When I first began studying the scriptures, I noticed that when God described Himself to His people, He often used the Name, The Lord, Your God. I love that! It was extremely endearing to me that He would emphasize that He was mine.
Psalm 73:26 declares to us, My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. This is the very heart of the message, that God dwells in us, that He is with us and that He is ours.
We must remember that He does not give as this world gives (John 14:27), He is ours as long as we continue to choose Him. We cannot allow ourselves to be deceived into believing His methods are like those we may be used to. If we aren’t careful we can confuse the gospel with religion.
Religion makes us believe that if we do the right things and avoid the wrong things God will bless us. Religion makes our reward based on us and our actions.
The center of the gospel is Jesus Christ! He is our life, our heart, our breath! Christians don't obey to get things from God, we obey because we are loved. It is an overflow of who we are. We obey not to get anything from Him, we obey to get Him. In our obedience we get nearness to Christ, we get transformation, we receive wholeness! We
don’t go to God to get things, we go to God to get God! This is only possible because of what Christ did for us on the cross. The sinless became sin for us, so that we could love Him face to face. He does not just give Peace, Peace Himself comes to live in us!
I pray that we will always remember His great sacrifice, and that He is waiting to meet with us daily with His resurrection power at work in our lives.
