Choose Love (5 page)

Holiness brings wholeness. God’s holiness in you makes you whole. When you open up to His love, you become a vessel into which He pours Himself. So don’t fall for the lie that you can never attain the holiness described in God’s Word. You can’t attain it by yourself, but with God you most certainly can.

You Must Know God Is Unchanging

“
Changeable” is our middle name without God’s Spirit in us giving us an anchor in our heart, soul, and spirit. We are capable of changing by the minute. You know how some people can be nice one moment and raging lunatics the next? We are all changeable—perhaps not generally to that extent—no matter how solid we may appear at the moment. I’ve seen the most stable person I know in the Lord change into someone who acts as though he doesn’t know God at all. And it happened because he thought he couldn’t fail. He became influenced by people who did not know God because he did not stay strong in the things he once knew about God.

God never changes. You can depend on that. The psalmist said to God, “You are the same, and Your years will have no end” (Psalm 102:27).

God has always been and will always be.

It’s hard for us to grasp the concept of always being. We cannot imagine anyone who was not created and didn’t have a beginning.

We
have
not always been
. But we
will always be
. The important question is, w
here
will we always be? And
who will
we always be
with
?

God is eternal. And we are given the choice to either spend eternity
with
Him or
apart
from Him. When we make the decision to walk
with
Him, our eternal future is secure. That does not change because
He
does not change. When you walk with God, you are always walking into the future He has for you.

You Must Know God Is All-Powerful and Nothing Is Impossible for Him

The power of God is greater than the power of the greatest hurricane, flood, tornado, earthquake, or tsunami. “
The L
ORD
on high is mightier than the noise of many waters
, than the mighty waves of the sea” (Psalm 93:4). “
The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the L
ORD
, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth” (Psalm 97:5).

One of the greatest things about God is that He shares Himself with
you
.
And that means He shares His power
.
But you are empowered only as you give place to God’s love working in your life
.

Don’t let your mind be swayed into questioning that.

God is all-powerful. That means nothing is impossible for Him where you are concerned. You may be facing impossible circumstances and cannot see a way
out
, but God can. He can also see a way
through
. Don’t doubt that. Don’t think you have to turn to the dark side in difficult times. That is one of the biggest lies the enemy will use against you. Know where your power source is found and do not seek another. In God you have access to all the power you will ever need to live the life He has for you.

You Must Know God Owns Everything and Knows What You Need

Because God created everything, that means He owns everything, which is more than enough for what you and I need. God said, “Every beast of the forest is Mine, and
the cattle on a thousand hills…
the world is Mine, and all its fullness” (Psalm 50:10,12).

David said, “The earth is the L
ORD
’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1). Everything in our world, including us, belongs to God.

God shows His love by giving the earth to us. “The heaven, even the heavens, are the L
ORD
’s;
but the earth He has given to the children of men
” (Psalm 115:16). Still, He wants us to look to Him to be our Provider.

Jesus said, “
Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him
” (Matthew 6:8). God knows what you need, and He is more than able to supply everything you need, but He wants you to come to Him in prayer and ask. God is always all about a relationship with you. He is not interested in being Santa Claus or your personal sugar daddy. God hears your prayers and answers them when you pray from a pure heart that loves Him.

When we don’t know Him well, or at all, we often don’t understand His answers. We think that if He doesn’t answer in the way
we prayed, then He didn’t hear. Prayer is not dictating to God and telling Him what to do. It is partnering with God in every aspect of your life.

Understand that no matter what anyone says to the contrary, God renews and replenishes the earth
.

This may be a shock for the predictors of doom. If we were to live God’s way instead of thinking we know better than God, we would not run out of whatever we need. When we do evil, God hides His face from us (Psalm 104:29). But when we live His way, He replenishes the earth (Psalm 104:30).

Don’t let fear of not having enough cause you to doubt that God will provide. Continue to seek Him for provision for your life. He is your Provider, and He has all you need.

You Must Know God Is All-Seeing

God sees everything at all times. Nothing you think or do is hidden from Him. He sees where you are and where you’re going. He also sees where you are
supposed
to be going and how to get you there. “There is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known” (Matthew 10:26). “O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You” (Psalm 69:5).

God doesn’t keep a record of all you do in order to embarrass you at some later date, or to hold it over your head as a threat, or to have a case against you so you can be punished. He does it because He loves you. He even sees the tears you shed. David said, “You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” (Psalm 56:8).

God knows you better than you know yourself. He sees the enemy’s plans for your destruction, and when He hears your prayers He sees His answers to them long before you do. Don’t think that God does not see your pain, struggle, fear, and circumstances. His eye is on you and He watches over you. He is with you as long as you are with Him.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, I long to know You better. Teach me all about You. I know I cannot begin to comprehend Your greatness without Your opening my eyes, enlarging my heart and mind, and giving me revelation. “O L
ORD
my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, who stretch out the heavens like a curtain” (Psalm 104:1-2). Help me to understand all that You are so that I can grow ever deeper in my walk with You.

Enable me to comprehend all that You do. Help me to remember at all times that You never change. You are who You are, and no lies of the enemy can alter that in any way. “Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting” (Psalm 93:2). “You, L
ORD
, are most high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods” (Psalm 97:9). I pray that the essence and character of who You are will transform me and guide who I become.

I cannot fathom Your
love
for me without understanding all You have
done
for me. Enable me to fully open my heart and mind to receive that wonderful knowledge of You. Thank You that Your love is unconditional, unchanging, and unfailing. Teach me to understand and acknowledge all the ways You demonstrate Your love toward me. Fortify my spirit so I never doubt it. Help me trust at all times that Your love is real and true and always there for me in unlimited supply. Thank You that Your loving-kindness and goodness toward me never fail.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.

P
SALM
90:1-2

A thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.

P
SALM
90:4

He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters, who makes the clouds His chariot, who walks on the wings of the wind, who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.

P
SALM
104:3-4

Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.

1 C
ORINTHIANS
4:5

3

Receive All God Has for You

G
od’s love for us existed long before
we
existed. That means He certainly loved us way before we even thought about loving Him. “I have loved you with an
everlasting love
,” He said. “Therefore with lovingkindness I have
drawn you
” (Jeremiah 31:3).

That’s the way He
is
.

This means on all those days when we weren’t thinking about
Him—
and we were living our own way and not living for
Him—
He was still extending His hand of unfailing love to us, reaching to draw us close to Him.

That’s what He
does
.

Every day of our lives He extends His love to us. We are the ones who don’t recognize it. Don’t respond. Don’t believe. It is we who—knowingly or not—turn away and don’t receive the love He has with our name on it. Yet our
recognition
of God’s unending love for us—and our
receiving
it into our heart—is what radically changes our lives. It’s what makes us whole and frees us to be all we were created to be.

It’s what causes our life to finally make sense.

For without God’s love we are lost. We are hopeless. We are
ruined. But the day it clearly dawns on us how much He truly loves us, we never see life the same again. Now we see it from the perspective of His love and not His judgment.

That is a great day!

But how do we actually
receive
God’s love, beyond simply recognizing that He loves us?

God has made a specific way.

God did not make us robots. He made thinking, decision-making people capable of choosing good over evil, truth over lies, and His ways over our own. However, He knows what we are made of. He knows that because we have freedom of choice, we can be enticed to
choose
a path
separate from Him
. That’s why He had a plan to bridge that gap of separation.

He gave us a way back. A way to start over. A chance to begin again.

He gave us His greatest gift of all—His Son.

Many people have already received this gift. But He is the gift who keeps on giving. No matter how long we have known Him, we still need to keep understanding and receiving all that He has paid an unthinkable price to give us.

God chose a pure and humble young woman of faith—a virgin named Mary—to conceive a child by the power of His Holy Spirit and give birth to God’s Son. She had to be a woman who walked with God and knew the Scriptures well enough to understand what was happening. She had to be the kind of person who would not run from God’s call on her life. She had to have the strength and sensitivity of character to respond to God by saying, “Let it be to me according to Your word” (Luke 1:38). And she was all that.

The angel who appeared to Mary with the stunning news told her that His name was to be called
Jesus
, which means “salvation” (Luke 1:31). He would also be called
Immanuel
, meaning “
God with us
” (Matthew 1:23).

When He was born, His identity was revealed to some who had been anticipating His birth and knew why He came.

Jesus came to save us from the consequence of our mistakes, errors, bad choices, sins, and failures, which is death. He came to save us from our enemy, who tries incessantly to destroy us. He came to save us from hopelessness and futility, which we are all heir to without Him. He came to save us from ourselves.