FOLLOWING OUR LORD AND GOD

The Lord our God undertook the extremely costly project of making salvation available to the human race.

He allowed Himself to be subjected to a frightfully brutal crucifixion as though He were guilty of sin as we human were. 

But of course, He was absolutely sinless and yet suffered the death of the worst of sinners. In doing so, He paid the price to redeem us from the evil  kingdom of darkness and into His kingdom of light.

We who believe in Jesus and the work He did on the cross to save us, are now in the kingdom of light. Now what? 

Now, we must learn to hear the leading of Him who saved us. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice."  This means that every person who believes in the salvation of the Lord should be able to hear the voice of God. 

Remember that His voice is described as a "still small voice" and hearing it requires quieting our souls to make out the words.

After learning how to hear the voice of God, we now need to learn how to follow the leading of the Lord. 

Here are some examples of what you might hear. The Lord may say He loves you  He may tell you to forgive someone in your life. He may tell you to call someone and encourage them. 

As you grow in this relationship, the Lord will tell you more things about His word, about His plans and even about the destiny He has for you.

This deepening of you relationship with God will come about by your responding to His guidance and following His leadership faithfully.

The bible says that His "yoke is easy and His burden is light." Pursue this relationship with God with everything that you have.

There is no greater value than a life lived in the will of the almighty creator.

Amen.

A HEART OUR LORD DELIGHTS IN

The Lord Jesus,  upon seeing Nathanael,  said to him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile."

In John 1 v. 47, the Lord describes Nathanael as a true Israelite because his heart was without manipulative deceit.  Nathanael was a straight shooter who never used cunning to get advantage over other people.

This trait is a high water mark of truthfulness because the guiless person not only does not deceive people,  he does not think deceptive thoughts in his heart nor does he pretend not to know things he does know or pretend to know things he does not.

Jesus, with His extraordinary perception, picked up the purity of Nathaniel heart by simply seeing him.  This is not to say that Nathaniel was sinless but rather that the mechanisms of deceit and subterfuge were absent from Nathaniel. 

The God of heaven finds that a heart with no guile is notable enough to be laudable within the hearing of others and to be inscribed in scripture for the ages to read about.

May we cultivate our  hearts to have no guile.

Amen.

THE LORD IS THE GREAT MONARCH

The Lord our God is the great sovereign king of heaven and earth. 

He is more powerful than we can concieve of and His influence is more vast than we can imagine.

He is perfect is all He does and righteousness and justice are the foundation of His kingdom.

He offers goodness and mercy to us who belong to Him all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Believe in Him and make Him Lord over your life. You will never be the same again.

Amen.

THE LORD IS CLOSER THAN ANY BROTHER

If you have believed in Jesus for many years, you will start to understand this attribute of God that He shows towards those who trust in Him.

You will discover that the Lord is absolutely steadfast in His careing for you. When others would have long ago given up on you (including your own brothers), the Lord will continue attending to your wellbeing and preparing you for the destiny He has for you.

You sometimes will think He is not near and suddenly, a helping hand will silently right your boat and rescue you from disaster. 

The Lord is faithful and He is very close even when you think He is far away.

Honor His holy and wonderful name.

Amen.

THE LORD OUR CREATOR

The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it.

Even we humans were made by God. There is no part of our own existence that we are responsible for.

The Lord created us and knows each of us extremely well because we all came from Him. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. We are all formed with a purpose in the kingdom of God. 

He made us and set us free so that we might, by our own free expression and will, consign ourselves to His objectives. 

However, we are born into this world as rebels against God. Upon growing up, we find ourselves among a race of rebels and that we all cooperate with each other in our rebellion.

We, as a race, chose to set our own agenda and cast away the possibility of living our lives by the agenda of God.

It is here that Christianity speaks. 

We are rebels but most of us know there is something amiss. We know that we are wearied by our own evil behaviour and by the evil behaviour of other people. We know that we are running headlong into destruction and we can do nothing about it.

The rebellion in each of us has a remedy through the death, resurrection and lordship of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

If we reach a point in our lives  where we acknowledge our evil ways and repent from them and call upon Jesus to save us, He will provide the redemption for us that extricates us from the kingdom of darkness and translates us into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The God who created us, set us free to choose whichever way we wished to live including remaining in the center of God's purpose. 

Our progenitors chose rebellion against God but even now, we are given a choice  between  living independently of God and taking our chances with whoever (or whatever) replaces Him and  living under the domain of God our creator.

The making of this choice would require these actions:

1 - Surrender from the rebellion against God by          repenting of our sin and believing in Jesus            Christ who died for us to give us life.

2 - Stay in rebellion by doing anything else other         than item 1.

This is the choice we must make while we are alive on earth because our death marks the sealing of the decision.

Chose life.

Amen.

THE LORD OF MERCY

The Lord of heaven and earth  is perfect and  righteous. His absolute rulership over all things makes Him the great and mighty God. 

We, on the other hand, are but flesh. We are given to piques of self-pity, moral weakness, deception, pretense and carelessness.

It is at these times that we need the mercy of God. He has provided this institution so that we can interact with him even though we are dithering and distracted and derailed by the working of our coporeal selves.

The mercy of God provides a place for the sons of the kingdom of God to come in from the rain and seek the grace of God.

Bless His holy name.

THE LORD IS OUR FAITHFUL PROVIDER

The Lord is unwavering. He is unchanging. His word is true and He will not go back on His word.

His promises are yeah and amen to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. 

He knows what we have need of before we ask and because every one of our hairs is numbered,  He has every detail of our lives in view and He gives bountifully and lavishly to those who are His.

To become His, you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died the death of crucifixion to pay for our sins. His immeasurable gift is that He underwent this death on our behalf so that we may be cleansed  of our evil deeds. 

Our evil actions had linked us inseparable to the kingdom of darkness but Jesus's gift of the sacrifice of His life broke our pact with the kingdom of darkness and joined us to His kingdom of life and light if we believe in Him.

Believe in Him and call upon His name and be saved.

Give your life to Him and become  a citizen of His kingdom. 

Amen.