God's Love to us

I just got home from my trip to Maryland to visitmy son. We have been praying for my son and we all know that a favorable outcome has been delivered by God in answer to our prayers. The charges against my son were dropped that is what we were praying for and God delivered, that is great all by itself, but there is more, which is usually the case when God does something, He displays His Sovereignty beyond what we can even imagine, Derrick was told he can come back to work tonight, he was suspended pending the outcome of his trial. He was also told that he would be paid for the time that he was suspended. That is the part that was beyond what we were thinking. Some may thing that all this would have happened anyway - nothing happens anyway - God is in control and we should use this as a point of reference to remeber when difficult comes again in any of our lives (and it will) we can always remember and point back to when God has already moved...Again thank everyone for your prayers.

"I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them'  John 17:26

"I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me"  John 17:23

Behold as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress. so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us  Psalm 123:2

The whole Bible is about God's love to us. The fact that God provides salvation is mercy. The fact that God loves us is mercy. My heart is overwhelmed - God has moved in our midst - that is part of it but how did God display His love throughout this whole ordeal. To start with I had been looking at the Romans 14:17 which states: for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. I was wondering on the part about joy in the Holy Spirit - I thought I was getting a handle on it but it came to me when I was driving back from Maryland yesterday and Derrick and Evelyn called me as I was driving and we talked about God moving. Now me and Derrick had been talking before I left for hours about the Lord. And as we talked on the phone the mercy of God overwhelmed me and I told Evelyn the main thing out of this was that Derrick is saved, he belongs to Christ. As I spoke those words I could see the way Derrick was talking about the Lord, his intensity and excitement and that's when I expereinced the joy of the Holy Spirit, He pressed on my heart that my son is saved - Jesus told the disciples when they came back from casting out demons and healing the sick and they were excited that they had the power to do those things, but Jesus said dont be glad that the spirits are subject to you but that your name's are written in the Lamb's book of life.
(emphasis)  That is the bottom line - salvation we must be saved - we must saved. It is my fear that the brand of Christianity that is being displayed by the world is a counterfeit Christianity it is a Christ-less Christianity and instead of saving it damns. It is a Christianity that says your life does not have to change, you can still do what the world does and be saved. My prayer is that all of my family is geniuenly saved, because Christ is real, Heaven is real and Hell is real.

We just have to read the seriousness of our Lord's words "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than your whole body go into hell.
Matthew 5:30

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7: 13-14

Whoever loves loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37-38

Biblical salvation is worked in us by God's grace alone and that same grace thats saves you also trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright lives in the present age (see Titus 2:11-12)
We can not save ourselves we cant work it in ourselves either God has done a work in you or He has not. We are urged by God to examine ourselves to see if He has.

Romans 8:16 The Spirit of God testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.  How does the Spirit usually do this - with the Word of God. When you are prayerfully reading the word of God, the Spirit who wrote the word of God comes and testifies that this word is true, he does not speak in a voice He uses the Word to speak to us. This is one way to examine ourselves, the Word of God is important if we dont read it, if we dont get it in us, how can we have the Spirit of God in us??? and have no desire to read His Word.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Matthew 4:4 Thats how important God thinks the Word is to us.  But this is the point we all miss - "And anyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be a foolish man who built his house on the sand. Matthew 7:26  James says its not the hearer of the word that is justified but the doer of it.

Listen to this "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force."  Matthew 11:12  This is speaking about our heart attitude Jesus spoke about doing whatever it takes to aviod sin and get into the kingdom. The voilent take it by force means to me that God's word is impossible to do in our own strength, sooner or later, we must come to that conclusion, and when we do and when we really want to obey Him, we realize that God wants us to acknowledge our weakness, and humble ourselves and pray for His divine help, we must be serious. How do you use violence to get it, we pray, and pray, we plead and plead with tears and weeping, begging God to give us His strength, to hold us up because we are weak and we are prone to fall. I get that because that is what Jesus did: Hebrews 5:7 says this: In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears to him, who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.  That is an amazing scripture!! if that is the way Christ did it, its the way im going to do it!! We should ask ourselveshave you ever wanted to pleas the Father so much that you hid away from everyone so you could plead with God in tears and anguish, realizing your weakness, pleading with the Father to give you divine aid. That is aiming violence toward the kingdom of God, tears and pleading prayers, a broken and contrite spirit, God says He lives with those. I would encourage everyone who reads this to take Hebrews 5:7 and get in your prayer closet and take it to the Lord and ask the Lord to make it real in you, so that you will have the desire to please the Father like Jesus did. That you will humble yourself before God because of the great love that He has shown by providing salvation.