Never A Love Like This

It has been a good week.
It has been a hard week.
For me, I have struggled with a crisis of conscience and confidence.
"Am I doing what I am suppose to be doing?"
or....
"Have I drifted away from the original call I first heard?"
After spending too much time with these thoughts, I did some serious praying.
I'm kind of crazy like this, but I believe that everything we do is not meant to be forever.
I have always felt that we should live our lives to be ready to change under God's direction and the leading of His Holy Spirit.
I use to tell others that "We should live with a suitcase packed, sitting by the front door so that when God tells us to go, we are ready."
I think far too many people who are followers of Jesus, get saved and then spend the vast amount of their energy trying to make a comfortable life for themselves. Jesus becomes kind of a safety net for when things get hard or we run into a crisis.

Jesus is a gift.
He gave of himself for me.
He took my sin....
All my sin....
Took it upon himself and walked to a cross willingly, knowing full well the implications of that cross.
The cross meant death.
You didn't compromise with the cross, you only submitted.
Jesus did just that.
On the surface, it looked like Jesus was guilty and deserving of the cross.
He wasn't.
I was.
I was born under the penalty and presence of sin.
But the love that rules from heaven looked down on His creation and could not bear the thought of them dying without an answer to the sin question.

He looked down and saw every vile deed I ever committed.
He looked down and heard every blasphemous word I ever spoke.
He looked down and felt the anger I had for Him.
Even in all of this, He still loved me.
He saw every drink taken....
Every pill swallowed....
Every bed that was defiled outside of marriage....
He still loved us.
It was this love that was stretched out on the wood of Calvary's cross.
It was this love that reached out to me with the gift of salvation and eternal life.
It was this love that broke the power and penalty of sin so that we could be restored to right standing with God....
And in this right standing, have an eternal relationship with Him and He with us.

Never ever since the beginning of time has there been a love like this.
A love that encompasses the entire world, and is not bound by prejudice or hatred.
The love of God.
............For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.......
That is a promise that has stretched down through the years.
It has not lost its purpose or its power to save.
The devil can't stop it.
Men cannot move it.
Time won't diminish it.
It is the love of God.
Why not receive it today.

It will cancel hatred that burns in your heart.
It will remove guilt and shame.
It will bring healing to you....physically, emotionally and most of all......spiritually.
It is the love of God.
......God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.....

God on you.....
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Last nights Bible study at Rapha saw 9 men saved.
Please pray for these men as they begin this new life and journey with Christ.
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