His own image [GN 1: 27-28]. Before mankind was aware of the Lord, unconditional love was unknown. PS 16: 8, “I am always aware of the Lord’s presence; He is near and nothing can shake me,” is a statement that any believer can make, all the while knowing its truth. Such a statement couldn’t be made before God made His presence known to mankind. God’s reply to our prayers is 2 CH 7: 15, “Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”
God loves each of His human creation, even though it appears that most of them will reject Him. It would be illogical for God to hate a being created in His own image. However, many of His human creation will disappoint Him with their foolish choices. God comforts and protect those who turn to Him [NH 1: 7]. In 2 PET : 3: 9, we learn about His patience in the hope that people will finally accept the truth of salvation through faith in Jesus. “The Lord is not slow to do what He has promised, as some think. Instead, He is patient with you, because He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.” Does this mean that God will wait forever? RO 3: 26 answers that question. “God did this [sacrificed His Son on the cross for our salvation and forgiveness] in order to demonstrate that He is righteous. In the past He was patient and overlooked people’s sins, but in the present time He deals with their sins, in order to demonstrate His righteousness. In this way God shows that He Himself is righteous and that He puts right [justifies] everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus.” The hymn “Just As We Are,” often sung by the Billy Graham people as potential believers come up to the altar to accept Christ as their personal Savior. It describes God’s attitude about us to a tee. “Our sins are as filthy rags” [IS 64: 6], and this is what we wear spiritually as we approach God to ask His forgiveness and pledge our faith in the Lord Jesus. He washes us in the blood of Christ shed on the cross for us, and we are forgiven and saved for eternity. He knows the content of our hearts, and nothing can be hidden from Him [HE 4: 13]. This is what happens to begin the covenant relationship, as long as our hearts are genuine and we have no evil motives.
God wants us to have a relationship with Him that is real and personal, intimate and open, always on-going. Is this a lot to ask? To most, the answer is “yes.” It is a lot, because what is part of this is our commitment to make big changes in our lives, changes that will often mean sacrifices. And I don’t mean offering animals on a fire, but I mean giving up old, well-worn habits that are not in line with God’s teaching and His will. RO 12: 1-2, “So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by the complete renewal of your mind. Than you will be able to now the will of God-what is good and pleasing to Him and is perfect.”
If most new believers understood the awful consequences of not doing this, they would gladly give up whatever their sins are. But most don’t understand what the “lake of fire” actually is, because they haven’t read and understood the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, LK 16: 19-31 [the story of the rich man and Lazarus],and Revelation. They don’t understand what it means to be separated forever from God and His love, to be in conscious torment with no possible escape for eternity. That’s what hell [gehenna in Hebrew] really is. It is God’s task to sanctify us, mature us in the faith through life’s experiences-a series of challenges where we must accept His help to overcome. God allows each challenge to mature an individual in the way he needs to be matured. We will never understand fully the wisdom and perspective that He has [IS 55: 7-8], but we will eventually be taken up to be with Him, if we continually listen for His direction and cooperate with Him [PS 37: 23-24]. That’s glorification, and it is to happen in God’s perfect time and way, not ours. I must end today with IS 64: 4, “No one has ever seen or heard of a God like You, Who does such deeds for those who put their hope in Him.”
PRAYER: O Lord, in Your infinite wisdom, You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die on the cross, later to be resurrected. In doing so, the time He spent on earth was spent as we humans do. HE 4: 15, “Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest Who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.” You are acutely aware of how the devil works with evilness to establish a stronghold over us. You know that he tries to attack where we are vulnerable to make us sin. And yet, You love us enough to give us the same power that You used to raise Christ from death to eternal life to battle the evil one to victory in Christ’s name [EPH 1: 18-20]. You clothe us in Your full armor, as described in EPH 6: 10-18, to equip us for battle and victory. You give us faith [the shield], salvation [the helmet], Your word [the sword given by the Holy Spirit], truth [the belt] righteousness [the breastplate] shoes [readiness to witness to the Good News of peace], and prayer [the open two-way channel with You] [EPH 1: 14-18]. When we use it with trust in You, always looking to You for leadership, we are winners in the end. This battle will tire us and try our patience, just as it did our Lord Jesus when He battled the devil for 40 days in the wilderness [MT 4: 1-11]. But with trust and obedient faith, we will indeed overcome! Your amazing availability to us gives us comfort and direction. EPH 3: 12, “I union with Christ and through our faith in Him, we have the boldness to go into God’s presence with all confidence.” How blessed we are that You have unconditional love for us and that You are willing to do the hard work necessary to bring us through our sanctification to the point where we can fulfill Christ’s and Your mission statements found in JN 6: 39-40 and EPH 1: 4-5! We thank and praise You for all You are and all You do. We offer You honor and glory forever, in Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I am led to continue writing about the security we have in a covenant relationship with God, hopefully revealing that everything God does is based on covenant. I feel that God is urging us to examine our past before we committed to a covenant relationship and then after doing this, for comparison. My own experience is basically going from an existence where I was miserable to feeling happy, fulfilled, and secure in a covenant relationship with God. For me, it was meeting and getting acquainted with God’s Son, Jesus Christ, Whom I had been taught to reject in the past. As my own experiences and challenges happened, He became “my Yeshua,” and I felt real unconditional love for the first time in my life. [See PS 40: 1-2] Think about your experiences and see what happened to you, as you were making this transition from no faith to real faith in Him. I had many hard lessons to learn and still do. I was never an easy mark for God, but He loves me enough to not abandon me [PS 9: 9-10]. How about you? IS 16: 11, “You show me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy; in Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” This is no lie! It applies to me and to each of you. It is eternal, and that should give us all great comfort and security. God tells us His will is supreme. IS 46 :9-10, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times to what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’” And imagine, God’s purpose is to love, save, protect, teach, care for, and love each one of us! Now that’s a blessing!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15