THE FOUR
God loves you unconditionally. He knows everything about you and He loves you just the way you are. He has always loved you and He will love you forever.
God wants nothing more than for you to experience His love fully and personally, and to discover the purpose of your life through a loving relationship with Him.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 1 John 4:16
If God loves us, why don’t we always experience His love?
Unfortunately, we do not experience God’s love because we are divided from Him. We look for meaning and fulfillment everywhere but through God. We ignore Him, don’t trust Him and don’t believe that He wants the best for us.
Going our own independent way because of our stubborn self-will is what the Bible calls sin. Sin is like a wall that keeps us from God. It damages and destroys our relationships with others. Sin keeps us from living the fulfilling life that God intends for us.
For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23 [spiritual separation from God]
If death and separation from God is what we earn because of our inability to be perfect, is there anything we can do about that separation?
Our sin and selfish actions do not keep God from loving us, but there is no way that we can break down the wall and come to God based on our own works or achievements. God had to provide the solution for our sin problem, which He did through Jesus. Jesus gave up His life for us, taking the death we earned and bearing all the consequences of sin Himself.
Jesus died, but He defeated death and rose to life again. Because of His victory, we can experience peace with God and a personal relationship with Him. Through faith in Jesus, we can experience God’s love daily, discover our purpose, and have eternal life after death.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
So what does all of this mean for us?
God did everything to show us how much He loves us. Through Jesus Christ, He offers us fulfillment of our life’s purpose and life forever with Him. Knowing and agreeing with this intellectually is not enough, nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We turn to God from self (repentance) and trust Jesus Christ to come into our lives to forgive us of our sin and make us who He wants us to be, by faith as an act of the will.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
How will you decide to respond to this gift from God?
PRAYER
We can talk to God directly- we call it ‘prayer’- to ask for forgiveness of living our lives without Him. We can choose to live with God by trusting Jesus Christ from now on. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. You could pray like this if you decide to receive God’s gift through faith in Jesus-
Dear God, thank you for loving me and wanting the best for my life. I realize that I have been living without You. I’m really sorry. Thank you, Jesus Christ, for forgiving all my selfish thoughts and actions by dying and rising from the dead for me. I want to trust You, and I ask You now to come into my life. Be my God. Be my Savior. And be my friend. Let me experience Your love, and help me love You and my neighbors as much as I love myself. Help me to recognize and live out Your good intentions for my life. Help me get to know You more and love You more.
Amen.
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