GREENE STREET LETTERS: His Love

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

His Love

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

The word love conjures up all kinds of syrupy images, doesn't it?
A young boy and girl walking down the beach at sunset, holding hands, listening to their song. Staring intently into each others eyes, carrying on a heart conversation. Or maybe it's an elderly couple sitting on a park bench. The man reaches over to take her hand and hold it. There in that touch...that brief moment of contact...a lifetime of emotion and dedication to each other is reaffirmed and made more sure.

Love is the expression found on a mother's face as she holds her newborn. Nothing else matters at that moment. It is as if the entire world has simply stopped while these two commune in a language as old as creation itself.
Funny thing is that the world has laid hold of the word "love" and boiled it down to define a sexual act that takes place between two people.

A word that was formed and shaped in the heart of God, because that it is what God truly is....love...has been attacked and attempted to be waylaid by society in order to reshape, reform and define it as something other than how God defines it. Well.....we don't get to play that game. We don't get to take the things of God and redefine them in order to suit our own personal lusts and desires.

The love of God reaches out to those who don't want to be reached. It reaches out to those who live their lives in the shadows and back alley's of this world. This love that comes from God is an ever reaching, every calling force that seeks to draw people out of the bondage of sin, into the freedom and life that comes from accepting the work and the person of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter how many "question marks" fill you life or your mind....the Master's love is a wrecking ball that will break through them all.

I John 4:9
In this the LOVE of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
God has seen us...
He has rightfully determined that left to our own ability and intellect (all wrapped up under the influence and power of sin) we were hopeless and incapable of saving ourselves from our sin debt that each of us owe.

God knew that the only way for us to retain relationship with Him was for our sin debt to be paid in full. A sacrifice was to be made on our behalf.
Jesus became that sacrifice. His death on the cross paid our sin debt (as well was the sin debt for every human ever born) and opened a way for us to move back into relationship with God. Jesus came to die for me...for you...for all of humanity.

How could such a thing take place?
How could a deity that stands outside of time and space have such concern for His creation?
Simple....
God is love.
I John 4:16
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God IS Love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Here again, the love that motivates God to reach out to us is not of this world. It is a pure, holy love that has not been tainted by sin. It is a love that is so powerful nothing in this world can stop it. Such power and love has targeted the hearts of all mankind, and yet we still run from Him. We cower in the darkness bound up by our own sin/addiction that lies to us. Does this mean that our sin/addiction is able to stop this pure, holy love God sends? No, and again I say, "No!".

Romans 8:35
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Romans 8:37-39
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels not principalities nor power, nor things present nor thing to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today realize that God's love is all around you...
You walk in it every day.
You go about your business every day while it surrounds you.
Take a moment...still yourself and ask God to let you experience this love.
Ask Him to wrap you in it and let it soak down to your innermost being.
Then accept Him and His love.
Now that's some kind of good....

God on you...
mb

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Looking At The World Through Cracked Lens

As ol' Paul wrote in his Corinthian letters.."We see in part and we know in part." Now what piece of this bit of wisdom do we not get? I wish to not run around acting and trying to be some sort of Biblical G00-Ru (I meant to spell it wrong). Or a sage of sages.

I simply want to be able to communicate some of what God has given to me. Why? Do I think what I get is better than what you may have received from Him? Nope. But I do think encouragement comes when we share our daily story of struggle and victory in an effort to encourage each other.

Thanks for letting me share.

Time to soldier on..

mbb

Our Statement of Faith

We believe that God is the eternal king. He is an infinite, unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love. From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons of one substance, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit equal in power and glory. we believe that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness and God's judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original sin. Human beings are born into sin, subject to God's judgment of death and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness. We believe that Jesus, God's Son, was sent to this world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Mary, fully God and fully man in one person. He is humanity as God intended us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, ushering in God's kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. Jesus' atoning death on the cross took God's judgment for sin which we deserved as law-breakers. Jesus' resurrection and ascent back to heaven opened the door for those who received salvation to begin a relationship with God.

Little Nets Into Deep Waters

Fishing nets were designed for one purpose only. To catch fish. Nets are no good if they stay on the boat. Nets serve no purpose if they are never used. I think maybe God sees us this way. We are all created for a purpose (by the way, the creator gets to define what our purpose is). Any other use besides the one we were created for does us no good. But when the creator places His hands upon us, casting us out into those scary, dark places with deep waters, it is then we can see the reality of our purpose. He knew there would be a catch waiting for us. I think I will be the net God has called me to be.

The Twelve Steps

As a community of people in recovery, we affirm that our higher power is Jesus Christ. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Just as God told the children of Israel He was going to give them a promised land, He has revealed to us that He desires to give us a "Promised Life." When Israel got to the promised land, God instructed them to go and in a possess it, fight for it and claim it. In recovery, the 12 Steps are the directions given to us on how to fight, possess and claim this promised life.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

His Love

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THE REALITY OF THE NAME OF GOD