From My Heart

Lamentations 3:22-24 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
We will get back to the love study tomorrow, but I wanted to take a minute to share from my heart. As we have been studying love- what it is and what it does, I have been confronted by my own inabilities and shortcomings. When broken down, characteristic by characteristic, it becomes so clear that even though I think I walk in love most of the time that I actually have a lot of room to grow. I think of the way I respond to my husband when he makes me mad. I know, I’m a pastor’s wife. I’m not supposed to get angry with my husband, or frustrated with my children. I ‘m supposed to be patient and kind all the time, right?  Wrong! Even as I am writing this morning, my three year old son has woken up early and interrupted the only quiet time I get to myself all day, and guess what? I have to fight to not be annoyed.
Today’s passage has been running through my head since last night. How thankful I am that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. Regardless of my faults, flaws and problems, His love never ends towards me. Whether or not I choose to walk in love, when I am obeying Him and when I don’t listen to His voice, He never stops believing in me and showing me His unconditional, unfailing love. What a reason for me to be extra conscious of the love that I show to others! The next part of the verse says His mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning. The King James says His compassions fail not. I like to say, His mercies are new every moment. I once saw the word new defined as replacing or supplementing something of the same kind that already exists. Every moment of every day God replaces the kindness and forgiveness He already feels towards us with new compassion and understanding. The sympathy, concern and consideration that He shows us will never stop, because it’s not based upon our performance, what we do, or how we act, but rather upon His character, His promises to us, and the incredible love He feels toward us. Don’t believe me? Look at Romans 8:5 But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us. Even if we never received Him as our Lord and Savior, He would still love us. What an amazing thing to meditate on today!
The last part of our passage says “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Rather than focus on our shortcomings, we need to instead reflect on His goodness. When we concentrate on who He is instead of what we are, our natural response will be to try to be more like Him. For example I mentioned how I had to fight being irritated with my son this morning, but as I continued to explore the goodness of God, His compassion welled up on the inside of me. I was immediately quickened to repent and instead of being bothered and aggravated, I instead felt nothing but love and joy. I challenge you today to take some time to think about how wonderful God is to you. Meditate on His goodness, mercy and love and see if you extend His kind of love to the people in your life.

For God So Loved

John 3:14-17 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must [so it is necessary that] the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross], 15In order that everyone who believes in Him [who cleaves to Him, trusts Him, and relies on Him] may not perish, but have eternal life and [actually] live forever! 16For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life. 17For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.

We’ve been talking about love, and the example we are encouraged to follow is that of Jesus. This well loved passage says it better than anything else. For God so loved the world. Note that it doesn’t say the Christians, or the perfect, or the good, it says the world. That encompasses anyone and everyone that has ever lived. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the righteous, the unrighteous, there is no one who is exempt from God’s love. Jesus died for each and every one of us. Just think about this- He died for the soldiers that mocked him, brutally beat Him, and put Him to death as much as He died for His beloved mother and the faithful one He entrusted her care to. We saw the other day in John 15:13No one has greater love [no one has shown stronger affection] than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends. By laying down His life for us, Jesus showed us the greatest, most perfect form of love that we could ever experience.

Do we truly have a revelation of the precious love that was shown toward us? I think we may glimpse it from time to time, but most of us would probably have to say that we sometimes forget, that we take lightly all that Jesus did for us. If daily, moment by moment we stayed in remembrance of all God has done for us, there would be no need to TRY to do what the Word says. We would stay in such a grateful place that we wouldn’t do anything that would grieve Him. Romans 2:4 says that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. When we see His goodness, our lives will be a reflection of the gratitude we feel in our hearts.

I encourage you today to reflect for a bit on the wonderful price God paid so that you could be in constant fellowship with Him and have eternal life. If you are not a believer I challenge you to pray and ask Jesus to forgive your sins, come into your heart, and to be the Lord of your life. Is it that simple? Yes. If you pray that prayer today, please write me and let me know and we will send you some resources to help you on this journey of new life. If you are already born again, I challenge you to take the next step in your relationship with Him. What is that step? That. You already know what to do, so go do it! I want to close by simply saying thank you to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank You for loving me, for dying for me, and for welcoming into your family. I am eternally grateful, and forever humbled at the love and mercy you have shown me in my life.