Trusting God's Love

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   Romans 8:31-39, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?   He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

   Do we as born-again believers really know what these verses are saying? Now, when the Bible talks about knowing, it means:  are we so confident in the character of Jesus Christ that we KNOW these truths in our daily lives?  Every moment, every breath we breathe?  When God gives a promisein  His Word, it is an established fact.  God and Jesus will never change Their minds about these things — they have spoken.  

   We, as humans, do not always feel that our circumstances are always included in these verses. My life of up and downs seems to deny the fact that I am more than a conqueror, and that God’s love does not always seem so strong as I go through my days here on earth.  If you can say that you are more than a conqueror and feeling God’s strong love for you every day, there is probably something wrong with you. Jesus never promised us an easy life. He promised us that He would be with us.

   But the truth of God’s Word is eternal, and it is constant, established, fortified by God our Father, and our LORD Jesus Christ, whether we experience it or not daily. Why is this so important? We, as God’s children, are frail human beings.  Now I know you do not like to think of yourself as frail, but if you are standing on the street and a large truck hits you, you are like those deer we see on the side of the highway after being hit by a semi.  There usually is not much left. If we are frail humans, why would God say we are more than conquerors, and nothing that was created can separate us from His love?  Think of everything God created, none of these things can ever separate you from His love.  Is this not a most wonderful promise?  God — who is outside and within all His people — is protecting you from everything by His love.

   How about sin? What happens when we sin? Are we separated from God’s love? If we are honest, we do not sense the comfort of God’s love, because He wants us to confess and return to Him.  God chastens His children.  God feels anger sometimes toward us as He did with Moses, when Moses kept telling God he couldn’t do what God wanted him to do. God ravaged all of Israel and gave them over to the Babylonians. But did God ever say that He was going to separate Himself and His love from them forever? Lamentations 3:  “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for Him.”  No, because of God’s great love we are not consumed, His compassions never fail.

   And we do sin!  1 John 1: 8,  “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.   If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word is not in us.”

   But think of the promise here. Jesus is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Faithful, steadfast in affection or allegiance.  Just, conforming to a standard of correctness. Purify, to free from guilt or moral or ceremonial blemish.  Now Jesus Christ is the only One that has the authority to do this. Because Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of God, and because of Philippians 2: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!  Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

   Why do we need to trust God’s love?  The most important reason is it glorifies God.  God in Christ Jesus met our greatest need by redeeming us from sin, death, and the Devil.  Ephesians 1.  God did this not because we deserved His love, but for His own pleasure.  Ephesians 1: 9, “He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ.”

   To not trust in God’s great love for us is a sin. If you struggle with this as I did, do not worry.  Read the promises of God and Jesus to your own heart asking the Holy Spirit to apply these truths to your doubts. Stand on the truth of God versus believing your feelings. The devil will lie to you if you trust in your feelings each day. God’s love depends on Jesus’ acceptance of you through the sacrifice He made for you. God only accepts you based on His Son, Jesus. 

   Another reason we need to rest on God’s love for us is it gives us courage.  Jesus knows all the things in your life you must face every day.  When we became a true born-again believer in Christ, the world belief system became against us. The devil, who once directed your life, is now opposed to you.  Life and trying to live for Christ can become hard.  Jesus never promised us an easy life.  When Jesus was walking in this world, there were lots of people and trials He had to face. The greatest of these was His death on a cross. His disciples failed Jesus many times, but Jesus said in John 17, “I have revealed You to those whom you gave Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me, and they have obeyed Your word.  Now they know that everything You have given Me comes from You.  For I gave them the words You gave Me, and they accepted them.  They knew with certainty that I came from You, and they believed that You sent me.  I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given Me, for they are Yours.  All I have is Yours, and all You have is Mine. And glory has come to Me through them.  I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to You.  Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your name, the name You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one.  While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name You gave me.  None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.  I am coming to You now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of My joy within them.  I have given them Your Word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.  My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth;  Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world.  For them I sanctify Myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”

   Read through Jesus’ prayer.  He is still, now, praying this for you.  Jesus wills all of us as true born-again believers to lean heavily on the power of His truth and Holy Spirit so we will be more than conquerors. Jesus said you can do nothing by yourself.  John 15:4, “Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.”  If you think that by your own power and wisdom you can live the Christian life, you are proud. I have tried this many times and God has proven me wrong every time. “Not by strength, but My Spirit saith the LORD.”  The more we rely on the Spirit’s strength and wisdom in our situations, God will get the glory. We will see in our souls the strength we receive from Jesus and not take credit for ourselves. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Paul said.

   1 Corinthians 1: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’  Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.  Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

   “Brothers and sisters think of what you were when you were called.  Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.  It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God — that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’”

   God’s love is a great encouragement for us as believers. It should be the promise that glues our lives together. It should be the encouragement to witness about salvation to those we know, and it should be the motivation to live our live for Christ, loving our families, loving our neighbors, loving those we even dislike.  (Romans 12). 

   Ephesians 3: “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

   “Now to Him who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.”

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