But I lavish my love on those who love me and obey my commands, even for a thousand generations.
Exodus 20:6 NLT
A love impossible to escape
The Israelites had just escaped from slavery in Egypt when God gave them the Ten Commandments. He promised to "lavish" his love on them, if they would obey these laws. Exodus 20:6 is an astounding promise of God's love and faithfulness to his people.
It is all too easy for us to feel separated from God, all alone, and unloved, but Romans 8:35-39 assures us that is it impossible to escape God's love, even if we don't feel his love.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death. [Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep."] No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The picture is clear. God's love never fails, and you can experience it now. Rest secure in the knowledge that nothing can separate you from God's love.
adapted from Living Water for Those Who Thirst Tyndale House Publishers (2000), pp 131-2
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
This week's promise: God is always willing to forgive us
Are you breathing the sweet air of forgiveness?
Though our hearts are filled with sins, you forgive them all.
Psalm 65:3 NLT
The sweet air of forgiveness
If you doubt God's forgiveness, allow the words of Romans 8:32 to strengthen your faith. If God gave up his only Son for you, so surely he will not hold back his forgiveness!
Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
God's forgiveness is different than human forgiveness. Isaiah 43:25 declares that when God forgives sin, he forgets them forever.
"I—yes, I alone—am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again."
Human forgiveness often comes with hidden strings. We say we forgive, but later, at a crucial time, we yank the string and pull the offense back into view. Saying "I forgive you" comes easily, but truly forgiving and forgetting is much more difficult. Knowing our tendency to store past offenses and hold grudges, we assume that God does the same.
But the Bible proclaims that God will never think of our sins again. Does God take sin seriously? Definitely! Sin is so serious that it deserves the death penalty, eternal death.
Does God want to forgive sinners? Certainly! God sent Jesus to take the punishment for sin, dying on the cross in our place. All who repent and trust in Christ can be forgiven.
Can we trust God to forgive us? Of course! Release that load of guilt. Stand tall and breathe the sweet air of forgiveness.
from Living Water for Those Who Thirst Tyndale House Publishers (2000), pp 37-8
Though our hearts are filled with sins, you forgive them all.
Psalm 65:3 NLT
The sweet air of forgiveness
If you doubt God's forgiveness, allow the words of Romans 8:32 to strengthen your faith. If God gave up his only Son for you, so surely he will not hold back his forgiveness!
Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
God's forgiveness is different than human forgiveness. Isaiah 43:25 declares that when God forgives sin, he forgets them forever.
"I—yes, I alone—am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again."
Human forgiveness often comes with hidden strings. We say we forgive, but later, at a crucial time, we yank the string and pull the offense back into view. Saying "I forgive you" comes easily, but truly forgiving and forgetting is much more difficult. Knowing our tendency to store past offenses and hold grudges, we assume that God does the same.
But the Bible proclaims that God will never think of our sins again. Does God take sin seriously? Definitely! Sin is so serious that it deserves the death penalty, eternal death.
Does God want to forgive sinners? Certainly! God sent Jesus to take the punishment for sin, dying on the cross in our place. All who repent and trust in Christ can be forgiven.
Can we trust God to forgive us? Of course! Release that load of guilt. Stand tall and breathe the sweet air of forgiveness.
from Living Water for Those Who Thirst Tyndale House Publishers (2000), pp 37-8
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
PASSIONATE LIVING
One man quipped: "It's not that I'm afraid of dying. It's just that I've been alive for as long as I can remember, and I'm kind of set in my ways."
Some people ARE afraid of dying. Others are not concerned about their death ... but they worry about how they're going to get there. Will illness linger? Or will it be sudden?
I can't even guess how or when I might die, but knowing my life will end has actually helped me to live more passionately. I think others have discovered the same phenomenon.
Journalists Bill and Judith Moyers documented death and dying in the U.S. They discovered that many terminal patients they interviewed actually began to live with joy and passion only after they learned they were dying. Like one man said, "If you are told you will never see spring again, and you live to see spring, spring takes on a whole new life." ("Modern Maturity," Sept. /Oct. 2000)
Psychologist Abraham Maslow had a similar experience. After his first heart attack he realized that his remaining days on earth were short. He wrote about it to a friend: "My river never seemed so beautiful (Maslow lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the Charles River). The confrontation with death -- and reprieve from it -- makes everything look so precious, so sacred, so beautiful and I feel more strongly than ever the impulse to love it, to embrace it, and to let myself be overwhelmed by it...."
Can you imagine feeling that way? He ends with this remarkable statement: "Death and its ever present possibility makes love, passionate love, more possible. I wonder if we could love passionately, if ecstasy would be possible at all, if we knew we'd
never die."
Why wait until we are told by a doctor that we may not have much time to live. Aren't we all terminal? We became so at birth. And that is a wonderful thing to know. For strange as it may seem, knowing life is all too short can help us to live ... beautifully, meaningfully, passionately.
It is a matter of embracing every day as if it were your last. Saying what needs to be said today. Making plans to do today what you've been putting off. And taking some time maybe just to do nothing but appreciate life.
Like Emily says in Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town": "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?" I hope that I can say, "Yes, at least a few times, I think I really did."
-- Steve Goodier
Now you can add your own comments to Life Support.
http://stevegoodier.blogspot.com/
Some people ARE afraid of dying. Others are not concerned about their death ... but they worry about how they're going to get there. Will illness linger? Or will it be sudden?
I can't even guess how or when I might die, but knowing my life will end has actually helped me to live more passionately. I think others have discovered the same phenomenon.
Journalists Bill and Judith Moyers documented death and dying in the U.S. They discovered that many terminal patients they interviewed actually began to live with joy and passion only after they learned they were dying. Like one man said, "If you are told you will never see spring again, and you live to see spring, spring takes on a whole new life." ("Modern Maturity," Sept. /Oct. 2000)
Psychologist Abraham Maslow had a similar experience. After his first heart attack he realized that his remaining days on earth were short. He wrote about it to a friend: "My river never seemed so beautiful (Maslow lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the Charles River). The confrontation with death -- and reprieve from it -- makes everything look so precious, so sacred, so beautiful and I feel more strongly than ever the impulse to love it, to embrace it, and to let myself be overwhelmed by it...."
Can you imagine feeling that way? He ends with this remarkable statement: "Death and its ever present possibility makes love, passionate love, more possible. I wonder if we could love passionately, if ecstasy would be possible at all, if we knew we'd
never die."
Why wait until we are told by a doctor that we may not have much time to live. Aren't we all terminal? We became so at birth. And that is a wonderful thing to know. For strange as it may seem, knowing life is all too short can help us to live ... beautifully, meaningfully, passionately.
It is a matter of embracing every day as if it were your last. Saying what needs to be said today. Making plans to do today what you've been putting off. And taking some time maybe just to do nothing but appreciate life.
Like Emily says in Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town": "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?" I hope that I can say, "Yes, at least a few times, I think I really did."
-- Steve Goodier
Now you can add your own comments to Life Support.
http://stevegoodier.blogspot.com/
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