I will sometimes fail the people in my life. Sometimes we forget to love someone. Sometimes life is just too busy. God never forgets. He ALWAYS loves.

Oh, How He Loves Us…

Everyday we wake up, brush our teeth (hopefully), some shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, kiss our families goodbye, and head off to our schools or vocations just in time to catch the proverbial roller coaster which we all call “life.” Sometimes it is an “up” day and sometimes it is a “down” day. But no matter how “up” or “down” our lives may be, there is one thing that we should constantly strive to keep “up:” (whatever you may want to call it, be it our faith, or our spirit man, or just our spirit). The Bible references many times to be “in” the world but not “of” the world. So from this I would make the call that we have to see that which is carnal as carnal and that which is spiritual as spiritual and deal with it accordingly. I am not saying that sometimes these two elements do not cross paths but I do not think that our carnal lives should dictate our MOTIVATION in our spiritual lives. They are one but separate.

To give you an example of what I am writing about I will make this statement: We should not have to have youth camps, or worship services, or retreats, to keep our faith alive, to keep our faith growing and moving and changing. God is not JUST at camp. I am not saying that these events were not and are not important in our lives. Because for how many of us was it a youth camp or a worship service or a retreat the point that jump started our faith and got us back on the right track? As young Christians these are the events where the relevance of God shows up in lives. As Christians we NEED these things. But as we mature in our faith, if we want to mature, these things can no longer be the pinnacle of our faith. Do not get me wrong, they are still VERY important and God still moves in these services whether young or mature in faith. But if we do nothing in the time between them, how should we expect to grow?

We can no longer live our faith out from one special service to another special service. Just barely getting by. With no MOTIVATION in between. Just barely sticking with it.

Now I am sure that after reading that you have lots of thoughts and maybe some questions. Good. Think about them.

This is a pretty hard concept to understand to be false without some knowledge of the Bible and what it says about salvation. For someone who do not know much about the bible this statement is very reasonable. But to those who do, this statement can be summed up in one scripture. Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

I would have to say that this topic, along with many other topics of this kind, has to be seen with this view: God IS love BUT, God is JUST. If God were ONLY love then we would get everything, even that which might come to harm us. But if God were ONLY just then we would all get what we deserve–a conscious,eternal torment in hell. I am glad God is the essence of the perfect combination.