God's Love For You Has Nothing To Do With You!

Did you have to read that title a couple of times? Think about it - God's love for you has absolutely nothing to do with you! Doesn't make much sense, does it? However, when you give it some thought, it really does!

The Bible says that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. This includes us! Not even we ourselves can separate up from His love. God loves us, no matter what! There is nothing we can do to make Him love us less, and there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more. Therefore, His love for you has nothing to do with you!

If you are like me, you have probably struggled with feeling like you've gone too far this time, or that God has extended His mercy too many times, and soon He will take His grace away from you. I don't know why Christians find it easier to believe lies than the truth of God's own Word, but it is usually the case.

If you are struggling with these thoughts of condemnation, read Psalm 106. This Psalm talks about how the Israelites rebelled against God time after time after time after time. It says that they even went as far as to sacrifice their own sons and daughters to idols, shedding innocent blood! Then it talks about how God was angry, and gave them over to their enemies.

HOWEVER! In verses 43-46, it says: "Again and again He rescued them, but they chose to rebel against Him and they were finally destroyed by their sin. Even so, He pitied them in their distress and listened to their cries. He remembered His covenant with them and relented because of His unfailing love. He even caused their captors to treat them with kindness."

Christians! His covenant with YOU is His blood! There is no stronger covenant than this! Nothing can erase what He has already done for you - no, not even your sins! So do not accept condemnation. Instead, repent of your sin, and then move on from it, confident that He who has the final say has already forgotten it.

Why Was David "A Man After God's Own Heart?"

I've been reading about David lately - not just in Psalms, but in 1 and 2 Samuel as well. The Lord called David "a man after My own heart," and I wanted to know what made David that kind of man. He wasn't perfect - not all of his sins are listed, but he did commit adultery and murder! Yet, the Lord still loved and favored him. I think that part of what made God favor David so much was how David dealt with his sin.

Whenever God sent someone to rebuke David he immediately repented and accepted the consequences of his sin. There isn't a place in the Bible where it talks about David refusing to repent, or being self-righteous about his sins. His heart always yielded to God's conviction right away, and he always repented 100%.

David also stepped out in faith quite a bit. The most famous instance of this was when he fought Goliath. I have read this story many times, but this was the first time I realized that the Bible does not say that God told David to kill Goliath. There are other times when it tells how David asked the Lord for direction before he went into battle, but when he went to fight Goliath, David just stepped out and did it, trusting that God would back him up! After reading that, I had to sit back and think about it for a few minutes. If I were in that situation, would I have done what David did? I hope so, but I have my doubts! David knew that God was on Israel's side, and that He took insults to His chosen people pretty seriously, so from that I guess he figured that all he had to do was take a stand against Goliath and God would go before him. Well, as we know, he figured right!

This decision was made in a matter of seconds! He didn't wait and pray it out, or ask for advice or talk to anyone about it. He just did it - no doubts, no worries. He KNEW that God would do it! He knew God, and what He had done for the Israelites in the past, and David had also seen God come through over and over again in his own life. And that was all it took for David to put his life in God's hands.

Think back and remember what God has done in your life. Read the Bible and take a look at what He did for the people back then. Has He changed? Of course not! Just what He's done in your life alone should be enough for you to put your life in His hands and make it possible for you to step out in faith like David did. He knew God so well that he knew God would bless him in his efforts. He knew what God wanted - even what He would want. Like I mentioned before, sometimes he did pray and ask for direction, and God always answered, but He rarely told David "no, don't do that." David had a heart for God, and for the things of God. He searched after the heart of God, and he knew Him - really knew Him. David knew sides of God that many Jewish people at that time did not know. Read the Psalms - God was David's everything - He was closer to Him than anyone else. He trusted God above everything and anyone. He made mistakes, sinned and messed things up just like we do, and everyone else has done since Adam and Eve. But he didn't let those things stop him for long. He got right back up and continued in his walk with the Lord.

Don't let your sins knock you down for long - Satan would rather you stayed down, buried under shame and guilt for the rest of your life, but God wants us to learn from our mistakes, seek His forgiveness, repent, and move on. (Wow, this post took on a mind of its own! Funny how you start with one idea and then it turns into something else!)

Standing On The Promises...

We have all heard the old song, "Standing on the Promises of God", or maybe we have heard people say that they are standing on His promises.

The Bible is full of examples of God delivering on what He promised people. There are way too many to list here, but if you want proof, open your Bible, or go to http://www.biblegateway.com/, pick a translation and type "promised" in the keyword space. There are pages and pages of examples!

What does it actually mean to stand on God's promises? Can we really stand on them? Let's start on what God has promised us: Eternal life, joy, peace, faith, protection, forgiveness and love - just to name a few! Love sort of encompasses all of the things He has promised us, and Romans 8:35-39 says that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God. That is one heck of a promise!

Can we stand on these promises? You bet we can, but how? Believing that God will come through with what He has promised is really easy when life is going our way. When everything is great and the bills are paid with money left over, when we are healthy, have a great job and we are just loving life, it is so easy to trust in God, isn't it? But when life is not turning out quite the way we thought it would, and we feel like our world is falling apart all around us and there is nothing we can do to change it - that is when standing on His promises comes into play.

Almost everyone in the world has to have read the "Footprints" poem by now, so I will not type the whole thing out here. (If you have been in a coma for the last 20+years, Google and you will find!) In Footprints, when there was only one set of prints in the sand, the person thought that they were walking alone, but the footprints turned out to be Jesus' prints. He was carrying them during the hardest times in their life - even though they never knew it!

We all go through times when it feels like God has forgotten about us or He has abandoned us in our time of need. These are the times when we need to stand on His promises. If you are feeling this way, I encourage you not to go by what your emotions are telling you. You know what God's Word says! He says He will never leave you or forsake you - even if your feelings don't believe it, your mind and your heart know it to be true. Grit your teeth and hold on to what the Bible says for dear life, and believe that He is carrying you through!

You are not alone - David went through many times like this. Read the Psalms for encouragement, and notice how many times he had to put his feelings in place.