God loves you wether you are behaving like His beloved, holy child or if you are throwing a MMI tantrum like that old, Prideful person we used to be.
“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Ps 139:16 NIV
God’s Love never changes towards us, even when He must allow us to reap the consequences of our own foolishness. Again, this never means that sin is ok. If your attitude is, “Well, God loves me, so I can do whatever I feel like doing,” then you are missing what Love is all about. Just because God knows “all our days,” does not mean He approves of them all. When we are being stubborn, when we are being selfish, when we are demanding our way instead of wanting to submit and follow His, it is God’s Love that allows us to get into trouble. You see, God hopes that we will realize we cannot live the Abundant Life apart from Him, since He is the Source of that Life, and when we finally do come to our senses, He hopes we will run back into His waiting arms and begin to choose His way over our own.
Please understand, sin is never ok. If you are not sure, spend some time today gazing upon the Cross. Sin did that. No. We did that. Because every single human has chosen to sin in one way or another, God had to send Jesus to pay the penalty for our wickedness. If we just begin to grasp the deep sacrifice the Father made, the Son gave and the Holy Spirit offers, then we would want to stay away from sin as much as our level of maturity will allow. Just because God already knew the wrong we would do, does not give us license to continue doing it. But here’s a lovely thought, God also knew the good we would do too!
Join me in memorizing 52 verses this year:
January: 1- Jn 3:16; 2- 2Co 5:17; 3- Jas 2:26; 4- Eph 2:10
February: 5- Jn 10:10; 6- Ro 6:23; 7- Rev 21:4; 8- Php 4:13
March: 9- 1Pe 5:7; 10- Jn 8:32; 11- Dt 30:19; 12- Jn 3:30; 13- 2Chron 20:3
April: 14- 2Chron 20:12; 15- 2Chron 20:15b; 16- 2Chron 20:17
May: 17- Ro 8:28; 18- 1Co 13:13; 19- Php 2:12; 20- Mt 5:4
June: 21- Lk 23:42; 22- Jas 4:7; 23- Pr 22:6; 24- Mt 5:3; 25- Jn 14:6
July: 26- Jas 2:19; 27- Dt 31:8; 28- Jn 14:15; 29- Jn 8:11
August: 30- Ro 8:1; 31- Pr 4:23; 32- Pr 18:21; 33- Ps 118:24; 34- 1Jn 4:4
September: 35- Mt 16:24; 36- Isa 53:6; 37- Ps 23:1-6
October: 38- Heb 4:12; 39- Jn 15:5
40- Jas 5:16
41- 1Jn 3:1
42- 1Jn 5:12
43- 1Jn 3:3
44- Ps 139:16
<>< Peace, Diane
