God’s Vast Love for Us

. . . Even as the Lord loves.

Hosea 3:1

Believer, look back through all your experience, and think of the way in which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness, and how He has fed and clothed you every day–how He has suffered your poor behavior–how He has put up with all your murmurings and all your longings after the flesh-pots of Egypt–how He has opened the rock to supply you and fed you with manna that came down from heaven. Think of how His grace has been sufficient for you in all your troubles–how His blood has been a pardon to you in all your sins–how His rod and His staff have comforted you.

When you have then reflected upon the love of the Lord, let faith survey His love in the future, for remember that Christ’s covenant and blood have something more in them than the past. He who has loved you and pardoned you will never cease to love and pardon. He is Alpha, and He shall be Omega also: He is first, and He shall be last.

Therefore, remember when you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, you need fear no evil, for He is with you. When you stand in the cold floods of Jordan, you need not fear, for death cannot separate you from His love; and when you come into the mysteries of eternity you need not tremble, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”¹

Now, soul, is not your love refreshed? Does not this make you love Jesus? Does not a survey of the vastness of God’s loving care stir your heart and compel you to delight yourself in the Lord your God? Surely as we meditate on the love of the Lord, our hearts burn within us, and we long to love Him more.
¹Romans 8:38-39

So far this week this blog has been averaging 8 hits a day. That is really good, keep it up and study and Pray every day.  The devotionals this week have been right on the money too!

By the way, this Blog’s first post was on Dec 29, 2009.  Which means it has been going for over a year now and can be a study resource now too. If you look there is a search field on the same bar as the page titles. Put it any word or scripture and it will find every instance that it has been used in all the posts and pages. Try it some time soon, it works pretty fast.

There will be another Family Bible Study Friday or Saturday Night, hope you are doing your home work…

Keep up the studying and learning, drawing closer to God our Father. We need this more than ever. Love You! Dad

Our Way or God’s Way Exodus 2:11-25

Whenever challenges come, there are two different ways to respond: God’s way or our way. Moses is an example of a man who, on separate occasions, tried out both options. In today’s passage, we see what happened when he took matters into his own hands. Although his motives were pure—namely, the relief of his peoples’ suffering—his method was wrong. Moses made three mistakes.

1. He focused on the difficulty instead of on the Lord. How often have you and I done the same thing? The unfairness or pain of a situation grabs our attention and in our quest for a solution, we forget our all-powerful God.

2. He relied on his own strength and understanding. When a problem arises, the most natural response is to do what we can to make it right.

3. He acted impulsively rather than waiting on the Lord. If a situation seems urgent, fixing the problem as fast as possible becomes our top priority.

Our way can look so logical at the time, but let’s consider how effective Moses was in achieving his goal. An Egyptian was killed, but the Hebrew people weren’t liberated. Moses was misunderstood by those he tried to help, and his life took an unexpected detour into the desert for 40 long years.

We’ve all followed Moses’ example at some point and suffered the consequences of self-reliance. But God didn’t reject Moses and cancel His plans for him. Instead, He refined the future leader’s character through trials and gave him another chance. Don’t you think the Lord will do the same for us?

In Debt to the Attributes of God

So then, brothers, we are debtors.

Romans 8:12

As God’s creatures, we are all debtors to Him: to obey Him with all our body and soul and strength. Having broken His commandments, as we all have, we are debtors to His justice, and we owe to Him a vast amount that we are not able to pay.

But of the Christian it can be said that he does not owe God’s justice anything, for Christ has paid the debt His people owed; for this reason the believer is in debt to love. I am a debtor to God’s grace and forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to His justice, for He will never accuse me of a debt already paid. Christ said, “It is finished!” and by that He meant that whatever His people owed was wiped away forever from the book of remembrance. Christ has completely satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are no longer in debt to God’s justice. But then it follows that since we are not debtors to our Lord in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we should have been otherwise. Christian, pause and consider for a moment.

• What a debtor you are to divine sovereignty! How much you owe to His disinterested love, for He gave His own Son that He might die for you.
• Consider how much you owe to His forgiving grace, that even after ten thousand offenses He loves you as infinitely as ever.
• Consider what you owe to His power; how He has raised you from your death in sin; how He has preserved your spiritual life; how He has kept you from falling; and how, though a thousand enemies have surrounded your path, you have been able to hold on your way.
• Consider what you owe to His immutability. Though you have changed a thousand times, He has not changed once.

You are as deep in debt as you can be to every attribute of God. To God you owe yourself and all you have: Offer yourself as a living sacrifice; it is but your reasonable service

The Power of Consistency Daniel 6:1-28

We live in a noncommittal world, where the ability to persevere through difficulty is a rare character trait.
If a job is difficult or boring, it’s all too common for people to think, Why not quit and find another one? When a marriage becomes stressful and unhappy, it’s easier to give up or start over with a new mate. In fact, many couples live together without a marital commitment.

Sadly, this lack of consistency is evident even among believers. At the first sign of conflict or disagreement, some Christians hop to another church instead of remaining loyal to one local body of believers and working through their difficulties. And in our personal spiritual walks, many of us struggle to maintain a consistent quiet time with the Lord. Exhaustion or the demands of the day cause us to let that time slide as we pursue the things of this world.

Daniel was a man of steadfast loyalty. Even the awareness that he could be killed didn’t interfere with his practice of praying three times a day. Such devotion to the Lord was noted by others. Jealous satraps and commissioners used Daniel’s consistency to trap him, but the king believed it would be the key to his deliverance: “Your God whom you constantly serve will Himself deliver you” (v. 16).

The biblical descriptions of Daniel are impressive: he influenced nations and powerful leaders. But have you considered that the Lord was able to use him greatly because of his unwavering obedience and worship? Just imagine what God can do with you, if you likewise commit yourself to Him.

The Amazing Gift of Pardon

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Hebrews 9:22

This is the voice of unalterable truth. In none of the Jewish ceremonies were sins even typically removed without blood-shedding. In no case, by no means can sin be pardoned without atonement. It is clear, then, that there is no hope for me outside of Christ; for there is no other blood-shedding that is worth a thought as an atonement for sin.

Am I, then, believing in Him? Is the blood of His atonement truly applied to my soul? All men are on the same level in terms of their need of Him. Even if we are moral, generous, amiable, or patriotic, the rule will not be altered to make an exception for us. Sin will yield to nothing less potent than the blood of Him whom God has set forth as a propitiation. What a blessing that there is the one way of pardon! Why should we seek another?

Persons of merely formal religion cannot understand how we can rejoice that all our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Their works and prayers and ceremonies give them very poor comfort; and their unease is no surprise, for they are neglecting the one great salvation and endeavoring to get remission without blood.

My soul, sit down and recognize that a just God is bound to punish sin; then consider how that punishment all falls upon the Lord Jesus, and fall down in humble joy at the feet of Him whose blood has made atonement for you. It is useless when conscience is aroused to trust in feelings and evidences for comfort; this is a bad and sorry habit. The only cure for a guilty conscience is the sight of Jesus suffering on the cross. “The blood is the life,” says the Levitical law, and let us rest assured that it is the life of faith and joy and every other holy grace.
Oh! how sweet to view the flowing
Of my Savior’s precious blood;
With divine assurance knowing
He has made my peace with God.

The Influence of Our Convictions Daniel 1:1-21

Although our circles of influence vary in size, we all have the power to affect others—either for good or bad. Whether at home, in the church, or in the world, our lives are on display. Many times we aren’t even aware of who is impacted by our words, attitudes, and actions.

Daniel didn’t set out with the purpose of making an impression on others, but something about him affected everyone who came in contact with him—from lowly servants to kings of empires. What made this young man stand out was his commitment to his convictions. He believed in the absolute truth of the Scriptures. When he was taken to Babylon, he “made up his mind” not to defile himself with the king’s food because he knew that eating meat offered to idols was forbidden by the Mosaic law.

Daniel’s convictions, not his environment, determined his behavior. Our world offers a multitude of ways to compromise on what we know is right, but if we’ll make up our minds ahead of time, we, too, can stand firm in our obedience to God. Although an unbelieving world may mock our values and lifestyle, their respect for
us actually lessens when we waffle and give in to temptations. What’s worse, our witness for Christ is damaged.

Conviction about God’s truth is like an anchor. When the winds of opinion blow and the waves of temptation pound us, we can know with certainty the right way to respond. Don’t vacillate in your obedience to the Lord. Your unwavering stand for what’s right can powerfully influence others.

The Forgiven Child of God

They shall sing of the ways of the Lord.

Psalms 138:5

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture that gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the cross, he gave three great leaps and went on his way singing,
Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you and said, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; none of them shall be remembered against you.”

Oh, what a sweet season it is when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyful that I could barely refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy that I wanted to tell every snowflake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of His constant loving-kindness leads them to say, “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”¹ See to it, Christian, that you magnify the Lord this day.
Long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand.
¹Psalm 34:1