Tag Archives: The Love of God

God Loves Us!

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Do you know that the opposite of faith is fear and that the two cannot exist in the same place? We will either believe one or the other, but we cannot believe both. We can’t have faith and fear at the same time. This tells us a little bit about the power of these two heavyweights. Faith and fear will change the trajectory of a person’s life. Fear will paralyze our efforts and bring our lives to a dead halt. On the polar opposite, faith in God will unleash the power of Christ on our behalves and send us catapulting to new heights. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes wherever the Word of God is heard and believed. By the same token, fear is present wherever the Word of God isn’t heard and believed. Fear is the root cause of the evil and terrible things happening in our world; it is because people have refused to believe the truth.

Some will say this is too hoaxy or simple minded, that it’s an ‘out there’ premise with no merit. The intellectually inclined might find that it defies the philosophies and prowess of great minds. They might say it puts a spiritual bent on complexities that couldn’t possibly be explained by the truth of God’s spiritual doctrine. Yet, the condition of the world before us speaks extremely loud about the extent of humanity’s capabilities and limitations when we refuse to invite God’s love to reign. It shouts from the roof tops about our aptitude for great wisdom and even greater foolishness, for our great compassion and love, and even greater selfishness and desire for power at all costs. Far too many of us have abandoned God’s truth and latched on to pride and arrogance. But despite it all, God loves us, and if we will honor His truth, it will be the glue that holds our lives together.  

Genesis 1:26 tells us that God gave us humans dominion in the earth. From Him we have received the gift, permission, and authority to reign over our own lives. Romans 11:29 says that His gifts and His calling are without repentance. This means that God never has to do a do-over or a take-back. He never violates His Word. He will not overstep our free-will choices, not ever. He watched as human beings, the very ones He sent His only begotten Son to rescue, nailed Jesus to the cross and crucified him. In this unparalleled sacrifice, God showed us both the condition of the human heart and the unconditional, unlimited overflow of His matchless love.

He allowed the sacrifice of Christ because He will not overstep His Word, and His Word never fails. This is the truth! Truth’s nature is not to bring condemnation to the person that believes it, but to liberate them. Romans 8:1 declares there’s no condemnation to those who belong to Christ. God is our Creator! He knows the condition of the human heart, so our knowledge of our capacity for both good and evil is not to bring shame to us but to present us with the choice of repentance, correction, and elevation. These are truth’s staples. The Lord Jesus Christ declared in John 8:32 that we will know the truth, and the truth will make us free. We cannot be free by believing a lie. Only the truth will allow us to walk in liberty.

God still blesses us despite our shortcomings. He loves us! He has proved to us through Christ that His goodness isn’t based on who we are, it is based on who He is. Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God has shown us that no matter what we do or how smart we believe ourselves to be, He’s the One with the plan. His Will goes forth no matter what. Romans 8:28(NLT) gives us insight into the perfection of His Will and plan. It says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” This is a powerful truth. The blame game is a useless exercise. We need to allow space in our minds and hearts for the reality that God has a plan that works brilliantly. Each of us has a part to play in His plan, and if we’ll recognize this and study His Word, we will come into consciousness about the unique purpose that Heavenly Father has woven in the inner sanctum of our being.

The world can be all types of crazy, but God’s purpose will prevail. When we step into His plan, our lives begin to make sense because we’re aligning with our destinies. We’re aligning with the unique spiritual DNA that is deep within. It has been waiting to be activated, and when it is, we come alive in a way that doesn’t make sense to much of the world. It will make perfect sense to us though, because God’s Spirit will testify with our spirit that we are indeed His children.

1John 5:4(NLT) tells us, “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.” Our faith in God and in what He has accomplished on the cross through Jesus Christ is what makes us an overcomer. We don’t have any power of our own. Our sufficiency comes from God. He’s our Source. He’s the glue that holds our lives together, not another person, system, agency or relationship. Don’t get it twisted. It’s not about our brilliance. It’s not about our intelligence, talent or anything else. God gives us what we need to overcome any obstacle through our faith in Him. So, we need to step out of the world, and through faith leap into the arms of our Heavenly Father. He loves us so much. For many of you, He’s been knocking at the door of your heart for a long time, and there’s not a better time than now to let Him in through His Son, Jesus Christ.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“God Loves Us!”,  written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Transforming Mistakes to Lessons Well-learned

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How do you move beyond the fear of poor decision-making? The answer to this question is one that many people will not seek, because it will require them to get closer to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them fear the possibility of intimacy with Him more than they do the vicious cycle of making mistakes repeatedly. The one reality that every living person must accept is that life doesn’t discard the lessons we need to learn simply because we ignore them. In John 6:63, Jesus Christ tells us that it is the Spirit who gives life. Life belongs to God, and He has designed it in such a way that spiritual lessons must be learned. When we do learn them, the fear of poor decision-making is put to rest, because if we are humble and willing to be led, God will lead us to the right choices for our individual lives.

Hebrews 11:3(NKJV) tells us, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Human beings have a propensity to become incredibly arrogant, so much so that we value the creation more than we do the Creator. We ignore the reality that everything we see was created by God from the things we can’t see; that there’s nothing humans can manufacture, produce, or build that isn’t made from the invisible realm of God. Most of us focus our attention on all the wonderful things humans can do. We don’t marvel in gratitude to God for His gifts, instead, we become puffed up on our own abilities. We depend solely on our own intelligence, and in this respect, we trust human beings more than we do the Creator who made them.

We now have an environment where ignoring our spirits and refusing to nurture our connection to God is very commonplace. Continuing down this dark path will be inevitable if we don’t wake up. Life isn’t a color-by-number situation. We’re not puppets, and God doesn’t pull our strings to make us move the way He wants. He’s given us free-will choice, and we can make any decision we’d like. However, God has a way that is always and forever going to be best. He invites us to follow this way through the Lord Jesus Christ. If we take Him up on His offer, we must begin to wake-up to the treasure of what lies within.

God’s Spirit is inside us, and John 16:13 tells us that the Holy Spirit that indwells us will guide us to all truth. He will speak to us in marvelous ways, and he will show us dreams and visions that will help to steer us to the blessings that have our names on them. All of this is available to the believer, but we must slow our rolls and begin to press into God. We must pray and talk with Him often.

In Matthew 6:8(NKJV), Jesus Christ tells us, “For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” God knows everything, and one of our greatest mistakes is to behave as if we don’t know this. The greatest decision we can make is to wake-up to the reality of His omniscience, and to also wake up to His desire to keep us safe and moving on a forward and upward trajectory. The psalmist said in Psalm 116:8(NIV), “For you, LORD, have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling,” Heavenly Father will do this for us, but we must develop a habit pattern of paying attention to the Spirit within. 1John 4:4(NLT) tells us, “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.”

Many of us have wondered why we can’t catch a break, and why, although the people are different, the situations and behaviors they bring mirror conditions and problems that continue to cycle back around. Through the Spirit of Christ, indeed greatness lives in all of us. We can get off the vicious cycle of mistake after mistake and reclaim the life we are destined to live. Wake up to the lesson of love God desires to teach you. James 1:5 tells us that if any of us lacks wisdom, we must ask God, because He gives His wisdom liberally to anyone who asks, and He won’t be upset with us for asking. Now is the time to recognize that we are spirit beings having an earth experience. We’re here to learn to walk in love like Christ. When we wake up to this and pay attention to the Lord, we’ll transform our mistakes into the victory that comes when lessons are well learned.■

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Transforming Mistakes to Lessons Well-Learned” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Take Your Power Back!

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A friend of mine told me about a woman she works with because she’s concerned about her. For anonymity’s sake, we’ll call her Katie. My friend has worked with Katie over five years. They are very friendly, and about five months ago, Katie invited her to a dinner party for fans of the Downton Abbey series. Katie’s home was as beautiful as the exclusive neighborhood she lives in, and it was clear that her husband is very successful. They were having so much fun that evening, and Katie was the life of the party, but when her husband arrived towards the end, there was an immediate change in Katie’s mood. Everyone noticed and took it as their queue to politely say their goodbyes.

My friend said that initially no one else at work spoke of the awkwardness, but because she grew up with an abusive alcoholic father, the shift in the energy in the room that night was for her a very familiar thing. A few months later, Katie spent a couple of days in the hospital. A brand-new luxury vehicle was waiting on her when she was discharged. It was rumored to be a ‘makeup’ gift from her husband. If you have any familiarity with domestic violence and abuse, you know the rollercoaster ride of fear and emotions that come with it. Constantly walking on eggshells is a given, and you hide behind a mask that you put on every day, because you don’t want anyone to know what’s really going on in your life.

If asked, the person that remains in an abusive marriage or relationship will have a thousand and one different reasons for staying. Often those reasons involve children. I’m intimately acquainted with instances of women in my own family leaving their abusers several times, and each time going back to more abuse. They tried to make it on their own and support their children but found it incredibly difficult. So, leaving an abusive situation for some can be very challenging, and the reasons are sometimes more complex than we might know.

Being on the other end of abuse is often about the abuser’s need to feel powerful and to syphon this power from the person they claim to love. This power isn’t a tangible reality that we can touch or handle. It’s a spiritual reality, and we need the spiritual strength of Christ to take it back, because it is in Christ that the victory over satan has already been won. Romans 8:37 cements the reality that overwhelming victory is ours through Jesus Christ.

Throughout God’s Word, we find His encouragement and commandment to all of us to be strong and courageous. In the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 31:6(NLT), He told His people, “So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” In the New Testament we see many instances where our strength in Him is affirmed as well. 2Timothy 1:7 tells us that God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and self-control. Ephesians 6:10 tells us to be strong in the Lord and in the power and strength of His might.

In all these scriptures, it should be clear to us that our strength comes from God. We are to meet Him in that place of faith, with a willingness to be totally dependent on Him. He tells us in Proverbs 3:5 to trust in Him with all our hearts, and don’t lean on our own understanding, but acknowledge Him in all our ways, and He’ll direct our paths. Putting on a little piece of God’s armor here and there isn’t going to equip us to take our power back. We need spiritual intelligence to outsmart the devil, and this requires the whole accoutrement of God’s armor.

Heavenly Father tells us in Ephesians 6:12(NLT) “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” The devil works through people to interrupt our destinies and steal our power. People are not our enemies, but the spirit that works through them is, and we must open our eyes to see this spiritual reality. Galatians 5:13 tells us that we have been called to freedom, and Jesus Christ tells us in John 8:36(NLT), “So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.” No gift that any person can give us is worth the price of our God-given power. Pray, study God’s Word, submit to the leadership of His Spirit, and be patient as He teaches you how to take back your power.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Take Back Your Power!” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!

Why It’s Important to Love Right

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Most of us are pretty confident that love makes the world go ‘round. Love causes movement. It changes things. It creates! It makes things infinitely better than they could ever be without it. Love is easy, but our specialty as human beings is to make things far more complicated than they need to be, and so it is with love. We’ve tried to make different forms and types of it, compartmentalized it, and we’ve even tried to lock it away in our hearts for safe keeping, but as much as people have tried, love is a treasure that can’t be corrupted or made to be something that it isn’t. It comes from our Creator. He’s the Originator of love, and it isn’t just what He does, it’s who He is.

1John 4:8(NLT) tells us, “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” The number of folks that have put their own spin on this verse are too numerous to count. This verse doesn’t mean just because a person has the capacity to love someone, that they know God. In the context of this verse, love has a higher definition than most of us are willing to acknowledge; this little thing called ‘arrogance’ keeps getting in our way. Love involves sacrifice. We learn this lesson from our Master Jesus, who when asked by Heavenly Father for volunteers to rescue humanity, he said, “I’ll go, Father! Send me!”

Love for the Father, and love for us led to the unselfish sacrifice that Jesus Christ made, and it is this love that sets the standard. It is the love of which 1John 4:8 refers. Through the Spirit of Christ, this same love is in us. It’s not the ooey gooey, butterfly churning, goosebumps popping sensation we get from being in the company of a Boo. That adds a sweet savor to life, but its’ aroma often fades quickly. The love of God in Christ is a transformative power that is at the core of our being through God’s Spirit. The discipline of self-sacrifice unleashes it. So, when you and I attempt to love without a willingness or understanding that we will most likely have to give up the thing we believe we deserve, our aim misses the mark of the love of God. He will not punish us for our motivations, however askew they may be. Instead, He will aid us.

Jesus Christ said in Revelation 3;20(NLT), “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” This is the heart of the Father. He’s knocking at the door of our hearts, wanting us to invite Him in through the Lord Jesus Christ, but there are more of us who refuse to let Him in than those who do. We don’t allow God to help us develop well-formed love. Because of this, we become confused by our own stubbornness and refusal to be in alignment with the love of God. Love, then becomes for us a kind, mushy, but selfish desire that is wrapped in affection, tied to conditions, and completely motivated out of the flesh. Operating this way runs counter to the very reason we were born.

God tells us in Proverbs 3:5-6(NKJV), “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Heavenly Father is the One that does the directing, not us. He has set us apart for His divine purposes, and if we don’t allow Him to direct us, things like jealousy, obsession, desperation, and other remnants of fear can cause us to betray our identity.

Anytime that we make the practice and commitment of love more about what we can get instead of what we can give, we draw to us like a magnet individuals who will feast on our wrong desires. Love is and will forever be the barometer that measures how closely we align ourselves to the purpose for which God has created us. He sets the path that is laid before us all, and love keeps us on it. When we begin to love ourselves enough to make fulfilling our destiny in Christ our number one objective, God’s love is operating within and we’re loving the right way. We can then begin to build a momentum where God’s love propels us, and it will bring all the right resources and relationships across our path.■

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Why It’s Important to Love Right” written by Fran, edited by PMB for DomesticAbuseAwareness.Org ©2020. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!