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God Loves you

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:22:20 +0100

You Are A Friend Of God

Believe It, Proclaim, Sing It

In this age where relationships are as disposable as razors and fast-food containers, and friendships are about as fair-weather as Seattle, here’s something to consider with your fries and your latte: You are a friend of God.

Try it. Say it a few times: “I am a friend of God.” Say it a few more times. Anything happen?

Most of us have grown up with a thought of what God looks like. To me, He always resembled a sterner version of Santa Claus. You know — without the “Ho ho ho.” I envisioned Him carrying some kind of oversized baseball bat for kids like me who tended toward mischief, and at any time I could be whacked upside the head and disqualified from ever being pleasing to Him. Then again, I was the only black kid in a white family, in a Hispanic church, so, naturally, my life wasn’t exactly normal.

Believe It

The songs of the church tend to shape our theology as well. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” was one that always got me thinking, I’ve got friends, but if the only way I can prove that we’re friends is if they crucify me, then forget it!

Most times we draw on eternal truth with a flimsy, earthly example and miss the moment. Please don’t miss this one.

You did not sneak into this earth, or accidentally show up in life to see if things might possibly work out for you. Psalm 139 states that God knew your substance before He ever formed you — your personality, your style, you! And you are fearfully and wonderfully made — meticulously crafted with detailed care. One biblical writer says, “For [God] created everything, and it is for [His] pleasure that they exist and were created.”

Proclaim It

God takes great delight when we understand why we are here: for relationship, companionship and certainly friendship with Him. “Greater love has no one than this,” Jesus once said, “that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command.”

Sing It

So it’s one thing to drop Jesus’ name when it’s convenient and say He’s a friend, and another thing altogether when He drops your name and says, “You are My friend.”

Well, whom did He die for? Not just the clergy or the popular or the good — looking or the elite. No, He died for every living, breathing soul on the planet. That includes wonderful you!

So in this age of disposable relationships, take solitude in this phrase as you say it and sing it: “I am a friend of God. He calls me friend.”

You’re All Right

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:13:53 +0100

You’re All Right

We all have a deep need to feel all right. And we can spend a lot of time and energy trying to do things that make us feel like we’re okay – okay with ourselves, with others and even God. But we don’t need to wear ourselves out trying to be right with God through our own effort. The truth is we can’t make our lives right on our own, but we can receive the righteousness of God by putting our faith in Christ.

Romans 3:20 (NLT) says, For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. That means the reason God established the law was to show us how much we need a Savior who can make us righteous before Him.

We Can’t Earn Righteousness

Self-righteousness is believing we are made right with God through our own works. For example, a person might think, “Well, if I read through my Bible every year, then God will be pleased with me.” But the truth is we don’t have to read our Bible to please God; we read it because it helps us in our everyday life. It’s for our own good. In the same way, my preaching doesn’t make me a righteous person. The only way we are made righteous (right with God) is by having faith in Jesus Christ—it’s not something we can ever earn in our own effort.

I used to really struggle with self-righteousness. Many years ago somebody came to the church I was attending and suggested that we all read through the Bible in a year. The pastor got on board, and every Sunday he’d ask, “Who’s been doing your Bible reading?” Well, I didn’t want to be the one not standing up, so I got really serious about it.

We all got a calendar so we could check off the days we read the chapters. I put it up on the refrigerator so everybody who came in would ask me what it was, and I was so proud. As long as I had all my checkmarks, I liked that calendar. But then I got 36 chapters behind and had these big, gaping holes! It was like a nightmare for me.

So one day I decided I was going to catch up, and I zipped right through the chapters. And honestly, when I closed my Bible I felt so relieved. But then I almost immediately heard the Holy Spirit say to me, So, tell Me, what did you learn? And I realized I could not remember one thing!

God taught me an important lesson that day. He would rather we read one verse and actually get something out of it and connect with Him than read 36 chapters and learn nothing. We need to have the right motives for the things we do and stop making laws out of tasks that make us feel better about ourselves but are unfruitful.

It’s About a Relationship, Not Accomplishments

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NLT), Paul writes, For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” Every day of my life I say, “I am the righteousness of God in Christ. Now, I’m not righteous because I do everything right. No one is perfect, and none of us do everything right. The Bible says in 1 John 1:8 (NLT), If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.

You might say, “Well, Joyce, shouldn’t we try to do what’s right?” Absolutely! God wants us to live through faith in Christ. Then, as we have a personal relationship with Him, we’ll do the right thing by His grace because we want to do the right thing. He puts the desire in us to do what’s right.

In Philippians 3:3 (NLT), Paul explains that we rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort. He says he obeyed the law without fault, and if any person would have a reason to have confidence in himself by the law’s standard, he would have more of a reason than anyone.

In verses 7 through 9 (NLT) of that chapter, Paul goes on to say, I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

Paul is saying in order to have a relationship with Christ, he had to be willing to gather up all of his accomplishments and the things he had worked so hard for and be willing to get rid of them all. That’s because it’s nothing but trash compared to the priceless privilege of knowing Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Yes, what we do matters, but our good works do not make us acceptable to God. We are only made right with Him by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. And when we put our faith in Christ, we can rest in knowing that everything is all right.

Love for Today

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:16:37 +0100

Be Selfish or Happy—It’s a Choice You Can Make

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that you can’t be both selfish and happy. I know this is true through my own personal experience, but more importantly, the Bible has some things to say about the attitude we should have about “self.”

For example, love is not selfish. In the Amplified Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:5 says, “…Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking....” In 1 Corinthians 15:31, the apostle Paul said, “…I die daily [I face death every day and die to self]” (AMP), which basically means he was not self-seeking but instead focused on doing what God called him to do with his life.

There are also scriptures that teach us the importance of having self-control. Galatians 5:23 lists self-control as a fruit of the Spirit, and 2 Timothy 1:7 says that in Christ, we have a spirit “of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.” If you’ve lived very long, you realize that not being selfish requires self-control, because we’re all born with a human nature that is selfish. Think about how babies act: they are only concerned with what they need and usually cry when they don’t get their way.

Thankfully, when we experience new life in Christ, we die to sin. Romans 6:11 (AMP) says, “Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.” But even though we die to sin, sin does not die. That’s why we have to continually make the decision over and over again to choose to do the right thing on purpose. And we have what it takes, in Christ, to do what’s right—whether we feel like it or not.

Discover Your True Destiny

As Christians, we’re destined to be molded into the image of Jesus Christ (see Romans 8:29). Jesus is the greatest example of what it means to love others and not live a selfish life. First John 3:16 (NIV) says, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

This scripture shows us that Jesus gave everything when He demonstrated His love for us. And we are to follow His example. The truth is, loving others is not always easy, and it always costs us something: time, money, convenience, etc. But through our relationship with Him, we can find the strength and ability to love others, even when it seems to cost more than we think we can give. God is faithful to give us His love, grace and wisdom to reach out and be a blessing to others. And when we do, we end up receiving more joy and peace than we had before.

Now it’s important to understand that God doesn’t expect you to take this to such an extreme that you don’t take care of yourself. We need to use wisdom so we can be healthy emotionally, mentally and physically while we’re helping others. In following Jesus’ example, remember to make your relationship with God your number one priority and do what He puts in your heart to do.

Get the Right Mindset

The world is full of lonely, hurting people who are hungry for the love of God and the hope that is only found in Jesus. I want to encourage you to get rid of a “What about me?” mindset and instead pray,“God, show me someone who needs a blessing. Show me someone I can help.”

We all have room to grow in our relationship with God, and learning how to reach out to others is a big part of that process. Selfishness and always trying to meet your own needs puts you in a position of weakness. But the more you trust God to meet your needs, the more you’ll be free to help others…and the happier you’ll be.

I used to be self-centered and focused on getting my way all the time. And I was miserable! But now I am happier than I’ve ever been because I don’t spend all my time thinking about what I want, what I think and how I feel. The truth is, you can’t be happy if the center of your life is you!

Imagine how different the world would be if everyone would just do one nice thing to help someone else every day. It can be so simple to put a smile on someone’s face. Give a compliment, give something away, take the time to listen, open a door for someone, let someone go before you in line at the store…the list could go on and on.

Make it your business to regularly reach out to people around you, encouraging them and meeting their needs as you are able to do it. Be determined each day to do at least one thing for someone else that makes their life better. Trust me: You’ll discover that serving God by loving others is the most wonderful, exciting thing you can do!