Love

Steadfast Love and the Prodigal Son

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness! Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV

  • God’s love never ceases: It has never changed in the past and will never change in the future. God doesn’t love us more when we succeed or do a good deed, and He doesn’t love us less when we fail, or fall into sin. We come home to God by believing He is loving and willing to accept us. God’s love is like the father’s love in the parable of the prodigal son. Just like that Father, God is still willing to accept us and include us into His family, when we leave our own way of doing things and come home to him.
  • God’s mercies never come to an end: When God forgives us, He adopts us into His family. He isn’t just being kind to us on a one-time basis. He will not wake up tomorrow and say, “Okay that’s it. The visit is over. Pack your bags and move out!” When God receives us into His family He says, “This my son, was dead, but now he is alive!” You see, even when the prodigal was spiritually dead to his father, he was still considered a son. Now he has come home, that dead relationship became a living one. Our living relationship to God begins by our believing in our Father’s mercy because of the cross of Jesus. The blood of Jesus has paid the penalty of our sins forever and we don’t have to be afraid that God will ever change His mind.
  • Great is Your Faithfulness: We learn to be faithful to others, by seeing how faithful God has been to us. The prodigal came home thinking that he was going to work for his dad and live in the servant’s quarters. But his father had a different plan. He was given a welcome home party and then invited to come live back home. In that same way, we don’t work for God all week while living in the servant’s quarters and then go visit our dad once a week at His place on Sunday. Just like the father in the parable, God’s plan is for us to wake up every morning in His house, come down to breakfast at His table and spend our day, every day with Him! What an amazing, loving and faithful God we serve!

What is So Special About That?

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments 
For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 NIV

The word, “Special” is so overused in our society, and its meaning so diluted that, well, it just isn’t very special anymore! For example, the lunch special at my diner, really is just the meal that almost everyone orders because it is cheaper than anything else on the menu. We call our friends, dreams, days and even moments special in our struggle to give them greater value. The phrases “You are special,” or “Everyone is special, have become so ingrained in us, that when experience shows us that we are just ordinary, we get depressed. Uncounted angry words are spoken, and violent acts are committed, demanding that others recognize our specialness. But in our insistence on being treated as special, we have lost sight of one of the greatest truths of all: God loves ordinary people.

The Bible is filled with stories of God dressing ordinary wildflowers in brilliant colors, feeding common ravens, and spending His time counting the hair on every person’s head. In fact, the greatest hope we have from today’s verse is that God is not looking for special people. God is interested in fat people, skinny minnies, wise guys and dummies, kids who are in trouble and adults whose lives lie in ruins. God is just as interested in listening to the elderly, no longer able to communicate as He is to children who seem to never stop talking. God welcomes ordinary people of all kinds, who have put their faith in His Son Jesus Christ. He loves sinful selfish people like you and me and freely forgives as we ask for it. He turns no one away, no matter how ordinary, and He washes feet no matter how dirty, because “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life!” And that, my friend is something that is truly special!

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No Throw Away People

/ pastorpete51 / 11 Comments

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 ESV

“They’re a bunch of rapists, murderers and drug dealers. Filthy animals! Let’s lock ’em up and throw away the key!” When we read accounts of the recent deportation of gang members to a prison in El Salvador, if we are honest, we might have to admit that we have used these kinds of words. Does our heart secretly do a little dance each time we hear of another one being thrown in the clink, deported or shot by the police? I struggle with these very thoughts myself, but the Holy Spirit reminded me recently that God created each one of those young men and women in His own image. He breathed the same breath of life into their lungs, knit them together in their mothers’ wombs, and planned a home in heaven for them, just as He has done for me. Though they may have covered themselves with tattoos, and have lived a lifestyle contrary to God’s will, it in no way means that they have no value to Him. When Jesus looks down from heaven over them, He doesn’t say, “Well I told them so! Now they’ve finally gotten what they deserved!”

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In fact, in the Bible we can find a list of men and women, a lot like them. “Yeah, like who?” you might ask with a gasp. Well, we could start with a murderous guy named Saul, who tells us that he was the chief ringleader of sinners. Then there was the working stiff named Peter. He fell to his knees in shame when Jesus blessed him with a boatload of fish, shouting, “Go away from here, I am a sinful man!” We also mustn’t forget the unfaithful woman caught in bed with her neighbor, the corrupt tax collector named Zaccheus and the brutal executioner standing at the foot of the cross, waiting for Jesus to die so he could go home for the night. None of these folks sounds like the type of company we hope to have sitting next to us in church on Sunday, but Jesus does! No, He didn’t join them in their sins, but He loved them with a radical love, that drove Him to the cross, accepted nails to be driven through His hands and feet, and allowed Himself to be stripped, crowned with thorns and spit on. His kind of love reached the thief dying next to Him, forgave those who killed him and even allowed Judas to kiss Him. The God who loved the world so much that He gave His only Son to die for us, came for sinners, because there were no other kinds of people. We all deserve to be locked away in the dark place of eternal punishment named hell and have the key thrown away forever. But instead of throwing us away, Jesus took our place and gave eternal life to everyone who repents and believes in Him: no exceptions! Now He commands (not suggests) that we offer that same love and forgiveness to others, because there are no, “Throw away people.” and no one so far away, that they cannot return to Him!