But—When God
our Savior revealed his kindness and love, 5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had
done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth
and new life through the Holy Spirit. 6 He generously poured out the
Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us
confidence that we will inherit eternal life.
We belong to God. It really is that simple. He created us. He loves us.
His salvation is upon us as we accepted the completed and full work of
Jesus for our lives. He does that
daily. Accept this fact. God’s love wins!
Why is it that we allow the
situations of life to throw us in to a panic?
We have all been there. Is it a
lack of faith? Do we just not trust
God? I believe the answer to that is
complicated. It is YES and NO.
Our faith must grow, and difficult
times call for great faith. Many of you
have been there.
You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked,
Sudden disasters come. When they are close to us, either physically
or in some other measure, we begin to take on the grieving process and the
struggle. By the way, life is a
struggle. The Bible tells us that we
will have pain as long as we are in these bodies.
While we live in these earthly bodies,
we groan and sigh, but it’s not
that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want
to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by
life.
Therefore, we need a right
understanding of life, the importance of life and of the important of lives, of
people. One of the major problems that
we, as humans, have is that we often value the wrong things. We value stuff over people. Or possibly we value people wrong.
"Studies show that you tend to base your self-esteem on what you
think the most important person in our life thinks about you. So I recommend
you make Jesus Christ the most important person in your life because he will
always tell you the truth." – Rick Warren
There are various ways we value
people or values things about people.
Here are the top 4 that Warren said that humanity battles (and I agree
through my experience).
Appearance. We ask, How do I look? This mentality says that the more beautiful
you are, the more important and more valuable you are.
Affluence. This is the lie that says if I own a lot, then
I must be worth a lot.
Achievement. Do you base your value on your awards,
notoriety, and promotions?
Approval. This is false worth at it’s worst when we
wonder How many people like me? How popular am I?
You are important to God. He values you and always has. It is important that we believe what God says
and make Him the most important and most influential relationship in our lives.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in
them.
God decided in advance to adopt us into
his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he
wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
People know what we value or that we
put worth in ourselves by the choices we make and by how we treat the people
around us. Being shaped by what God says
really is an incredible thing.
No, the
Lord’s delight is in those who fear him, those who put their hope in his
unfailing love.
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