08/17/2024
God doesn't force us to seek and worship Him; our freedom of choice is paramount in our relationship with Him because He desires a true, not contrived, relationship with us. We have asked ourselves many questions over the past years, not the least of them were… Have we dedicated ourselves to the Lord in such a way that we are considered consecrated? And, have our actions and prayers sought out righteousness and allowed God to sanctify us and make us holy? However, an equally important question is this… Do we love Him freely, just as He loves us?
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
1 John 4:16 ESV
I am certain that this phenomenon goes back as far as recorded history, but forced marriage or sexual slavery is still rampant in the world today. A few years ago 300 Christian girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria by a Muslim Jihadist group called Boko Haram. Following this act there were claims of forced marriages and pictures of children being born. Despite the pretense, this is an abomination and the perversion of a righteous covenant. Willingness is the foundation for a healthy relationship... Not kidnapping and forced sexual attention.
God doesn't kidnap us... He does not wish to own us as chattel, but to base His relationship with us on mutual love and desire. We were created as thinking and feeling beings so that we could choose to love and worship Him; we are not slaves, prisoners, or forced attendants.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:14-19 ESV
I thought this morning about the tragic stories of one-sided love. I contemplated the almost unimaginable pain that accompanies unrequited love and the impact it has had on literature. I recalled stories like Don Quixote and The Phantom of the Opera (there are so many others) that reveal this sadness and heartbreak... Then I thought about the divine pain associated with God's love for man and the rejection He receives from so many. If we were able to express it, this would be the greatest of these tragically sad tales.
This morning let's thank God for our ability to choose and for the love He has for us. Let's express our love and faith for Him in words of thanksgiving and worship as we come before the throne. This morning let's ask God to fill us with His fullness, and to keep His hand ever on us. Then, let's still ourselves and bask in the love of His presence.
May God bless you this day and your love for Him be met with sanctification and holiness. May God's fullness come upon you and your relationship blossom as one; not because you must, but because it is your greatest desire.
Prayer:
Father, we thank you for showing us who you are, and providing us with your amazing love offerings that we call blessings. We thank you for your Son Jesus who you sent to provide us with a way, an avenue of redemption, and doing this even though we had spurned you, and were yet sinners. But, most of all, thank you for making us free beings who can choose to know you, or not, and to do so by our own free will. Thank you not only for creating us, but for loving us from the moment of our inception, and then being with us always as you have sought to win our reciprocal love for yourself. You taught us how to love you in your commandments, but you did not force us to love you, you did not enslave us, nor did you force yourself upon us, no, you have always desired us to freely know you, and love you, with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. How great is such a love, one that is requited, and able to blossom and bear fruit for all eternity. Holy, Holy, Holy are you our God who was, and is, and is to come. Holy are you who comes to us in love, and patiently teaches us how we are to love you. Merciful and full of grace are you who woos us and calls our names until we draw our final breaths, and even when we turn from you, winning our love is forever on your mind. Hear our prayers today father as we choose to love you, and ask how we can love you more. Hear us as we pray in the name of Jesus, and ask to be with you in eternity forevermore.
Amen! Amen! Amen! Great are you our God, and great the love we share.
“And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”
Mark 12:28-30 ISV
““See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it, But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.””
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 ESV
Rich Forbes