Sunday, April 27, 2014

God's Friends

God's love is amazing, steady and unchanging.



1 John 3:1-3  See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him.   

Dear friends, we are already God's children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is.   

And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as He is pure.

Have you ever been amazed by God's love? The most holy and perfect God loves the one little piece of his creation that rebelled against him. All of the rest of creation was working perfectly except for the human race, they decided they wanted to be God, they thought that maybe God was holding them back. God has definitely proven that we were wrong about that.

God loves us so much that he adopted us into his family, just like an earthly family adoption, the parents get to choose to have a child join their family. Somebody that doesn't have any rights to such a benefit. The child that is chosen gets to enjoy the security and love that the natural born children have.
2 Samuel 7:19-23  "How great You are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like You. We have never even heard of another God like You!
If you think it's good to be a child of God then just wait because it gets better. We are his children and we have gained a lot of blessings as a result but we haven't received the full benefit. Ultimately we will look just like a blood relative, usually an adopted child doesn't look like his new parents, when Jesus returns for his children he will change us and we will look like him.
Romans 12:2  Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
We will be like him but that isn't something that we should put off until then, we should start the process of becoming like our Savior immediately, God wants to start making changes in our life right now. This process will look very strange to our friends that do not know our Savior. They won't understand us because they don't have a relationship with God, they don't know him so they don't know his ways and when we live according to his ways then we look very strange to them.
God's Love Is Huge
Ephesians 3:18-19  And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.  19  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.
God's love is sacrificial, eternal, and it is beyond measure. There is no end to what he will do for his friends, try as much as you want but we cannot understand it, anybody that would die for you has proven their love is huge. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Have you been adopted into the family? Are you on friendly terms with God?
John 3:16  "For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
Adoptions are very expensive and our adoption into God's family was no different. The Bible tells us that he paid the ultimate price to make it happen. The only thing we have to do is accept the opportunity to be in the family, we don't have to worry that we have to behave good enough , God's gracious love for us was proven while we were yet sinners. (Romans 5:8)

Thank you Lord for allowing me to come close to you as a child in your family and as a friend! I want to live each day with an appreciation for how incredibly well you have treated me.

Find out more about having a relationship with God.