2025-04-18
Good morning, Dear Ones,
Last week, the Holy Spirit directed me to give some reasons for worship of our God. Some young people have a difficult start in life, running around with the wrong crowd, being pushed into things not right for them by well-meaning but uninformed parents, acting out in anger with unacceptable and often destructive behavior, or being either abused or neglected resulting from selfishness. There are many reasons for young people to enter their early adulthood damaged by these and other distractions from establishing the relationship our God wants them to have with Him. And yes, often these bad experiences are lessons God allows us to have, so that we will want something better for ourselves. We must remember 1 COR 10: 13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide you with a way out so that you can endure it.”
Last week, I mentioned that our Lord chases after us, because He wants us to come “to the shelter of His wings” and establish a relationship with us. To do this, we must set aside our ego, anger, bad behavior (as He sees it), stupid choices, danger, or whatever temptations beset us and come to Him. There is no love in the universe more pure or intense than the love He has for His human creation. Recognizing it for what it is places us on “that rocky path that leads from the narrow gate” to salvation, eternal forgiveness, and justification [MT 7: 13-14; JN 3: 16-17; 1 JN 1: 9; RO 4: 3].
If one is already committed to the Lord, the above situation makes it our responsibility to be faithfully obedient to the Lord, so that others trying to decide if they will surrender to Him will see the benefits of our decision. Our Lord has said, in JN 14: 15-17, “If you love Me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to help you and be with You forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him; you know Him for He lives in you with you and will be in you.” Yes, the Lord is eager for us to live a better life inhabited by His Spirit, the Holy Spirit. He continues, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you…Because I live, you will also live” [JN 14: 18-19]. Initially, few believers young in the faith fully realize the huge implications of these words from Christ. Gradually, as they live according to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, it becomes clearer. The next step is described in RO 8: 14-17. “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather the Spirit you receive brought about your adoption to sonship…The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” As God’s children, we are His heirs—co-heirs with Christ. We are “dead to sin and alive in Christ” [RO 6: 11].
Certainly, these truths don’t guarantee that we won’t sin; they just remove from us the desire to sin—to be slaves to the desires of the flesh as we were before our surrender to God. The flesh and the Spirit are opposites [GA 5: 16-17]. Whereas, we couldn’t choose before being inhabited by Him, we can now make the choice not to sin. 2 COR 5: 17-18, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old is gone, the new is here! All of this is from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…” It makes sense that we should recognize that God is the stronger, wiser member in our relationship with Him, thus we can trust, adore, and look to Him for direction through the Holy Spirit.
PRAYER: O Most Holy One, we come before You with deep gratitude for the sacrifice of Your Son on the cross and for inhabiting us with Your Spirit. No human has made a greater sacrifice with a loftier goal than that. You have told us, in LV 17: 11 and HE 9: 22, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life…In fact the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” The remembrance of Christ’s body broken for us and His blood shed for us are the reasons why we take Communion [1 COR 11: 23-26]. We offer You our loyalty, acknowledgment, honor, thanksgiving, and praise for the daily blessings of what You are and what You do for us, in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ.
NEXT WEEK: Now that our need for the Lord in our lives can be seen, the time has come for me to write about the ways we can show our worship and adoration of the Lord. Needless to say, these are matters of our heads, hearts, and hands. What comfort we can take at the presence of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom that Christ makes available to us, and the many blessings that the Lord bestows on us every day! Yesterday, I had a day filled with mishaps—oversleeping, spilling my hot liquid breakfast, catching my beaded necklace on a drawer pull while watching the beads as they rolled around on the floor. But then, the Holy Spirit reminded me, many people have worse days than my dies horribilus [Latin for “horrible day”]! There is no better perspective than the one God has! Praise and thanksgiving be to Him!
Grace Be with You Always,
Lynn, JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2025. All Rights Reserved.
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