In
studying and praying about what I should write next here, I came to the
conclusion some things I had already taken on faith. I knew that I knew, but never tried writing
it out before. So after studying faith, grace,
love and mercy further, I found that I could spend years on these topics
alone. Of course, the most important
thing was where to start. I decided to
start with how we relate to God and how He wishes to relate to us.
Sure
the Bible is full of rules God gave us for how to live, but the truth is we
cannot follow them on our own power. We
need His help. He is willing to help if
we believe in Him and ask. Without faith
in who God is, we cannot even access what He has for us.
His
love is unconditional in all this. John
3:16 is well known by many, which states:
For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
have eternal life. (NIV) He sent
Jesus to be our example and the only way to Him, knowing we needed the
help. He did not want us with our free
will to be lost to sin, but have a way to climb on out of the mire. This demonstrates how unconditional His love
is and is stated in Roman’s 5:8. But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (NIV)
Why
bother doing this other than for love?
He could have just as easily remedied this some other way. He would have never had this issue if he had
decided to make us automatically do His Will without question. However, we were given free will in order to
chose to believe Him or not. We have
free will so we have the choice of returning His love or not. He wants us to respond to Him freely and as
unconditionally as He has to us and will continue to when we call out to Him in
faith.
His
grace gives us what we do not deserve; what we cannot earn with our own
power. His mercy makes sure we do not
get what we truly deserve for our sins.
So no matter what we have done or how bad we think we are, God has given
us a way to connect with Him and His great love. All we have to do is believe in Jesus, who He
sent to show us the way and the truth.
God’s love towards us is about this reconciliation that He has made
available. 2 Corinthians 5:19 says, that God was reconciling the world to
himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed
to us the message of reconciliation.
(NIV)
Jesus
told His disciples they were friends, not just servants in John 15:13-15. Greater
love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I
command. I no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called
you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to
you. (NIV) God, through the power available in Jesus, wants us to know Him
better and act more like Him, but will not force us to. Sure, like any loving parent, He will
definitely let us know when we are off track, but He does love us enough to let
us step out and learn even if it means we make a mistake or two.
Being
a Christian is not about going through the ritualistic motions correctly and
being in church on Sunday. It is about us
having faith in God so we can access His love, grace and mercy as a
friend. Our faith allows us to learn who
He really is and how to properly apply His amazing grace to life knowing He is
there for every step, wrong or right. It
is a relationship that grows over time as we learn about Him and lean more upon
Him.
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