July 31 - God’s Unchanging Love

God’s Unchanging Love

“Nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, thinkable or unthinkable, absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love.” Romans 8:38

Fancy terms in the Bible are often used to describe God.  Immutability is one of them to describe His unchanging nature. That means He’s always been the same, He is the same, and He will always be the same.   We have many verses to remind us of that idea.

Malachi 3:6 says, “I, the Lord, do not change?”

Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”

It’s important to ask why He doesn’t change.   Is it that He can’t?  Is it that He doesn’t want to?  Is it that He’s stuck in His ways? The reason that God doesn’t change is that He is perfect.  Unlike what some people would like you to believe, we are not, and God is not, in a constant process of evolution.  He started out a perfect God, He is a perfect God, and He will always be a perfect God.  The Bible says, “The One who was, and is, and is to come.” Or as one commercial says, “You can’t improve on perfection.”

But another important thought about the unchanging nature of God is that our perfect God extends to us a perfect love.  Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

You were created as an object of God’s love and you were made to be loved by God.  Do you want to know why you’re here on earth? People give all kinds of answers to that question.  Money? Fun? Pleasure? Work? Friendships? No, none of these are most important. The Bible says, “God is love,” and He made you to love Him.  God’s love toward you is a non-stop flight.  Unchanging.  Eternal. Consistent.  God doesn’t get moody.  The reason that is great news is because His love is consistent when I’m not.  God loves me just as much on my good days as on my bad days.  He loves me when I feel it.  He loves me when I don’t feel it.  He loves me when I’m close to Him and when I’m far from Him.  His love isn’t based on my performance.   His love is based on His character.

 In C.S. Lewis book, “Four Loves,” he describes the different types of love that exist.  God wants us to live at the highest level.  These loves include:

1.  Storge love which is superficial love.

2.  Eros love which is physical love often seen in the word “erotic.”

3.  Phileo love which is a conditional love also seen in the word “Philadelphia”

      or the “city of Brotherly love.”

4.  Agape love which is the unconditional love of God toward us.

God, on the other hand, is not like us at all.   Psalm 119:159 says, “Your love never changes.” In the midst of changing times, God’s love is unchanging.  God’s love is revealed as unconditional.  There is nothing that can ever stop Him from loving us.  We are reminded of that truth in many places. Romans 8:38 says, “Nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, thinkable or unthinkable, absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love.” God’s love never changes.  You’ll never be loved by God more than this very moment.  You’ll never be loved by God less than this very moment.

God’s unconditional love can have one of two effects on us. 

First it can cause us to excuse ourselves and live in greater sin.  Paul writes in Romans 6:1, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Many Christians live their lives in this immature way.  I can sin all I want to.  God is going to forgive me anyway.   Forget that sin is an enslaver and it will lead you into a web.  

Second it can motivate us to greater service and love.  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 says, “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.” It changes my thinking about everything

When we understand His love, it begins to change our way of serving.  You can usually tell a person’s perspective of God by how they live.  Some see God as rigid so they act rigid around Him.  God’s love is a great rock to stand on regardless of the challenges we face.

As a church, we want to always extend that love to others.  We are in the life changing business…and don’t ever let us forget that.  But it all is based in His love for us.  2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.” What are we reconciling people to?

In essence, God’s love is so great that it will always be revealed in your life.  And that is something that will never change.

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)  How does God’s unchanging love make you feel?

2)  Has there ever been a time where you felt God didn’t love you?  

Consider reading the Word today:

 

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser

July 30 - Putting The Horse Before The Cart

Putting The Horse Before The Cart

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8

In John Townsend and Henry Cloud’s book, False Assumptions, they talk about the fact that we often make the dubious mistake that by changing our behavior; we can develop spiritual and emotional maturity. But that means putting the cart before the horse.  Change is the cart.  Receiving God’s grace and implementing His truth is the horse. Too many Christians try to work their way to emotional and spiritual growth and always end up more frustrated and less free.  Because, they have already received God’s approval and are living like they haven’t.   When you have God’s approval, you are freed to follow Him without a yoke of bondage. Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works so that no one can boast.”

Martin Luther, during the Protestant Movement of the 16^th century, after having tried to live his life as perfectly as possible, soon discovered this verse to free him.  After having tried to live a life of perfection, he became more frustrated than ever.  He found that salvation does not come through works.  But as the book of James says, “True faith will produce a life of action.” At that point we learn to just trust Jesus.

I guess with all that Christ has done for us, it’s only natural that He ask that we do something, as well. When we consider all that Christ has done, is doing, and will do for us, we might easily think that He might ask something over-whelming.  He could very easily ask us to live a perfect life. But we know we couldn’t do it.  Or if we work real hard our whole lives, maybe that will merit what He’s done.  Paul says:  It is not of yourselves.  It is not of works.  But rather it comes “through faith.” 

The question then is, “What is faith?” Actually every person is a person of faith.  Now that doesn’t mean we all have faith in the same areas, but everyone is a person of faith.  When you are sitting down, you have faith in the chair.  When you climb on your roof, you have faith it won’t collapse.  When you get in your car, you have faith.  Neil Anderson writes about faith by saying, “The fact you claim to believe is not the issue of faith.  It’s what or who you believe in that will determine whether or not your faith will be rewarded.  Everybody walks by faith everyday…Your belief isn’t the problem; it’s the object of your belief that either rewards or destroys your faith.”  Maybe it has been in a person, but people will let you down.  Maybe it was in your finances. Maybe it is in the hopes of something you are working out.  These things aren’t all bad. You have to trust people and other things.  Notice what this passage says, “For by faith are you saved, through faith…”  The original word for faith (pistis) actually means a “firm persuasion or a conviction based on hearing, faith in God or Christ, or something trustworthy.” This applies to salvation.  It also applies to maturity. In this case, a firm conviction regarding what Christ has done.  There is nothing we can do to earn it because it is a gift.   There are no works.  There is no boasting.

Kenneth Philkens wrote a poem entitled “The Pit.”

A man fell into a pit and he couldn’t get out.

A Subjective Person came along and said:  “I feel for you down there.”

An Objective Person came along and said:  “It’s logical that someone would fall down there.”

A Christian Scientist came along and said:  “You only think that you are in the pit.”

A Charismatic came along and said: “Just confess you are not in the pit.”

A Pharisee said: “Only a bad person would fall in a pit.”

A Fundamentalist said:  “You deserve your pit.”

A Buddhist said:  “Your pit is only a state of mind.”

An Optimist said: “Things could be worse.”

A Pessimist said:  “Things will get worse.”

Jesus, seeing the man, took him by the hand and lifted him out of the pit.

Jesus only asks that we trust Him.   Though our insufficiency is the bad news, Paul brings the good news.  He says, “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.” Because of God’s grace, we no longer have to be led by the cart but carried by His love.  Now that’s putting things in the right order.

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)     Why do we fall into the patterns of trying to live out our Christianity  through good actions?

2)     How does grace change us from an old way of thinking to a new way of thinking?

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser

July 29 - My Redeemer Lives

My Redeemer Lives

“Who redeemeth thy life from destruction.” Psalm 103:4

Erma Bombeck wrote, “If life is a bowl of cherries, why am I in the pits.” David would concur that he knows what it’s like to live in the pits. Not a literal place that we fall into,  Rather, when David refers to pits, he is speaking of the Lord bringing him back from the brink of death.” Literally,  “pit” is Sheol (where the dead go when they die) As far as David is concerned, he doesn’t mean that God has rescued him from Sheol by taking him to heaven, for he is not in heaven yet. He means that God has redeemed him by sparing him from death..  

On several occasions with King Saul, where spears are thrown at him and where he was pursued in the caves, God kept him protected at each point. Whether or not you have been spared from death like David, God has spared us from certain death   

When he lived in Japan during his Junior High years, author and pastor Wayne Cordeiro’s father served in the army.  For three years, he was stationed in a small town called Zama.   It was a beautiful place but still an army installation enclosed with barbed wire.  He looked forward to trips off base.  One summer, they jumped in the car for a ride into the mountains.  They stopped for lunch.  On one side was Japanese woman selling “bentos”  On the other side, there was a man dressed in a “yukatta.” (or happy coat).  He was selling tiny birds and he held ten or so bamboo cages, each one containing a small bird that looked like a finch.  

Wayne asked, “How much for one bird?”

He said, “100 yen each.” (or bout 36 cents)

He handed the man 100 yen.  Chose one of the bamboo cages containing a finch. Wayne walked back across the street to show his family his purchase. 

The man yelled to him, “Don’t forget to bring the cage back when you’re done, now!”

Wayne thought, “Bring back the cage when I’m done…I’m not planning on eating the thing, I just want a pet.”

The man said, “You don’t understand! The bird and cage are not for you to take home. The 100 yen is to take the bird to the edge of the valley and release it so it will be able to fly free!”

             

Wayne didn’t like the idea at first.  He had just paid his hard earned money.  Then he thought why not.  He gave the bird a couple of nudges and it flew out over the valley and into the mountains out of sight.  The true picture of a ransom.  Just like he ransomed the bird, God ransomed us.  He releases us so that we won’t have to experience bondage

David says, “He redeems your life from the pit” or as another translation says, “He ransoms me from hell.” The idea of redemption has to do with “buying back” or “ransoming” an individual from a place of despair.  What we could never do on our own, we are able to do with God’s work in our lives.  This has definite connotations when it comes to salvation.  We have been bought back with a price.  It also refers to a redemption that occurs through bondages

The great news to all believers is that we have a Redeemer who rescues us and releases us to our highest call.   We must stand in amazement often to recall that He loved us when we were unlovely and offered His life as a sacrifice for us.  Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Terry Risser

Reflections:

1)   How has Christ’s redemption impacted you the most?

2)   Take time to praise Him for His great gift to you.

Consider reading the Word today:

 

Copyright 2014- Terry Risser

July 28 - A Few Good Men

A Few Good Men

The Marine Corp solicits candidates of the highest level.  Not ones who are attempting to find a leisurely pace or a shortcut stride but only those of the greatest character and hearts.  It’s not different with God.  To Ezekiel, the Lord said, “I’m looking for a man to stand in the gap.”  God has always used men who would resist the natural tendency to preserve, protect, and provide merely for themselves. He’s looking for men who will live by faith, so we might ask ourselves how we would characterize the life of a godly man.  Years ago, Ron Mehl, author of God Works The Nightshift, gave several criteria that makes a strong man of God.

1.  He realizes the absolute necessity of living with an awareness of God’s

     presence moment to moment.

2.   He’s comfortable resting his future in God’s hand, because he knows God will

      always do what He says He will do.

3.   He responds to God’s voice when he hears the Lord call.

4.   He recognizes that true faith is visible.  God sees it, but the peole we love do

      as well.

5.   He lives with an awesome reverence for God.  It’s the kind of reverence and

      fear that strikes you whenever you’re in the presence of someone superior

• Matthew 14:26- The disciples were afraid when Jesus came walking on the water (that was something superior)
• Luke 7:11-16- They were afraid when Jesus raised the widow’s son from the dead (that was certainly superior)
• Luke 2:9- They were afraid when the angels appeared at Jesus’ birth (that’s superior)
• Acts 9:31- They were afraid when God called His church out of darkness and they began walking in His light.  The fear of God is always at the heart of godly men.

6.   He reviews his daily schedule and seeks to do only the will of God

7.   He saturates his mind with the Word of God that he might be renewed day by

      day.

8.   He submits to the Holy Spirit promptings.  Every day God, in various ways,

      tries to get our attention so that we might avoid trouble and heartache.

9.   He surrounds Himself with friends who will stand with him during times of

      trials.  David did with his mighty men, and Jesus did in the Garden of

      Gethsemane.

10.   He understands that meekness isn’t weakness.  It’s the pathway to grace

        and glory.

11.   He knows that when he makes a righteous vow, he’s committed to keep it,

        no matter what the cost.

12.   He has a servant heart.  He willingly makes sacrifices for those he loves, to

        see the purposes of God fulfilled in them.

13.   He is contented with what he has but still contends for all God has for Him.

Whether you are a man desiring to follow God (or you are praying for a man in your life), God has never abandoned His search and is looking for men that want to be like Him.

Consider reading the Word today:

 

Copyright 2014 Terry Risser