ETERNAL LOVE

Posted 2/16/2013

THE LOVE OF GOD

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SCRIPTURE:  ROMANS 5:5-8; ROMANS 8:38-39

• Ro 5:5 We’re not ashamed to have this confidence, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

• Ro 5:8 Christ died for us while we were still sinners. This demonstrates God’s love for us.

• Ro 8:38 I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. {The last part of verse 39 (in Greek) has been moved to verse 38 to express the complex Greek sentence structure more clearly in English.} We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces

DEVOTIONAL: ETERNAL LOVE

We cannot imagine how awesome the love of God is toward us. Romans 5:8 explains that Christ died for us while we were actively pursuing sin and being pursued by sin. Our motives were based on selfishness and not righteousness. We were willful sinners.  God chose to demonstrate His love for us by sending his Son to pay the price of sin on the cruel cross. Would you have stayed faithful to the mission of rescuing those who did not love you? I don’t know about you but I think I would have lost it when I was spit on and beaten and gang punched. How amazing that love is and how can we doubt it. It is through Jesus we find true love. This is a love that does not fade and we cannot be separated from it by:

·        Death

·        Life

·        Anything present

·        Anything in the future

·        Forces of demonic attack

Prayer Thought: Dear Jesus thank you for pouring God’s love into our heart. We so need you in our hearts and we praise you for your eternal love. Let us live demonstrating your love to our fellow man. Amen

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LOVING GOD

Posted 2/15/2013

DEVOTIONAL SERIES ON LOVING GOD

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SCRIPTURE: DEUTERONOMY 6: 5-9 

• 5 Love GOD, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you; love him with all you’ve got!
• 6 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you
• 7 and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night.
• 8 Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder;
• 9 inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

DEVOTIONAL:   “LOVING GOD”

Let us consider the essential of relationship with God. We are commanded that the foundation is to love the Lord our God. The question is, “How”?? Let us listen carefully to the answer and think about it in the next few minutes. The instruction given includes the answer in verse 5. We are commanded to love Him with our whole heart. Notice there no such thing as part time love of God. Neither is there a stop and go angle in loving God. Certainly there is not a halfway effort. Verse urges to love Him with all that is in us and with all the strength we have. This means one hundred percent action employed in committing our love to Him. As a coach I never asked my team for a little effort to be extended on the contest field but to give every last ounce of effort and to go far beyond the comfort zone. That is what God expects of us. We need to step outside the door of convenience and venture forward in active Love of God. This means absolute faith that God is with us and will keep His promises toward us. Let us realize we are on a mission here and our home is faraway on a golden shore; we are here on a mission for our God and King. The first job we need to attend to is to write these commandments on our hearts and then teach them to our children. Let our conversation be about loving God. Dear Jesus help us to increase our Love for You today. Amen.   

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CONFIRMING YOUR LOVE OF GOD

Posted 2/14/2013

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

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SCRIPTURE: I JOHN 4:7-13

• 7 ¶ My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God.
• 8 The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love.
• 9 This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.
• 10 This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
• 11 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.
• 12 No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
• 13 This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit.

DEVOTIONAL:CONFIRMING YOUR LOVE OF GOD

How does the world know you love God? The scriptures today give a solid answer to that question. Here are the proponents of true love.

• 1.Love is a continuous flow of loving each other. No stop and go actions.
• 2.Love is an outflow of valid relationship with God.
• 3.Love begins on Gods initiative; God loved us first and sent His Son to be a sacrifice for our sin. It is not His will that any should perish so He provided a way for our sins to be forgiven and relationship restored.
• 4. As we love others God love completes the cycle and is perfected in us.
• 5.We know we live because His love has given us life with a capital “L” that overflows in us through His Spirit. Love rules in our life. Dear Jesus let your love show in us by our love of others. Amen

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REAL LIFE

Posted 2/11/2013

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE – “REAL LIFE”

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SCRIPTURE: I JOHN 2: 12-17

• 12 ¶  I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name.
• 13  You veterans were in on the ground floor, and know the One who started all this; you newcomers have won a big victory over the Evil One. And a second reminder, dear children: You know the Father from personal experience.
• 14  You veterans know the One who started it all; and you newcomers—such vitality and strength! God’s word is so steady in you. Your fellowship with God enables you to gain a victory over the Evil One.
• 15  Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.
• 16  Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.
• 17  The world and all it’s wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

DEVOTIONAL: CAUTIONARY WORDS

All of us need reminders from time to time. In this scripture we have a list of reminders about the essentials of Christian living. Number 1 reminder is the foundation of living the Christian life.

• •Don’t forget your sins are forgiven and victory is yours over the evil one through a personal experience with the Father. You can’t get this by just living well or by being baptized or church membership. Those things are simply follow through after initially receiving Jesus. This enables the victory chant: “Jesus is mine and He lives in my heart.”
• •Fellowship with God is the enabler of victory in your life. Getting to know God by fellowship with him via prayer, Bible Reading, and sharing Christ with others. Once a week church attendance is not the essential of fellowship.
• •Two loves to avoid is (1) world ways, (2) world goods, only God is the provider of good.
• •Wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, and wanting to appear important has nothing to do with Father but brings isolation.
• •The world is on its way out but living in Jesus sets us for eternity through Jesus who is the very propitiation for our sin. Living for Jesus is making life REAL.
• •In the earlier chapters we were cautioned to forgive and to love others as God loves us.

PRAYER THOUGHT: Dear Jesus increase our love and ability to forgive others as proof that we love and live in you. May our obedience and actions be our token of proof. Amen

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WHO DO YOU BELONG TO?

Posted 2/10/2013

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

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SCRIPTURE: 2 PETER 2: 20-29

• 20 ¶ But you belong. The Holy One anointed you, and you all know it.

• 21 I haven’t been writing this to tell you something you don’t know, but to confirm the truth you do know, and to remind you that the truth doesn’t breed lies.

• 22 So who is lying here? It’s the person who denies that Jesus is the Divine Christ, that’s who. This is what makes an antichrist: denying the Father, denying the Son.

• 23 No one who denies the Son has any part with the Father, but affirming the Son is an embrace of the Father as well.
• 
  
• 24 Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message. Let it sink into your life. If what you heard from the beginning lives deeply in you, you will live deeply in both Son and Father.

• 25 This is exactly what Christ promised: eternal life, real life!

• 26 I’ve written to warn you about those who are trying to deceive you.

• 27 But they’re no match for what is embedded deeply within you—Christ’s anointing, no less! You don’t need any of their so-called teaching. Christ’s anointing teaches you the truth on everything you need to know about yourself and him, uncontaminated by a single lie. Live deeply in what you were taught.

• 28 ¶ And now, children, stay with Christ. Live deeply in Christ. Then we’ll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives.

• 29 Once you’re convinced that he is right and righteous, you’ll recognize that all who practice righteousness are God’s true children.

DEVOTIONAL: “WHO DO YOU BELONG TO”???

Can you say, “I belong to God”? As we begin 2013 it is imperative that you know Jesus the Son of God and the only door to salvation. It feels good to belong and it is lonely and painful not to have that security of knowing you are saved. If you are depending on anything else like good works, church membership or attendance to make heaven then please read these verses again. Concentrate on the essentials of salvation. It starts with confession of who Jesus is. (vv23 & 24). You can have eternal and real life through Christ. (vv. 24). You can have Christ’s anointing, stay with Christ, Live deeply in him. The biggest event in your life will be when Christ returns so be ready to welcome Him.

PRAYER THOUGHT: Thank you Christ for redemption paying for my sins. Will you pray today and claim his as your Savior and Lord. He loves you and is your passport to heaven. Today is the day for salvation.

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TIC-TOCK

Posted 2/2/2013

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SCRIPTURE: 1 JOHN 2: 7-17 (The Message Translation)

• 7 ¶ my dear friends, I’m not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you’ve known it from day one. It’s always been implicit in the Message you’ve heard.
• 8 On the other hand, perhaps it is new, freshly minted as it is in both Christ and you—the darkness on its way out and the True Light already blazing!
• 9 Anyone who claims to live in God’s light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark.
• 10 It’s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God’s light and doesn’t block the light from others.
• 11 But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn’t know which end is up, blinded by the darkness.
• 12 ¶ I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name.
• 15 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.
• 16 Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.
• 17 The world and all it’s wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

DEVOTIONAL:  

                                  TIC-TOCK

The oldest commandment in the book is; “Love One Another” God has not changed that nor has He made it an option. There is no double life in Christianity. You cannot hate a brother or a sister and love God. Either you are in the light resulting in loving on another or you are in the dark, resulting in being a hater! Here is a reminder list of actions because you are in the Light.

• 1.Your sins are forgiven. (vv 12)
• 2.Don’t love the world or the world’s ways. 
• 3.Love of the world and its goods or wanting to appear important squeezes out Love for the Father.
• 4.Whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.(vv. 17)
• 5.The world is on its way out. Prepare to meet God!

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BENEFITS OF CONFESSION

Posted 2/1/2013

BENEFITS OF CONFESSION

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SCRIPTURES: 1 JOHN 1:3-8  

• 3  We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.
• 4 Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
• 5 ¶ This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
• 6 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim.
• 7 But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
• 8 ¶ If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense.
• 9 On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.

DEVOTIONAL:  “WILL YOU CONFESS?”

Mankind has a spiritual sickness that if untreated results in being bound in Hell for eternity. Would you move to a residence that all the neighbors had records of molesters, murderers, robbers, and dope dealers, angry men consumed by evil, rapist and mass murderers? The truth of the matter is that if you don’t confess your sin and confess Jesus as the Christ and the way of eternal life then you are headed to such a place for eternity. It is imperative that you make your decision while you are alive. After physical death no amount of praying can save you and it’s too late to choose Christ. This is not a scare tactic but merely the truth. My prayer for you is that if you have not asked Jesus into your life that you bow your head and confess you are a sinner and ask him into your heart. Verse 9 tells us “He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.


PRAYER THOUGHT: Dear Jesus I confess my sin and I need you to forgive me and purge me of all wrongdoing. Amen

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