Experience The Goodness Of God

Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

1 Chronicles 16:34 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 23:6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever.

Romans 2:4  Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

Every one of us has experienced God's goodness in their life to some degree and most of us have experienced a very high level of God's goodness in comparison to thousands of other people that have lived. But despite how good he is God's people always need to be reminded of this fact.

We have a difficult time appreciating the goodness of God, it goes all the way back to the garden of Eden, no matter how good we have it we always think there is more that we should have. Living in the garden was the greatest experience of God's goodness that mankind has ever known but that didn't guarantee the best outcome. 

If Adam and Eve can feel that there is something that they were missing then we are surely guaranteed to doubt the vast amount of God's goodness as well. In our social media world we have the ability to compare ourselves and the stuff that we have with a multitude of other people. We need a way to stay focused when we have the fear of missing out that causes us to doubt God's goodness.

Taste

Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!

To focus on God's goodness you need to taste it and taste it again just like you would taste again and again a delicious food. Don't be satisfied with just the aroma, don't walk by the kitchen and catch a whiff, step in and grab a plate and have a taste!

The joy of tasting is a personal experience, somebody else can help you know a little bit about the taste but you must have your own taste. The flavor is something that you can know only through your own experience. A taste this good should motivate you to taste it again and again.

Trust

Nahum 1:7 The LORD is good, a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him.

Thankfully the most powerful being is also the most good! Very few people with power are very kind, if you or I were powerful we would probably do like everybody else and use it for our own advantage, but thankfully the most powerful is perfectly good. 

If the most powerful was any less good we couldn't trust him enough to draw near, we wouldn't have a strong refuge that we can trust and draw close to.

We need to remember that we cannot measure the goodness of God with problem free living. The person with the most trouble in this life may be living the most in God's will. Just like the religious leaders that Jesus rebuked, we cannot accurately discern why they have the trouble so we should not blame them for their situation. Nobody in the Bible was rewarded with an easy life as a reward for obedience.

Isaiah 48:10  I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering.

The goodness of God is always there, even in suffering, our holiness is usually becoming more perfect in difficulty. This is a reality that will change your perspective of "good" and "bad" circemstances. 

How can anything be bad if God is using all things for my good? (Romans 8:28, Hebrews 12:10) We all want the easy life but the most important thing to God is for us to be like him. 

A more difficult truth to accept is maybe the hard time you are going through has nothing to do with you?  Just maybe your country, your church or your family is being disciplined and you are affected by what God is doing in others. How much did good people suffer in the Old Testament because the rest of the group was being punished by God? 

A great example of this is Joseph in an Egyptian prison or Daniel and his friends in Babylon. We focus everything on ourselves but God's story is not all about us.

Treasure

Ephesians 1:7-8  He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.  8  He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

To remember God's goodness we need to treasure the most important gift ever! God made the most extravagant purchase ever, what an incredibly high price for such lowly, undeserving creatures.

You may be so kind that you would die for your family or a small group of friends but God showed us perfect kindness by taking his perfect wrath upon himself, through his perfect son. God's awesome goodness could stop there and we should be eternally grateful but there is more goodness coming our way eternally if we accept Jesus sacrifice. (Romans 8:32)

1 John 4:9-10  God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.  10  This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

The greatest gift, the one that I really needed the most, is the reason we celebrate Christmas but his arrival was just the beginning of the story of God's plan to destroy the work of Satan so that everything bad can be made good. Don't take his kindness for granted.

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Perfect Gifts Series (diggingtheword.blogspot.com)

Redeemed To Live A New Way

God's children obey their father's commands for their good and his glory.

Exodus 20:1 Then God gave the people all these instructions.

Exodus 20:20 “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!”

 

Deuteronomy 8:5-6 Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the LORD your God disciplines you for your own good. 6 “So obey the commands of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and fearing him.

1 Peter 1:15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.

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In the previous post God's people learned about his holiness which affects everything about him. It is the supreme quality that affects how that he does but it also affects us as well. And since God is holy he cannot have a personal relationship with people that are unholy. the people that want to have a peaceful relationship with him must be holy as well.

Our world doesn't like to hear about a God that makes demands, the gods that are popular today allow you to make your own rules, you get to be the "truth" police. That may work for you before you die but the real God and his version are truth will ultimately take over.

God is holy and he tells us to strive to live up to a higher standard, the "you be you" generation sounds kind and loving but you don't get the final say, we have been told to imitate our father in our attitudes and our lifestyle. Like it or not, we will submit to his rules and authority, it is your choice to do it now or later on after it is too late.

God's rules are for our benefit, he is just like any loving parent that sets boundaries, God wants the best for his children and he wants them to obey some basic instructions to keep them from trouble, he saves us from evil and doesn't want us to continue our lives in it. 

God gave us 10 basic commands:

How to love God:

1. Worship no god but the Lord.

2. Make no images to worship.

3. Do not use God’s name for evil purposes.

4. Observe God’s day of rest.

How to love your neighbor:

5. Respect your father and mother.

6. Do not commit murder.

7. Do not commit adultery.

8. Do not steal.

9. Do not accuse anyone falsely.

10. Do not desire another man’s wife or what he owns.

We should love God and others extravagantly 

Looking at the theme of the Ten Commandments, it is clear that we were made for love, both giving love and receiving love to God and to the people we interact with. The first four commands tell us to relate to God and the other six tells us how to live with our neighbors.

1 John 4:9  God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 

1 John 4:11  Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

God didn't just demand love as a way of life for his children, he also gave us the ultimate example of how extreme we are too love. I was his enemy and with just cause, I was rotten to the core, the most unholy and undeserving of his affection but that didn't stop him from loving me extravagantly.

If I love God then it should show in how I live, Jesus told us that one of the ways to prove that we have experienced God's love is that we will love our neighbors, that's how the world will know who God's children really are and that's how he will get the glory he deserves.

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Christ Died for Our Sins That We Might Die to Sin (desiringgod.org)

Perfect Gifts: Love

Love is the best gift of all!

John 3:16  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8  But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Colossians 1:19  For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,

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Have you ever thought about how amazing God's love is?

God's love is great enough to love a rebellious sinner that fails to acknowledge him as God and give him the love and respect that he deserves. I don't love him as well as he deserves and he doesn't love me how well I deserve to be loved either. He loves me far better than I deserve.

God loves me so much that he has done everything that he can do to give me the option of spending eternity with him. He left the splendor of heaven and come to earth to suffer and die just because of his perfect love.

There was not any other motivation for God to send us his son on that first Christmas night other than his love for us! After thousands of years of rebellion he is still loving mankind and offering us a path forward to live with him for eternity.

We can learn a lot about how to love better by following his example. God was willing to become a vulnerable little child whose life was threatened, born into poverty and used for selfish gain by the crowds around him.

He showed us how to love despite the reaction of the people that we are giving love to. So what if the love doesn't come back to you, according to our example, we are still supposed to show love, Jesus endured a lot of abuse and he never stopped loving us.

1 Corinthians 13:13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

There are a lot of gifts being passed around this time of year, some of them small and inexpensive, some of them are creating a lot of debt, but their is a gift that will top them all. The only priceless gift that creates a huge debt that you should be giving is the gift of love that we have received from God.

Thank you Lord for really loving us and giving us the definition of love so that we can know how to truly love others completely.

Help Us To Love

God help me to love the way that you love me.

Video: Tori Kelly - Help Us To Love

There's a love so high (that you cannot get over)

That same love's so wide (it'll take forever just to get 'round it)

But love died somewhere

Behind that cross you wear, you're afraid when you look at me

That ain't real love

Not the kind from above, hmm

But there's a friend of mine (that stays closer than a brother)

Oooh, love laid down his life (so why do we still fight one another?)

All this hate I see on the TV screen

In my country 'tis of thee

(God help us to love) to love the way that you love me

Hmmm, God help us to love the way that you love me, oh oh

This world is weeping, hurting, broken and begging for change

Oh yeah

But still we marching, praying, dying, and things stay the same

When will we see?

Till everyone's free

There'll never be peace between you and me

God, your love is the cure

For the rich and the poor

God, please will you open our eyes?

'Cause I want a love so high (that you cannot get over)

Ooh, I want a love so wide (it'll take forever just to get 'round it)

No, no, no, no, no

But it don't come cheap

It takes everything to make love more than a dream

God help us to love (God help us to love)

God help us to love (this world needs your love)

We need your love (what we need now is love)

Fill us with your love, Lord (unconditional love)

We need your love (rain down on us, your love)

Oh, we need your love (fill us please with your love)

God help me to love the way that you love me

God's Love Must Be Shared

2 Corinthians 5:14-15  Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.  15  He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. 1 Peter 4:8  Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. Hebrews 6:10-11  For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do.  11  Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true.

Revolutionary

When did hate become so ordinary?

Video: Josh Wilson - Revolutionary

Maybe you're not like me

Maybe we don't agree

Maybe that doesn't mean

We gotta be enemies

Maybe we just get brave

Take a big leap of faith

Call a truce so me and you

Can find a better way

Let's take some time, open our eyes, look and listen, yeah

And we're gonna find we're more alike than we are different, yeah

Why does kindness seem revolutionary

When did we let hate get so ordinary

Let's turn it around, flip the script

Judge slow, love quick

God help us get revolutionary

I'm turning the TV down

Drowning their voices out

'Cause I believe that you and me

Can find some common ground

See maybe I'm not like you

But I'll walk a mile in your shoes

If it means I might see

The world the way you do

Let's take some time, open our eyes, look and listen

And we're gonna find we're more alike than we are different

What would Jesus do

He would love first

He would love first, hmm

What would Jesus do

He would love first

Yeah, He would love first

So we should love first

John 13:34-35 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

Jesus, Friend Of Sinners

Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers.

Video: Casting Crowns - Jesus, Friend of Sinners

Jesus, friend of sinners, we have strayed so far away

We cut down people in your name but the sword was never ours to swing

Jesus, friend of sinners, the truth's become so hard to see

The world is on their way to You but they're tripping over me

Always looking around but never looking up I'm so double minded

A plank eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners

Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers

Let our hearts be led by mercy

Help us reach with open hearts and open doors

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours

Jesus, friend of sinners, the one who's writing in the sand

Make the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands

Help us to remember we are all the least of thieves

Let the memory of Your mercy bring Your people to their knees

No one knows what we're for only against when we judge the wounded

What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and loved like You did

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners

Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers

Let our hearts be led by mercy

Help us reach with open hearts and open doors

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast

For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that You came

Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast

But you died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet

'Cause You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever

You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever

You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever

You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners

Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers

Let our hearts be led by mercy

Help us reach with open hearts and open doors

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks Yours

And I was the lost 'cause and I was the outcast

You died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet

Best Friend Ever
Luke 15:7  In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!