Love's Acceptance

August 9, 2015

Devotions:

        All people want to be loved and accepted in all of their victories and failures.  We want to be received just as we are and not to have people try to change us.  When we receive that love we are changed without hardly even noticing it.  The more we understand the love of the Father for us the more we are strangely changed by that love. His love creates love in us for Him and for each other.  Many times a sense and a feeling of unworthiness will keep us from experiencing God's love.  Our sense of condemnation will keep us out of His presence where there is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forever.  Psalm 16:11. But the right to be in His presence without guilt or condemnation, without fear or sense of failure is a gift which our Father has given us in Christ Jesus.  It is called the gift of righteousness and it is based on Jesus' obedience not our obedience.  But if we have the gift and never act upon it, we are never changed, we never mature into sons and daughters of God we just stay babies.  

        Our Christianity is not based on a bunch of rules and regulations but on a relationship that was established at the cross of Jesus and is free for anyone to enter by receiving what Jesus did on their behalf, that is He died for their sins and rose victorious over sin, death and the grave.  In the death of Jesus for our sins, God has accepted and loved us as we are, and He knows even better that we do all our failures, short comings and temptations to which we so easily yield.  

        God's greatest gift not only paid our debt which we could not pay but it also infuses us with power to overcome sin, sickness and disease and over all the curse brought on by sin. God invites us come into His presence not requiring anything but faith that He wants us there and He has made all the provision necessary for us to be there.  When we truely experience God's presence we become addicted to His love for us because that is for which we were made.  We feed on the bread of life and drink of His love for us and it transforms us more and more into His image and His likeness.  

        Do not delay, come today into God, your Father's presence without hesitation and without doubt that His presence is where you belong and God has a place waiting for you.