God’s Love Does Not End

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 8:38-39 (NLT)

If you read this blog with any sort of regularity, then it has become rather obvious to you that I believe what the Bible says. I am such a radical believer of the Bible that I hold to the “theory” that the earth was created by God in six literal, 24-hour days and that the earth is relatively young. I also hold to the belief that there was a world-wide flood that wiped out all life on this planet save for two of every kind of animal and several pairs of birds as well as 8 human beings, namely, Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives. I further believe that when the Bible tells us something about God, we should take it as the truth and put our faith in that.

So because I believe these things, it shouldn’t come as any shock to you that I believe that God loves me…and you, too. The verses you just read above from Romans 8 seem to be telling us that God’s love is about as strong a thing as there is. Nothing can take it away from us. Fear cannot take God’s love away from us, worry cannot take it from us, the power of hell cannot take it, and not even death can take God’s love away from us.

So that being said, I think it is safe to say that God’s love will never run out, it will never leave us, it will never be gone, and it will always be there.

So if I may, let me encourage you with this simple truth, that will never, EVER change…

GOD LOVES YOU! 

Hope that helps you today, and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Do God's Will

Yesterday, we encouraged everyone to do a little research in the Bible to find the actual places where God has said in His Word “It is God’s will that…” and then walk in obedience to those things. I want to take that challenge a step further today.

Today, I want to challenge all of you who read this blog regularly to dig for God’s will in His Word. What do I mean by this? Well, one of the things that we learn in Hermeneutics class (“Hermeneutics” is $34 word that simply means “Bible study principles”), is that every Scripture passage we read has an interpretation, and possibly a number of applications. There are at least two applications that can be made from every Scripture. The primary application (or the first application made from the original author, readers and speakers), and the secondary application (or the application made by us in the 21st century).

Let me try and explain how the primary application works. When Paul wrote the book of Philippians, he was writing to a specific group of people for a specific purpose at a specific time. The things that he said, and the people to whom he said them, are of vital importance as we seek to understand the primary application of the book of Philippians. To know what the primary application is of a passage, it is paramount that we figure out who wrote it, to whom they wrote it, where the people were to whom it was written, what the circumstances were surrounding reason for the writing of the book, and the place in which the recipients lived. All of these things can be found in a commentary on the book you are reading, or sometimes in the notes at the beginning of each book of the Bible. 

A word of caution here: it may be tempting to skip the primary application since it has little to do with where we are today. But as you will find out, if you don’t understand the primary application, it may lead you into error when determining the secondary application.

The secondary application is trying to figure out what the Scriptures are saying to us today…right here…in the 21st century. This is where a careful study of the primary applications can really help us to determine what God is trying to tell us here today. When you study a passage, and you see how God used that passage to speak to the people of that time, it becomes easier to figure out what God is saying to you. But when you figure that out, be careful.

Read these words of Jesus and then let’s finish our post.

When you get a secondary application that is right on, and that you know is from God, you better be careful to follow that application. Why? Because as James says, “The one who knows the good they ought to do and does not do it, to them it is sin!” Simply put: When you know what God wants you to do, not doing that is sinful.

So get out there and study, and figure out what God wants of you. Then walk in the obedience that will bring you the blessing of God…His eternal peace, joy and confidence!

Feel free to comment below and we’ll see you on Sunday!

Habitual Readers...UNITE!!!!

I hope that the title of today's blog post might have stirred in you a desire to read this post. If that is why you are reading this, then great! It worked! If you are reading this because you always read this, then I'm glad of that too. But the point of the post today is simply to remind you to read.

Reading is important. In fact, when I was a kid, there were Public Service Announcements (PSAs) on the Saturday morning cartoon circuit that encouraged kids to read. The group was called "RIF" and it stood for Reading Is Fundamental. One of the most memorable of these commercials was a group of kids hanging around a guy who played a newspaper editor on TV. He was talking about how reading was important if kids were going to learn. Then one of the kids spouted off some statistics (I can't recall those right now), and this man looks the kid straight in the eye and says, "Hey! You're pretty smart! How'd you get so smart?" And the kid leans in and says, "READING!"

I really have no idea why that made such an impression on me, but it did. You would think that having that kind of an impression put on my as a kid, I would have been more into reading. The fact of the matter is that I don't read as much as I should. It takes me a long time to read a book, because when I read I want to understand. So to fly through a book for me is counter intuitive.

But there is one book that I read often. It is a book that has been around for longer than any other book I own. It is a book that holds that secrets to life's mysteries and the answers to life's questions. It is a book that is capable of changing a man or woman to be better than they are, and it is also capable of bringing peace in the midst of some pretty dark times.

We are facing some dark times as a society today. We face killings and mass shootings and it is hard for us to think that things will ever change. But we can't look to the government to fix this. We can't look to politics to fix it. We can't look at race relations to fix this. We can't look at superheroes to fix it. We can't look to anyone to fix this, except the Author of this book.

Of course, that book is the Bible, and when we read the Bible, we are faced with the truth. We are faced with absolute moral truth that cannot be denied. But many in our society have tried to deny moral absolutes. Because of this, we are seeing what we saw last week, and we will continue to see it...more and more each passing day.

Friends, read the Scriptures. Don't let this be a habit that you allow yourself to break. Keep reading, but also do what it says (but more on that tomorrow!). ;-)

Please feel free to comment or ask a question below. We will respond to all comments!

And we'll see you on Sunday!