GOD DESIRES YOU....1 Peter 1:20

And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear;  knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,  but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.  He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you  who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.--1 Peter 1:17-20

Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,

This passage both comforts me and strengthens my faith.  God's plan of sending His Son into the world to die for our sins was NOT set into motion because the world somehow spun out of our God's control.  Nope.  Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.  God knows all things and in His foreknowledge He knew that man, when He created him, would fail and make the wrong choices. He knew that the price of our redemption would be the shed blood of His Son on a cross.  And yet, God created us...you and me...to have a meaningful, intimate relationship with Him anyway.  That is and has always been His desire.  Wow!!  Despite the cost!! That should stop you in your tracks and drop you down to your knees in worship.  God desires a relationship with you!  With me!

God  gave man the capacity to choose because without choice man becomes a robot.  How much fun is it to have a relationship with a robot.  It will obey you...but..you know...it has to.   Think on the meaningful relationships in your lives.  How much depth is there because you know they want to be with you...it is their desire to know you and spend time with you. You cannot have this kind of relationship with a robot....in fact, you really can't have a relationship with a robot at all.

Our relationships in this world are shadows of the relationship our God wants to have with us.  I loved my Grandmother with all my heart.  I had a significant relationship with her.  I remember waiting in front of the living room window as a child looking down the street waiting to see my "Nana" become a speck on the horizon.  When she appeared...there was such joy in my heart.  Why...because I knew she was coming...walking from her house a few miles away to be with me...to spend time with me....because she loved me.   God wants to have that kind of relationship with us.  He wants us to want to spend time with Him.  He wants nothing from us that reeks of obligation.  He wants our hearts desire to be for Him.  He wants our obedience to Him to be freely given not compelled. 

My grandmother had the choice to love me or not.  She had the choice to forge the relationship or not. She did not come and see me because she had to...she came to see me because she wanted to.  I carry that with me always.  I was important to her.  My relationship with my God is the same way...I sit with Him and His word in the morning...I wait for His direction and guidance.  I look to Him in everything and trust Him with my very life.  He died for me when I was still a sinner...I can trust Him to see me through my journey here on earth.  Here is what it says in Romans 8.


What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword--Romans 8:31-35


We are so important to God that He redeemed us with the precious blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. You can choose to love God or hate God.  Some even choose to pretend to love Him...but that also involves a choice.  He is waiting for you to choose...His desire is for you to be in fellowship with Him now and for all eternity. Your choice.

Love
Mom



Ephesians 1: 3-14 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,  to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace  which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,  having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself,  that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.  In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,  that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,  who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.