During my devotion time this morning, I was thinking about how incredible it is that the Lord actually loves me. I’m no one special, haven’t done anything special or great in my life. In fact, there’s nothing at all “good” about me and never has been other then what the Lord Himself has put in me since I was saved. And yet, He loves me! Not only that, but He rejoices over me, says I’m precious to Him, and that I delight Him! Isn’t that incredible??? And of course, it’s not just me, it you too, it’s all who’ve been saved. Every single one of us can say this!
I’ve reflected on this before, but today it took a bit of a different turn. I thought about what an honor and privilege we have in being given the opportunity to actually get to know the One True God; God Almighty, our creator and the creator of everything that is! There’s no one else like Him and no one and nothing above Him or more important then Him. If we’d lived during the time that George Washington was president, I’m sure we’d have all felt very honored if we’d been given the opportunity to meet him and get to know him well. Yet, in reality, we’ve been given the honor and privilege of getting to know the glorious, unequaled, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Great I AM!
That He would want to know us is amazing, but that He wants us to know Him, is just incredible, and even more incredible is that He wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us. It’s mind boggling when you think about it! It reminds me of when God had led the Israelites out of Egypt and then was giving them His laws. He’d been speaking through Moses, but then came down to speak to the people Himself. Their attitude shocked me. Sure, they were scared – who wouldn’t be! But they let their fear win and cut their noses off to spit their face, because they told Moses that they didn’t want to hear from God anymore, they’d much rather have God speak to Moses and then have Moses tell them what He said! Every time I read that part of the story, my heart aches for the Lord.
I used to think we were a lot better then that, because I didn’t think we (those who are saved) had a problem with getting to know Him personally. But I’ve realized since those early days, that in fact, we often don’t respond any better then they did. Oh we may not say the words they did, but our actions speak for us. Many learn about God by listening to their pastor preach, or seeing shows on TV about Him, or movies about Him, hearing about Him on the radio, or by reading Christian books, both fiction and non fiction, including commentaries about Him. For many the very last thing they do to get to know Him, is open their bibles or pray. That’s really like hearing what He has to say from Moses, instead of personally, except that the information we get from those sources may not be correct. At least Israel knew they were hearing the real thing. So actually Israel did better then many of us have!
I really feel sad for those people who aren’t taking advantage of the honor we’ve been given, because they’re missing out on the best relationship a person could possibly have. For those of us who have taken the Lord up on His offer though, it makes my heart soar to know that we will have all of eternity to get to know Him better.
Did you know that Jesus tells us that our eternal life begins at the moment we are saved, not when we get to heaven? I used to wonder about that. Then I realized that went along with what Jesus said the definition of eternal life is: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. “ (John 17:3). Our Eternal Life began at salvation because that’s when we were given the privilege and honor of being able to meet and develop a close personal relationship with the Lord. You know how we’re told that we’re being changed to be more like Jesus every day? Well a part of that comes because of our individual relationship with Him, for the more we get to know Him, the more we want to be like Him, and the more we try to emulate Him. Children naturally take after the people who raise them, which is usually their parents. So we too will take after our Father, but we can only take after Him if we know what He’s like. To know that, we obviously have to have a personal relationship with Him. That’s why children act more and more like their parents here, and why we will act and think more and more like our Lord.
Praise God for the wonderful and amazing opportunity He gives each one of us!
2 Corinthians 3:18 —And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. *
1 John 3:1–3 —How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. *Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. *Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. *
