The Everlasting Love of God
One of the greatest truths in Scripture is the fact that God loved you so much that He sent His only Son to earth to provide a way for you to have a relationship with Him. There is nothing that you can do to earn God’s love, because He gives it freely.
The God of the universe loves you and cares for you. That can almost seems too good to be true.
It is common for people to fear losing their salvation through disobedience or failing to follow God perfectly. But Scripture is clear that God’s grace and forgiveness is a free gift. Because there is nothing you did to earn it, there is nothing that can take it away from you.
The apostle Paul is very clear in the book of Romans—there is nothing that can separate you from the love of God. Death cannot separate you, because Jesus defeated death on the cross. Supernatural powers cannot separate you from God’s love, because Jesus is victorious over them.
There is nothing that can separate you from God’s love. Scripture is clear that Jesus’ death paid for all of your wrongdoing—past, present, and future. Not even your own mistakes could keep God from loving and forgiving you.
So take some time to consider how much God loves you. Let this truth soak in—nothing can separate you from the love of God. Rest in the assurance that God’s love will never leave you throughout your life.
Power, Love, and Discipline
One of the miracles of salvation is that when we have faith in Christ, God not only saves us—He also gives us the power to live according to His will. Your life in Christ is one that is empowered by the Holy Spirit living within you.
This is a great gift, but a big shift. It often takes time to change how we think and act. We may have bad habits that take hard work to correct, or patterns of thought that are challenging to break.
Thankfully, God promises to be with us and to empower us to make these changes in our life. When Paul is writing to his mentee Timothy, he encourages him to continue to develop the gift that God has given to him. While we are saved in an instant, it takes a lifetime to develop and work out what God is doing inside of us.
Paul reminds Timothy that God’s Spirit does not give us fear or cowardice. Those things are tools of the devil who is trying to keep us from God. But the Spirit of God empowers us with confidence in Him. He gives us the ...