Rant of Righteousness!
This "rest" of God, the true Promised Land, is living in complete relationship with Him, through holiness. Doesn't it make perfect sense? It's what He's been doing since the beginning of time!
God HATES sin and LOVES righteousness! Doesn't it make sense? Do you get why?
Look! Here is an important truth SEPARATES MAN FROM GOD!
Adam and Eve are created, loved, and placed in the greatest paradise man has ever seen, a place where God can walk and talk with them. But they tasted that forbidden fruit and had to be cast out of perfection.
Cain kills Able. Then he leaves the presence of the Lord!
The descendants of Cain didn't know God; they were all wicked.
The descendants of Seth were all righteous; they called on the name of YHWH. Did you get that? They were righteous, and they called God by His name. Name basis with the creator of the universe! But then these sons of God (the righteous descendants of Seth) mixed with the daughters of men (the wicked descendants of Cain), and they were all corrupted! Then God said that He was sorry He created the world. It actually broke God’s heart to see mankind being so sinful!
So He tried to start all over again. He found Noah, the only righteous man left on the face of the earth, and did the whole ark thing. He killed off all the wicked, but even the sons of Noah were soon again corrupted by sin!
Then He calls out Abraham who is called the FRIEND OF GOD because of His righteousness! God made Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s children His own children and He called them out to be holy.
This Promised Land was LIVING A RIGHT RELATIONSHIP WITH YHWH!
God created the world to love it and be with it, but as soon as sin entered, all of creation drew away and away and further away from the Father. He had to sit there and watch everything He loved fall away from Him.
He kept trying! He kept trying! Everything He has done since that day has been to draw His true love back to Himself, but in the stubbornness of sin we kept drawing away from Him! So He finally even cast off His very deity, all that made Him God, and came to earth as a lowly man. He endured every horrible temptation, yet without sin. He faced complete rejection, by both God and man, and carried all of our sin. Yes, Jesus Christ on His cross was the ultimate sacrifice, all that He could do to win us back to Him! He destroyed sin on the cross and defeated death in His resurrection and now we can say to death “Where is your sting?” And it was all so we could be rid of that sin AND BE IN RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM!
Oh, God misses you and I. His heart has always been for us, and He’s just waiting, just waiting for us to cast off that sin and enter into His rest, into His complete love! His heart breaks continually for us! Have you ever had a broken heart? Has anyone you've loved, and I mean really loved, done something to break your heart? Imagine what God must go through for us! Consider how many tears He must have wept for you alone, just because He longs to be with you!
But we can't be with Him now, not without His righteousness. Sin separates us from God. It always has and it always will. That’s why He says “If you love Me, you'll obey my commands.”
That’s why He says “Whoever sins has neither seen Me nor known Me.”
That's why He says “Without holiness no one can see Me!”
All of scripture and religion and life are summed up in this principle: God desperately loves us and completely desires us, but He cannot be reunited with us until we cast off our sin and accept His free gift of grace. He’s waiting for us. He’s been waiting for all of time. He will continue to wait, because that’s all that’s left. He’s done EVERYTHING He can for us. He continually calls us closer; He’ll never stop doing that. But Christ has finished the work of God and now sits at His right hand. YHWH waits for you and me.
There is one thing to do in light of all of this, and that is simply to deny and cast off all sin. Holiness is no longer an option. We must desire righteousness, for God’s sake and for our own.
The next few blogs will be about grace and faith and some stuff God’s been teaching me about that and how all that ties in to holiness. The Lord bless you and you draw near and nearer to Him in complete holiness.
God HATES sin and LOVES righteousness! Doesn't it make sense? Do you get why?
Look! Here is an important truth SEPARATES MAN FROM GOD!
Adam and Eve are created, loved, and placed in the greatest paradise man has ever seen, a place where God can walk and talk with them. But they tasted that forbidden fruit and had to be cast out of perfection.
Cain kills Able. Then he leaves the presence of the Lord!
The descendants of Cain didn't know God; they were all wicked.
The descendants of Seth were all righteous; they called on the name of YHWH. Did you get that? They were righteous, and they called God by His name. Name basis with the creator of the universe! But then these sons of God (the righteous descendants of Seth) mixed with the daughters of men (the wicked descendants of Cain), and they were all corrupted! Then God said that He was sorry He created the world. It actually broke God’s heart to see mankind being so sinful!
So He tried to start all over again. He found Noah, the only righteous man left on the face of the earth, and did the whole ark thing. He killed off all the wicked, but even the sons of Noah were soon again corrupted by sin!
Then He calls out Abraham who is called the FRIEND OF GOD because of His righteousness! God made Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s children His own children and He called them out to be holy.
This Promised Land was LIVING A RIGHT RELATIONSHIP WITH YHWH!
God created the world to love it and be with it, but as soon as sin entered, all of creation drew away and away and further away from the Father. He had to sit there and watch everything He loved fall away from Him.
He kept trying! He kept trying! Everything He has done since that day has been to draw His true love back to Himself, but in the stubbornness of sin we kept drawing away from Him! So He finally even cast off His very deity, all that made Him God, and came to earth as a lowly man. He endured every horrible temptation, yet without sin. He faced complete rejection, by both God and man, and carried all of our sin. Yes, Jesus Christ on His cross was the ultimate sacrifice, all that He could do to win us back to Him! He destroyed sin on the cross and defeated death in His resurrection and now we can say to death “Where is your sting?” And it was all so we could be rid of that sin AND BE IN RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM!
Oh, God misses you and I. His heart has always been for us, and He’s just waiting, just waiting for us to cast off that sin and enter into His rest, into His complete love! His heart breaks continually for us! Have you ever had a broken heart? Has anyone you've loved, and I mean really loved, done something to break your heart? Imagine what God must go through for us! Consider how many tears He must have wept for you alone, just because He longs to be with you!
But we can't be with Him now, not without His righteousness. Sin separates us from God. It always has and it always will. That’s why He says “If you love Me, you'll obey my commands.”
That’s why He says “Whoever sins has neither seen Me nor known Me.”
That's why He says “Without holiness no one can see Me!”
All of scripture and religion and life are summed up in this principle: God desperately loves us and completely desires us, but He cannot be reunited with us until we cast off our sin and accept His free gift of grace. He’s waiting for us. He’s been waiting for all of time. He will continue to wait, because that’s all that’s left. He’s done EVERYTHING He can for us. He continually calls us closer; He’ll never stop doing that. But Christ has finished the work of God and now sits at His right hand. YHWH waits for you and me.
There is one thing to do in light of all of this, and that is simply to deny and cast off all sin. Holiness is no longer an option. We must desire righteousness, for God’s sake and for our own.
The next few blogs will be about grace and faith and some stuff God’s been teaching me about that and how all that ties in to holiness. The Lord bless you and you draw near and nearer to Him in complete holiness.
posted by I Believe We Shall Win at 7:54 PM
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