This morning as I was spending time with the Lord, I was thinking about all that He does for us, and remembering that even every breath we take is a gift from Him. When I think of that, it always makes me remember that He gives that gift even to unbelievers, for no one in the world would ever take another breath if He didn't will it so. And that's pretty amazing to me.
I mean think about it. Everyone who doesn't believe in Him is His enemy. Many of them today are quite obvious about hating Him and being His enemy so it's easy to see with them. I mean those who are always putting us down saying God doesn't exist etc. and blaspheming His Name. Aside from them though, even those who don't make a big deal about it, and possibly don't think much about it, are, according to the bible, His enemies. And yet, He loves them enough to continue to give them the breath of life now and every moment until they die. And along with that breath, He also gives them the chance to come to know Him and be His child, just as He did for us.
The bible actually says quite a bit of what our God does for his enemies. Sometimes we get jealous of unbelievers because it often seems like good things happen to them and the bad things happen to us. Many psalms are about that very thing. But our God is wooing them. He knows that we know He loves us and that we're now going to live for eternity with Him, but that they only have this one life to live if they don't choose Him.
That made me think of the difference between how He treats His enemies and how we treat ours. Of course we know that He tells us to love them, pray for them and help them, but we don't usually do that, except to sometimes pray for them. (and then we often pray that they'll realize how wrong they were).
Instead we talk about them to others and tell others about how horrid they are and what awful things they've done to us. (I say "we", but mean I myself do this. I just assume that since I do it, that others do as well... at least some times) We do things to hurt them if we can, either physically, materially, or emotionally. A lot of times we just do things that will aggravate or inconvenience them. And on and on it goes.
Not at all the way our God treated us before we were saved, which really hurts my heart and makes me ashamed of myself. It makes me feel very petty too because I know that many of the things I've said and done in the past were very mean and petty things. If the tables had been turned and someone had done those things to me, I'd have been terribly hurt, yet I had no problem doing those things to someone who'd hurt me. Kind of like "an eye for an eye" type of thinking I guess.
I was really surprised when I was studying in the Old Testament about the laws and discovered that "an eye for an eye" didn't mean anything like what we generally consider it to mean. At least I always thought it meant quite literally that if someone did something to you, then you should do the same kind of thing back to them. But that wasn't at all what God was telling them when He made that statement. When taken in context, such as in Exodus 21, God was trying to make sure that judgements passed on criminals were fair. He wasn't telling them that they had to do the same thing to someone who'd committed a crime, but rather was telling them that the severity of a legal punishment shouldn't exceed the severity of an offense. Not at all what I'd thought it meant, which just made me feel all the more guilty of my past actions.
It seems our God has constantly tried to teach us and help us grow up to be the kind of loving person He created us to be, instead of the self centered person our sin nature makes us. I thought of all the sins He's forgiven and simply covered with His love; and all the times when others have hurt me that instead of covering their sins with love, I've been mean and done what I could to hurt them back. Even if all I could do was make a rude gesture or ignore them. How it must hurt His heart when He sees me act in such a way.
It's hard though, because we live in a world where God's kind of love is practically unknown and is rarely modeled for us. It's very hard to be the person modeling that love especially if we've rarely or never seen it modeled to us by another person. Yet that's exactly what the Lord calls us each to do. That's what He meant when He said they would know us by our love. It's what drew so many people to the first Christians to find out what made them so different, because we obviously can't love this way unless God has first poured His love out into our hearts. I'm afraid that the world hasn't seen very much of that in recent generations anyway. It makes me long for the Millennial Kingdom so I can see what it would look like for people to behave that way regularly, and makes me yet more determined to try harder to behave that way now. I know I'll fail many times, but the more I practice, the closer I'll get to showing the kind of love the Lord has shown me. (I can imagine myself in the middle of a rant and realizing what I'm doing and having to apologize to the person I'm angry at and ask their forgiveness instead of demanding that they do the right thing) It's going to be a real challenge, but I'll do my best to practice and try to act in a way that honors and pleases Him.
I mean think about it. Everyone who doesn't believe in Him is His enemy. Many of them today are quite obvious about hating Him and being His enemy so it's easy to see with them. I mean those who are always putting us down saying God doesn't exist etc. and blaspheming His Name. Aside from them though, even those who don't make a big deal about it, and possibly don't think much about it, are, according to the bible, His enemies. And yet, He loves them enough to continue to give them the breath of life now and every moment until they die. And along with that breath, He also gives them the chance to come to know Him and be His child, just as He did for us.
The bible actually says quite a bit of what our God does for his enemies. Sometimes we get jealous of unbelievers because it often seems like good things happen to them and the bad things happen to us. Many psalms are about that very thing. But our God is wooing them. He knows that we know He loves us and that we're now going to live for eternity with Him, but that they only have this one life to live if they don't choose Him.
That made me think of the difference between how He treats His enemies and how we treat ours. Of course we know that He tells us to love them, pray for them and help them, but we don't usually do that, except to sometimes pray for them. (and then we often pray that they'll realize how wrong they were).
Instead we talk about them to others and tell others about how horrid they are and what awful things they've done to us. (I say "we", but mean I myself do this. I just assume that since I do it, that others do as well... at least some times) We do things to hurt them if we can, either physically, materially, or emotionally. A lot of times we just do things that will aggravate or inconvenience them. And on and on it goes.
Not at all the way our God treated us before we were saved, which really hurts my heart and makes me ashamed of myself. It makes me feel very petty too because I know that many of the things I've said and done in the past were very mean and petty things. If the tables had been turned and someone had done those things to me, I'd have been terribly hurt, yet I had no problem doing those things to someone who'd hurt me. Kind of like "an eye for an eye" type of thinking I guess.
I was really surprised when I was studying in the Old Testament about the laws and discovered that "an eye for an eye" didn't mean anything like what we generally consider it to mean. At least I always thought it meant quite literally that if someone did something to you, then you should do the same kind of thing back to them. But that wasn't at all what God was telling them when He made that statement. When taken in context, such as in Exodus 21, God was trying to make sure that judgements passed on criminals were fair. He wasn't telling them that they had to do the same thing to someone who'd committed a crime, but rather was telling them that the severity of a legal punishment shouldn't exceed the severity of an offense. Not at all what I'd thought it meant, which just made me feel all the more guilty of my past actions.
It seems our God has constantly tried to teach us and help us grow up to be the kind of loving person He created us to be, instead of the self centered person our sin nature makes us. I thought of all the sins He's forgiven and simply covered with His love; and all the times when others have hurt me that instead of covering their sins with love, I've been mean and done what I could to hurt them back. Even if all I could do was make a rude gesture or ignore them. How it must hurt His heart when He sees me act in such a way.
It's hard though, because we live in a world where God's kind of love is practically unknown and is rarely modeled for us. It's very hard to be the person modeling that love especially if we've rarely or never seen it modeled to us by another person. Yet that's exactly what the Lord calls us each to do. That's what He meant when He said they would know us by our love. It's what drew so many people to the first Christians to find out what made them so different, because we obviously can't love this way unless God has first poured His love out into our hearts. I'm afraid that the world hasn't seen very much of that in recent generations anyway. It makes me long for the Millennial Kingdom so I can see what it would look like for people to behave that way regularly, and makes me yet more determined to try harder to behave that way now. I know I'll fail many times, but the more I practice, the closer I'll get to showing the kind of love the Lord has shown me. (I can imagine myself in the middle of a rant and realizing what I'm doing and having to apologize to the person I'm angry at and ask their forgiveness instead of demanding that they do the right thing) It's going to be a real challenge, but I'll do my best to practice and try to act in a way that honors and pleases Him.
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