Through Jesus' Love

As parents, we understand the joy of an obedient child.  The obedient child’s constant compliance melts our hearts.  It is likely that we extend special favor to the obedient child.  It is also easier for us to give the child greater responsibility because we are confident that they will handle it appropriately.  

So it is with God.  He rejoices in His obedient children who are compliant to His Word, His laws and His calling on their lives.  He rewards them with more knowledge and greater responsibility in the Kingdom.

When we are born, we inherit the sin nature brought to us through the bloodlines of Adam and Eve.  Through the grace of God we are given the choice to keep the sin which separates us from Him or receive the atonement for our sin provided by the shed blood of His Son, Jesus.

If we accept the precious gift of salvation, we are then sanctified through the Holy Spirit working in our lives.  We become righteous, holy and fully acceptable to the Lord in heaven.  Through His grace we receive what we could not otherwise earn.

When we hear the word sin, we think of a single transgression which breaks God’s law.  In reality, sin is a complete condition that separates us from God.  It is a chasm that we cannot cross on our own.

When Adam and Eve sinned, we inherited a condition that separated us from God for all eternity.  Thankfully, our merciful Father provided the way for us to cross the chasm created by sin.  He provided His Son, who knew no sin, to take on all of our sin on the Cross.  By the shed blood of Jesus, all who accept Him as their Savior, are washed clean of their sin for all eternity.

Without the aid of the Holy Spirit we would live our entire lives in darkness.  We could not recognize the light, the truth and the way that is in Jesus Christ.  Our hearts could not be molded so that we could submit to Jesus as Our Lord, Our Master and Our King.  

Only through the loving kindness, mercy and grace of God are our eyes opened by the power of the Holy Spirit. Only through this precious gift can God do His good work in us.

When we say that man is born with a sin nature, we are indicating that man puts himself above all things.  Our nature without Christ is to put ourselves before God in our decisions.  

“I am the Lord thy God.  Have no false gods before me,” is the first commandment sinned against by each of us.  There is no recovery from this sin except through the redemption provided by Jesus Christ.  

God does not hold us responsible for our sin nature.  He does hold us responsible for recognizing and accepting that Jesus is the only way that we can be redeemed from our sin nature.

Once we have Jesus in our lives, He will begin to reveal His plans for our lives.  Most of us will not have a big vision from God, at least not in the eyes of the world.  But rest assured that God has a very special plan for each of us.

The Lord will reveal His plan through gentle urgings in our spirit, through our prayers and through our reading of His Word.  Along the way, He will send others who will confirm the vision.  We can also be certain that Satan will send challengers and obstructors to to destroy the plans that God has for us.

But God will use the confirmers and the challengers to insure we fulfill our vision.  The confirmers will be there to encourage us, assist us and mentor us.  The challengers will be there to strengthen our resolution and to build character in us as we follow God’s plan for our lives.

Whatever we are doing as a result of God’s calling on our lives is reliant on His power provision.  The flow of the power provision is reliant on our relationship with Our Heavenly Father.  As long as we are in a good relationship with Our Lord,  every power that we need to produce good works in accordance with His plan for our lives is provided through the Holy Spirit. 

If we break fellowship with the Lord, our power provision will cease.  We may be able to manipulate some things through the power of our own flesh, but the things that we are working on for the kingdom will not endure under the burden of broken fellowship with God. 

The prodigal son left home thinking he could conquer the world on his own.  It did not take long for him to exhaust his resources and then realize everything he would ever need had always been available to him at his father’s house.

We all experience the same journey relative to our relationship with Our Heavenly Father.  We set out on our own way, thinking that we are self-sufficient.  As we meet our failures, the Lord awaits our return to Him.  Once we recognize the foolishness of living our lives in the flesh, we turn to Him for divine guidance and provision.  He always celebrates our return.

Throughout our Christian lives, we will experience “moments” in the presence of God.  The moments may come in different forms.  In some cases, they may be in the dramatic form of an audible voice, a dream or a visitation.  In most cases, they will be in the form of gentle urgings from the Holy Spirit into our spirits.

Each moment is meant to lift us up from day-to-day living into a kingdom experience.  Each moment can be very exciting and pleasing.  But God does not intend for us to stay in the moment.   Nor does He want us to seek continued residence there.  He simply uses the moment to show us a path, to build us up, to strengthen us and, most importantly, to prepare us to be with Him for all eternity.

God’s Holy Word tells us that we should rejoice in our trials because they are character builders in our lives.  The trials that we go through certainly do build character if we turn to the Lord for our strength during the trials.

Beyond the character building process, we gain more – much more.  We gain life experiences that we are able to share with others who find themselves going through similar trials.  God prepares us to be comforters for others in their times of need.