Confident in This Love

I hope that those of you who shared the Lord's day with other believers had a blessed time in God's Word.  Our pastor was preaching from Galatians chapter 5, about how we are not saved by keeping the law. The ten commandments were given to show us all that no one is good enough to get to God by our merits. It is wonderful to know that, once we have come to know Jesus Christ as our Savior, we cannot be KEPT saved by keeping a set of laws either.  He preached on verse 6, which says, "For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision; but faith with worketh by love."

As I now meditate on this beautiful verse and all that I, thus far, understand that it means, joy fills my heart. Love is the engine that runs my faith. Pastor also shared verses today from I John 4; being convinced of just how much God loves us is a key to loving Him the way we ought. There is such assurance in knowing how much God loves us. This security brings freedom to live for Jesus and this mature love casts out fear.

It made me think of a married couple who works together as a team. A woman who is confident of her husband's love is set free to be the kind of wife she is to be.  Jesus tells me in Matthew 11:28-30 to, "take my yoke upon you and learn of me...for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." As our pastor pointed out today, a christian is married to Christ. The husband and wife relationship is to be a picture of Christ and his church. Knowing how much my Lord loves me gives complete freedom to let Him lead me to obedience, in this secure love; much like walking through my days confident in the security of a physical yoke-fellow relationship with my loving husband.

In studying through Ephesians 1, I've shared with my sunday school class that once we have put our trust in the Lord Jesus as Savior, we are 'put into an envelope' and sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. No one can take us out of this relationship that we now have with our Father. I meditated on this again the other day while putting mail into customer's boxes at the post office. There is a confidence in knowing the security that exists when each letter is placed into an individual's PO box. The letter is put there, not to be retrieved except by the recipient, the one who holds the key or knows the combination.

How sad indeed for a believer who is not totally convinced that the Heavenly Father loves him or her! This would bring about doubt and confusion as to how to walk through life. If we were not loved by our earthly father, at every turn we would suffer doubts as to whether we are pleasing him or not. What a blessing to know that there is nothing that I could do to make my loving heavenly Father hate me, and that there is nothing I need to DO to make Him love me more! He already loves me and demonstrated that love even when I was his enemy. "For God commendeth his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". (Romans 5:8)

I pray, Lord, that I will realize more and more your total love for me. I wish to love you with all my heart, soul and mind so that this love motivates me to serve you and those whom you put in my daily path.


We celebrated two birthdays today. Pastor and Mrs. R (who happen to be my brother and sister-in-law) have birthdays only four days apart.  We celebrated with FOUR cakes! Syd and I brought two and the "A" family brought two. Pastor had requested that we make a cake for his wife, but he did not expect one for himself also, let alone 4 cakes! It was a sweet afternoon!