Will You Be Ready

The Israelites were God’s chosen people but God’s love didn’t keep Him from punishing them on different occasions.  Can love be possible without correction?  I don’t think so.  God has unconditional love for all of us but without correction love is not true love.  

Did you ever really think about why God loves us?  This is something to think seriously about.  When you think about it, think about this; does God need us to love Him, is He lonely or sad or unfulfilled in any way?  No, God is complete in every way and He needs nothing.  Now think of this; if God needed us to love Him, He could have made us robots that would have done His will and showed Him our affection every minute of every day.  He could have had us worshiping Him and praising Him all day long.  There is only one reason God loves us and that is that He chooses to, because God is love, it is just who He is.  So instead of God making a bunch of robots, He made us and gave us a free will to choose whether we would love Him and serve Him or not; but, with that free will, there are also consequences if we rebel and chose not to follow Him.

God created the heavens and the earth, He put the stars and the sun and the moon in place and created the animals and fish and reptiles and all the vegetation from nothing and He said all was good.  He also made man and woman and put them in a beautiful garden where He had provided everything for them; everything that they would need for a life of happiness and contentment, and what a beautiful place it must have been.  God even walked with them in the cool of the day.  God provided all this and they could have lived there happy forever and ever.  There was only one commandment that God told them and that was not to eat of the tree that was in the midst of the garden because if they ate of that tree they would surely die.  But, what God provided for them wasn’t enough, they wanted more and they took of the forbidden tree, and sin and death entered the world and along with it a curse on all mankind.  But God’s love and grace never failed even though they were banished from the garden.  God still loved them and even though their sin affected everyone else that was born, outside of Jesus himself, and even made us His enemies, God made a way for everyone to be forgiven and restored to a right relationship with Him.  

Reconciliation was made possible because of God’s unconditional love for those He created in His image and likeness and that includes every one of us and this could only come through the shed blood of the innocent for the guilty.  The first time we hear about the shedding of blood was when God killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Read Genesis 3:21, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

Then there were the blood sacrifices in the Word of God for the sins of the people, but Jesus gave himself as a permanent sacrifice when He allowed himself to be the sacrificial Lamb of God who through His blood takes away the sins of the world.  The animal’s blood could not take away sin, it just pointed to what Jesus would do in the future.  Read Hebrews 10:1-6, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.”

Forgiveness of sin could only be accomplished through Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son.  Read Hebrews 10:8-14, “Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.”

I titled this, “Will You Be Ready,” the Word of God says in Hebrews 9:24-28, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

There is only one way to go to be with the Lord or to be ready for judgement day and that is to put your trust in Jesus and turn from your sins and ask Him to forgive you and to be your Lord and Savior.  The Word says this in 2 Corinthians 7:10, “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”

I have given you something to think about and if your desire is to repent and give your life to the Lord that would be the greatest choice you have ever made, or if you have been away from the Lord backsliding, come back to the Lord repent and ask the Lord to forgive you and to heal you of your backsliding.  Find a church that preaches the Word and start growing in your faith and share with others what the Lord has done in your life.  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super day in Him!!