Christian life principles part 1 - 5

Our 💖Intimacy With God

Life Principle 1: Our intimacy with God—His highest priority for our lives—determines the impact of our lives.

One of our greatest needs is to know we are loved. Each of us has to feel certain, deep down, that someone loves us, cares for us, and has our best interest at heart. That is how God designed us. He wants us to know He loves us with a passionate intensity too deep for words.

God created human beings with fellowship in mind—first with Himself and then with others. But we cannot fully love one another until we have ourselves experienced the love of God. We experience His love when we willingly surrender to His call to be our Savior, Lord, and Friend.

When you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, He not only forgave you but also made you into a new creation. You were no longer standing at a distance from God but were then able to draw near to Him.

If you have drifted in your devotion to the Savior and feel as though you grow more distant each day in your relationship with Him, then pray that He will draw you near once more. He knows your weaknesses, and if you will tell Him you want Him to take control of your life, He will come to you in a mighty way and bring hope and light to your situation, no matter how dark and hopeless it may feel (Isa. 55:6-7).

2.💖 A Life of Obedience
Ex 19:5
Life Principle 2: Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.

Obedience can be a challenge, especially when we feel tempted to believe that we stand to lose more through our obedience than we might gain. However, obeying God is essential to pleasing Him—not just in times of temptation, but at all times.

When God commands us to obey Him, He’s giving us a principle by which to live. He’s also setting a framework around our lives that forms a hedge of protection from evil.

Can you remember the last time you felt tempted to do the opposite of what you knew God desired for you to do? Most likely, a struggle erupted within your heart. The questions arose: Will obeying God cost me more than disobeying Him? Can I experience greater happiness by committing this sin than I would by obeying God?

When we choose to obey God, we take the way of wisdom. His promises of blessing for obedience far outweigh any possible consequences. He asks us to submit ourselves to Him and leave whatever happens to His loving care.

We must remember that God loves us and is committed to us. He commands our obedience, not because He is a strict taskmaster, but because He knows the 🔔devastating affect that 😟disobedience and sin will have on our lives.

Obedience🙏 may not be easy—you may receive criticism from others or face fierce 😠obstacles and opposition—but it will always put you in a favorable 😇position before God. He will take care of all that concerns you; therefore, stay on the path of obedience and leave the rest to Him.

3. Our Anchor in Times of Storm🔊

Life Principle 3: God's 🍞Word is an immovable anchor in times of storm.
Number 23: 19
Each of us can remember times when we wished we had a sure 😀word from God—something we could cling to when doubts 😟and fears arose. God knows when we need encouragement, 💕guidance, and hope. That’s why He provides specific promises in 🍔His Word so that we might understand 🌹His nature and trust Him. In emotionally devastating times, God’s promises are essential to our spiritual welfare.

His Word is therefore a 🍞compass, a guide, and an instruction 🌷book to life. Just as we use instruction manuals at work or in the kitchen, we’re to use ⚠God’s Word as our resource for 💕wisdom and truth. No one would think of baking a cake without a recipe, nor would a mechanic rebuild a car engine without a manual.

At times God brings a specific🔊 Scripture to mind that ministers His hope and reassurance 🌷to our hearts. At other times, He challenges us to pray 🙏and seek His wisdom on a certain issue. When we look to God in faith, He will lead 💒us according to His will. Of course, this may not happen overnight. Many times God wants us to meditate💖 on a certain Scripture over a period of time before He gives His guidance.

When King David sought God’s heart regarding his desire to build the temple, the Bible says: “Then David the king went in and sat🙏 before the Lord” (2 Sam. 7:18). David didn’t order his men to begin construction. He waited for 💡God’s leadership—and it was a good thing he did because the Lord wanted David’s son, Solomon, to do the job instead.

God honored David’s attitude, however, and gave him a wonderful promise: “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16). The Lord always honors our desire to seek 👍His guidance and wisdom. If we will come to God ⛅expecting Him to answer, He will never disappoint us.

4🌹
Energized by His Presence

Life Principle 4: The awareness🙌 of God’s presence energizes us for our work.

If you're a Christian, Jesus Christ is the supervisor at your place of work—and He not only watches you from afar, He’s right 😊there with you. You and I need to give a full day’s labor, regardless of whether we think management is fair. Jesus is ultimately the One we 🌲serve, and He’s always on site. You and I should do our very best because the Holy Spirit is present, equipping⚠, and energizing us.

We make a terrible mistake by segmenting life. We may think that Monday through Friday we go to work, Saturday we play, and Sunday we worship. God has not designed life that way. If Jesus Christ is our Savior, we can’t exclude Him from any part of life. It isn’t right to teach a Sunday school class with everything we have, then meander into work the rest of the week—we must honor and glorify Him in everything😇 we do. It eliminates the temptation of doing our work merely to be seen by men when we commit ourselves wholeheartedly to Jesus (Matt. 6:24).

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Matthew 6:24 NKJV

Do I mean that your mundane job is also the 🍑Lord’s work? Yes! Ministry is not just what you do at church. You worship God every 🍓day of the week—on Sunday, you do so in church; on Monday through Friday, you show your devotion 💖to Him by doing a good ☕job at work. Your exalted status as a child of God dignifies your labor, and your office or place of employment should be 💡better off because you are there.

You serve the Lord Jesus Christ (Col. 3:24). Do you have a good😊 testimony in the marketplace for Him? Are you one of your company’s most faithful🌹 employees because you serve God? Does your attitude reflect the 😊joy you have in considering Him the real CEO? If so, then you are truly getting the most out of your work.

5. The Unreasonable Will of God

Life Principle 5: God does not require us to understand His will, just 🙏obey it, even if it seems unreasonable.

Do you often find yourself wondering why God 😟doesn’t answer your prayers or why, despite your best efforts, the circumstances of your life still don’t ⚠work out? The answer could lie in your level of 🙏obedience to God. Or waiting may be the result of God wanting you to be 🙏still, trust Him, and watch for His cue to move forward.

You shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, ‘When you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan.’ ”
Joshua 3:8 NKJV

When we choose the path of obedience, we must be prepared for any response we’ll undoubtedly receive (both positive or negative), knowing that God has an excellent reason for His command and will 👑help us in extraordinary ways. We must never focus on the things or the people who try to 💡distract us from doing God’s will. The Holy Spirit enables us to 🌹obey every one of God’s commandments and always directs🌲 us in the best way possible. Therefore, whatever He requires of us—whether it be painful or joyful, profitable or costly, reasonable or peculiar—our heavenly Father will give us the ability 🍔and strength to be faithful, regardless of what others think or how our circumstances appear.

Obedience⚠ must be a priority🌲 in every believer’s life. It’s the only way you will ever become the person God wants you to be and the only💒 way you will ever 🍔achieve the things in life He has so wonderfully prepared for you. It’s the Holy Spirit who🌲 enables you to walk 🙏obediently before the Lord in His strength and His power.

So choose to 💒obey Him, even if you don’t understand why He asks you to do something. Have faith that His instructions are for your good
Jer. 29:11.
That way, you can become the person He wants you to be, do the work🍓 He desires of you, bear the fruit 🍑He enables you to bear, and receive all the 🍞blessings He’s prepared for you.

God greatest gift of love

GOD'S GREATEST GIFT OF LOVE

The most famous passage in the Bible is John 3:16:

”For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus Christ is not only God’s best way of speaking to us. He is also God’s greatest gift of love! We have mentioned God’s plan of love for man. What is that plan? The Bible reveals that Jesus Christ is, Himself, the way to come back to God. Shortly before His death for all people, Jesus said,

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

In His prayer to the Father He said,

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3).

LET'S SUM UP

This study of the Bible has led us closer to knowing "the only true God." The apostle John summed up God’s nature in the simplest and best way:

God is love (1 John 4:8).

The proof of God’s continuing love fills all the creation, all of history, and all of our lives. Yes, there is suffering in the world. But never forget that it came when man rejected the One who alone gives life, peace, joy and purpose. Because of the lies of God’s enemy, we left what God’s great love had planned for us. Yet that is not the end of the story, praise God! For God’s compassion still calls us back to enjoy all the fullest blessings of eternal life.

God calls us through His prophets, and especially through His own Son. We take their warnings of judgment seriously, and we "turn to God in repentance" (Acts 20:21). We know that the way to life is through faith in Jesus Christ (John 3:16; 14:6; 17:2; Acts 20:21). Who is this Jesus? When He is called "the Son of God," what does this really mean? What has He done that makes the way to God so open for us? The next course explores the good news about Jesus Christ. We look forward to hearing from you, and continuing our studies of Scripture together as soon as possible. May God bless and keep you in His loving care!

How our hearts praise You for your goodness, O LORD! Thank You for being so merciful toward us. Thank you for life that You continue to give, including the time You have given us for this study together. As You so freely give to us, may we freely share with others the things that we receive and learn. Our request is that You will allow us to continue our studies of Your word, so that we can truly know Your greatest gift of love, Jesus Christ.

God's mercy

GOD HAS SPOKEN OF MERCY

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ”The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression [wrongdoing] and sin…” (Exodus 34:6-7).

God showed a part of His glory to Moses on the mountain of Sinai. While doing so, God spoke these words of love to describe Himself. According to Exodus 34:7 God then went on to speak about His just punishment for all who remained guilty. He was not denying the fact that He is angry with sin. But it is important for us to see what God, in revealing Himself, chose to speak of first. He spoke of His "love" before He spoke of His anger. Is this love only for very good people? No. This love is "forgiving" toward those who have rebelled against Him. Here is hope for all of us who have fallen into sin. The God who has spoken has spoken first of how much His mercy and compassion reach out to us even in our sin!

LOVE FROM THE BEGINNING

It was not only in words that God spoke first of love. He has done so in actions from the very beginning. The creation itself was an act of pure love! When God saw all that He had made, He knew that it was "very good" (Genesis 1:31). God’s making of the world reminds us of a man building a home in preparation for the coming of his beloved family. Instead of leaving it in darkness, He gave it light. Instead of leaving it shapeless, He formed it with strong building materials. He gave it the firmness of dry land, and the lively freshness of water. Instead of emptiness, He filled it with all kinds of living things. Instead of dullness, He gave each thing its own beauty and wonder. Instead of want and hunger, He provided all that life needed, including enjoyable food.

When all was ready, God created the people to live in this beautiful home (Genesis 1:26-28). He gave to man breath and a fleshly body, as He had given the animals. But the gift of life for man went far beyond animal life. The Creator made man in His own "image" or "likeness" (Genesis 1:26-27). Man’s heart can respond to God and to others in a far higher way than animals can. In keeping with this high position, God appointed man ruler over all the earth and its creatures (Genesis 1:26).

God was not forced to do any of this. It was because of His own loving nature that He created people and "blessed them" (Genesis 1:27-28).

LOVE'S GIFTS OF FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIP

In all the creation of the world there was only one thing said to be "not good." At first the man was alone (Genesis 2:18). Yet there was a loving reason even in letting the man know loneliness. For the man would then treasure his wife and family to come. In answer to the man’s need, God used a part from the side of the man to make a woman. She became his wife, his friend and his helper (Genesis 2:18-25). God made each as a living gift to the other!

Added to that, God gave to the couple a share in giving new life. From the joy of their unity would come the gift of children. Say a special prayer of thanks to God the next time your heart is moved by a lovely wedding. When you next hold a new born baby in your arms, remember who gave the priceless gift of life!

Adding blessing upon blessing, God gave to the human family His own personal friendship. He spoke with them. He came to their garden in the cool of the day to be with them (Genesis 3:8).

The universe and earth are much larger than these tiny creatures—these humans. Yet God chose to give His special attention to them. Like King David, we can only wonder at such love for humans.

… what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor (Psalm 8:4-5).    

ANGER COULD NOT HIDE LOVE

Some might think that God’s love ended when the man and woman sinned. It is true that sin has turned this world into a place of hardship and suffering. It is not true that these things ended God’s love. Think back to each time when God showed His just anger against sin. You will find in each case that God made sure His continuing care for people was known.

In Genesis 3, God was about to punish Adam and Eve for their sin. First, though, He gave the promise of hope. He assured them that the woman’s offspring would crush their enemy (3:15). Before the couple were driven out of their garden home, God Himself made clothes for them (3:21). Later God helped Eve to give birth to her child (4:1). When that child had grown God spoke to him to help him overcome sin (4:6).

The next great example of judgment was the flood (Genesis 6). Wickedness had almost completely taken over the earth. Only one God-fearing family was left! It actually became necessary to wash the earth clean. Yet even this was an act of love. It was a fresh start, so that good could again be known on earth. God removed that evil generation to warn future generations (2 Peter 3). Even those wicked people of that time received warning. For years God used Noah as "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Peter 2:5). They refused to listen. So, in the words of Jesus Christ, "the flood came and swept them all away" (Matthew 24:39). The rainbow that God set in the clouds immediately after this reminded the world of His mercy. It assured the earth that no such flood would happen again. The seasons would remain steady (Genesis 8:22; 9:8-17). Many centuries later the apostle Paul pointed at the dependable seasons and regular crops. He said that these were God’s "testimony" proving that "He did good" (Acts 14:17).  

WHY DO WE SUFFER IN THIS WORLD?

There are, of course, times when crops do fail for a while. Jobs become hard to find. Families lack what they need. How are we to understand these in the light of God’s love? First, let us remember that the world God made was not a world of want, disease or death. He made it a place of plenty, health and life. Man’s sin, and Satan’s rule through that sin, brought into the world the suffering we see. Even for God’s own people, this is a place of "groaning" (Romans 8:22-23).

The question this world should really be asking is this: "Why should we expect anything except pain and death?" For this world is full of rebellion against its Creator.

To reject the Giver of all life should mean the loss of all life. Yet the God of great mercy keeps on letting people live on His earth. He gives them many blessings.

He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45).

He gives us time to learn and to turn to Him, before it is too late. Yet many are so thoughtless and so thankless that they use this time to continue sinning. They "show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance and patience." They fail to see that

"… God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance" (Romans 2:4).

ERV: God has been kind to you. He has been very patient, waiting for you to change. But you think nothing of his kindness. Maybe you don't understand that God is kind to you so that you will decide to change your lives. 🙏 

GOD USES GOOD TIMES AND BAD TIMES

When many blessings do not turn people back to God, He may try another way. He may use even the curses and sorrows that are already at work in the earth because of sin. An example of this was given by the prophet Jeremiah. His people enjoyed seasons of plenty. Yet these good times did not turn their hearts to God (Jeremiah 5:24). Later came their times of great trouble, war and famine. God tried through these to show His people the result of their sin.

Your sins have kept you from enjoying the good things from the LORD (Jeremiah 5:25).

Still they would not listen. Finally their capital city, Jerusalem, was destroyed. Many of them were killed or made slaves.

In the book called Lamentations, Jeremiah tells of his tears as he watched his people starve and die in Jerusalem. Yet he knew how much God had tried to win them back. God had tried by means of both good times and bad times.

So, even in great sorrow, Jeremiah could still say,

"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).

ERV: We are still alive because the LORD's faithful love never ends. Every morning he shows it in new ways! LORD, you are so very true and loyal!   

THE LORD DISCIPLINES THOSE HE LOVES

According to Matthew 5:22,29-30 and Luke 12:4-5, the suffering in our earthly bodies is small compared to the fire of hell. Therefore God’s feelings of mercy ("compassions") may at times move Him even to use earthly pain to try to keep us from far greater eternal pain.

God does not have to make up special pain just for us. In this world, which has left God, pain is already with us! But God can sometimes use that pain to help us. When a doctor cuts into the body to remove a diseased part, does this mean that the doctor is uncaring and unwise? Just the opposite is true. He cuts because he cares and wishes to heal. He knows that the pain of this cut is far better than the suffering and death of the spreading disease.

In the same way, God sends "judgments" even before the final judgment. Is this because He is uncaring? It is because He cares so much! As the prophet Isaiah said,

When your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants [people] of the world learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9b).

In fact, it can be said that the more God cares, the more He corrects us.

The Lord disciplines the one he loves… [Our fathers] disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness (Hebrews 12:6,10).

Life’s trials tend to make unbelievers more bitter and hard-hearted. But believers keep trusting in the great truth that "His love endures forever" (Psalm 136). Therefore they let themselves be "trained" by the pain of correction. In this way they reap the "harvest of righteousness and peace" (Hebrews 12:11).

IS HELL PART OF GOD'S PLAN OF LOVE?

Hell is clearly described in the Bible. If we reject the teaching about hell, we must reject the teaching about heaven. For we learn of both from the same place—God’s word. However we must also believe God’s word when it reveals that hell was not actually made for man. Matthew 25:41 calls it "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." It was made for the terrible and powerful enemies of God (Revelation 20:10). The same passages show that condemned people will go there. But they will go there against God’s wish. God has spoken very clearly on this matter:

”I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn, and live” (Ezekiel 18:32).

God our Savior… desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4).

[The Lord] is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish [die], but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

So in a sense we may answer, "No, hell is not part of God’s plan of love for man."

God’s love wants to keep people away from hell. Yes, God’s mercy has even planned for all to be able to come back to Him. The cost of that plan is greater than we can measure! But those who reject God’s plan have chosen God’s enemy. They must then go to the place God prepared for that enemy. So in another sense we may say that even hell comes from the loving God.

Love for justice, love for truth, love for His own people—this is the love which causes God finally to remove all His enemies. If these enemies continue to have their way creation will forever remain a place of disorder, suffering and death. It is the God of love who has set hell as the end to all active rebellion. Ending all rebellion will allow the return of complete order, peace and goodness for saved humans. This is what God had planned from before the creation—that people should live with Him in the joy-filled, perfect, eternal Home (Ephesians 1; Revelation 21,22).