The Most Amazing Truth

Here is the most amazing truth that I know: God loves you!

Take moment and reflect on the reality that the Creator of the universe desires to have a relationship with you.

Not only does God love you, but He is willing to do whatever it takes to be in relationship with you. We can be confident of this fact because of the life and death of Jesus.

I know for some people the truth of God's love seems too good to be true. They don’t “feel” God’s love in their lives. Instead their lives are full of hassles and problems. In their minds, the presence of difficulties are evidence that God's doesn't exist.

I wish I could help them see that this is not true!

God loves us, and His love is all around us.

Now you may wonder how I can write about God’s love as if it were right out there within our reach.

That is because it is.

Rebecca St. James once wrote, “I really believe so many times God ‘calls out’ to us through everyday things and through His creation, and yet we don’t hear because we’re too busy or distracted.”

God’s love is seen in many different ways, but too often we miss it.

We miss it because we are either looking for something that God’s love isn’t, like a perpetual warm fuzzy, or the realities of everyday life have distracted us from what God is doing in our lives.

Remember: Just because you don’t “feel” loved by God doesn’t mean that God’s love for you isn’t real.

I know God’s love exists and I know that He loves me.

The evidence of God's love for me is found in the love of my family and friends.

I have found proof of God’s love for me through times of prayer, worship, and meditation.

God’s love has been revealed to me in the peace and confidence that I have in my life.

I can see God’s love everyday as I walk among His creation and marvel at what He has done.

All of this pales in the light of the great revelation of God’s love: Jesus.

Remember the apostle Paul's words from the book of Romans:

When were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:6-8; NLT)

You know why Jesus’ death is the great demonstration of God’s love?

• God is under no obligation to save us. There is no force outside of God that dictates that He has to save human beings. To save His creation is God’s choice. He saves us because of His character.  It is God's mercy, grace, and love that compels Him to save us rather than condemn us.
• God doesn’t need us. Humans do not fill some need God has for companionship. God, being three in one, has all the companionship that He needs. It is His faithfulness to creation and His desire for us to experience true life  that moves God save us. His love is totally unconditional. His love is not based on who we are or want we have done for Him, but based on His desire for people to experience what is best.
• God experienced pain.  This flows from the previous two. Saving us was not something God had to do, but it is something He chose to do. That choice involved a great cost. Our salvation involved real pain.  Pain that exceeded the physical pain of crucifixion. It appears that as Jesus took on our sins, he was separated from God. We will never fully understand the love it took for Jesus to go to the cross.

Does God love you?

He loves you more than you can imagine.

It is experienced everyday we walk with God. It is seen in creation, in our families and friends, and in circumstances as we surrender to God's will.

But that is the key.

If you are missing out on God’s love it is time to surrender your life to Him.

When you love someone you have the hope that they will respond to your love.

Rejected love is always painful.

The same is true for God.

God loves you, but for you to fully experience that love you need to surrender to Him.

We don't experience all the love another person has for us until we enter into a relationship with him. This also applies to God. To fully experience the love of God we have to enter into a relationship with Him. We do that by surrendering our lives to Him.

I realize that this is hard to do. We don't want to give up control of our lives or be committed to the will of another person, but that is what is required of all lasting relationships. Love will always move us to care more and more for the other person, which will cause us to sacrifice on their behalf.

The most amazing truth in the universe is that the Creator of the universe loves you.

When we grasp that reality, how can we not seek to love Him back?

God loves us.

His love is all around us, calling us to accept Him as our Father and Lord.

You can choose to see God’s love or you can choose to ignore it.

You have the choice to either reject or accept His love.

The choice is yours.

I urge you to accept this amazing truth and make the choice to love.

If you liked this post visit www.paulsponderings.com for more.

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Devotional: God Cares for You

Even when it seems like no one else can understand the difficulties and trials of our lives we can know that God cares for us.  That is the theme of this week's devotional at Paul's Ponderings:

{1 Peter 5:6-7; NLT}  

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. 

There are times in our lives when we are convinced that no one is able to understand what we are going through. Even when we know other people who have been through a similar circumstances we tell ourselves that what we went through is very different.

This happens because our focus is in the place. Our focus is squarely on us and what we are feeling.  In turn this  leads us to become consumed with circumstances that we forget about God. Focusing on ourselves becomes a vicious cycle that guarantees that we will continue to feel worse about ourselves as we become more isolated from other people, until something is able to come in and break it.

Continue reading God Cares for You » Paul's Ponderings.

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Daily Thought: God Loves Each

Doctrines, political philosophies, and material possessions come to be ends in themselves, promoting our superiority, rather than means by which we serve persons valued by God. Eyes straying from the goal, we lose grasp of a remarkable point, though great Christian thinkers of our time have directed our attention to it. This is the key which should leap out any time we are dealing with friends or enemies or both: God loves each. And when I say, “leap out,” I do not mean this point should sneak up from behind, catching us off guard. Rather, our mind should put it foremost.

Snow, Michael (2011-10-01). Christian Pacifism: Fruit of the Narrow Way (Kindle Locations 570-574). mikesnow.org. Kindle Edition.

Daily Thought: It is Far Truer

"The most important divine truth ever given is far truer and even more difficult for us to absorb than a simple golfing truth.  From Moses to Malachi and from Jesus to John, the Bible witnesses to this elemental truth: God loves us.  He loves you, and he loves me—as individuals.  This big truth needs to be absorbed into our beings." ~ Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed, p. 24

Daily Thought: God's Promise to Love

"Even better, the premise that God loves us is also a promise.  God takes the first step toward us.  It all begins with his gracious love for us, regardless of who we are and what we have done.  He promises this much: he will love us." ~ Scot McKnight, The Jesus Creed, p. 30

Daily Thought: Our Human Rights

"In the much talk today about human rights, we forget that our human rights are derived from the Christian faith.  In Christian terms every single human being, whoever he or she may be, sick or well, clever or foolish, beautiful or ugly, every single human being is loved of his Creator, who has, as the Gospels tell us, counted the hairs of his head.  This Creator cannot see even a sparrow fall to the ground without concern.  Now it is from that concept our rights derive." ~ Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, p. 19

Daily Thought: Unceasing Love

"The life of the Trinity is an unceasing offering and receiving of self-giving love.  The Father holds the Son in his heart, and the Son does the same with the Father. 'The Father is in me and I am in the Father,' Jesus says, and the Spirit holds and is held as well.  'Hold you me'—missive, generous, creative, self-giving love—is what the Trinity has been doing from before the beginning of time." ~ John Ortberg, Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them, p. 37

Daily Thought: God Gives Himself

"But when God, the infinite Being, in whom everything is life and power, spirit and truth, in the very deepest meaning of the words,--when God speaks forth Himself in His words, He does indeed give HIMSELF, His Love and His Life, His Will and His Power, to those who receive these words, in a reality passing comprehension. In every promise He puts Himself in our power to lay hold of and possess; in every command He puts Himself in our power for us to share with Him His Will, His Holiness, His Perfection. In God's Word God gives us HIMSELF; His Word is nothing less than the Eternal Son, Christ Jesus. And so all Christ's words are God's words, full of a Divine quickening life and power. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.'" ~ Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer

Daily Thought: At The Back of Everything

"God loves you not because you are clever not because you are good, but because He is your Father. The Cross of Christ does not make God love us; it is the outcome and measure of His love to us. He loves all His children, the clumsiest, the dullest, the worst of His children. His love lies at the back of everything, and we must get upon that as the solid foundation of our religious life, not growing up into that, but growing up out if it. We must begin there or our beginning will come to nothing." ~ Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer, Kindle Edition

Daily Thought: The Price of Love

"If love is the goal, it could not be otherwise.  God chose to create a world in which evil was possible only in the sense that he chose to create a world in which love was possible.  The possibility of evil is not a second decision God makes; it is implied in the single decision to have a world in which love is possible.  It is, in effect, the metaphysical price God must pay if he wants to arrive at a bride who says yes to his triune love." ~ Gregory Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil, p. 55