All, every single human being has the potential to be Christ's and we must never forget this!

To believe or not believe- this is our choice, a choice none can make for us.

1Jn 5:10  He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

1Jn 5:11  And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

1Jn 5:12  He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

1Jn 5:13  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

God has given to us ETERNAL LIFE.

ETERNAL LIFE is IN HIS SON.

If WE HAVE the SON- WE HAVE LIFE.

We KNOW WE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.

WE BELIEVE on the NAME of the SON OF GOD.

A gift whose value we can never measure- eternal life.

What do you imagine eternal life to be? Another plane of existence similar to how we live now only without sin? Can we truly imagine life without sin?

No lies, not one.

No hate, not any.

No self serving, not a bit.

That last one there… that's the one we have to look at more closely.  No self serving. Imagine, because most of us have to with it not being anything close to a reality for us, imagine putting others first ALWAYS and this being a joy!

Satan wants to destroy us through selfishness and he's mostly succeeded because MOST people consider themselves first before any and all interaction with others.

How do I feel today?  How do I feel about this or that? What do I want to accomplish today? How will that affect me? Does this make me feel good or bad?

And even if we plan on doing things for others, or to accomplish future plans for others these are our plans and if they get interrupted these goals we fashion for ourselves all the time, we feel disturbed, sometimes even upset.  We get upset in our desire to do for others, and that upset is because things aren't going as we plan, as we want them to so we can help.  We focus on ourselves. 

To focus elsewhere is alien to us. How can I care about another more than myself?

Even parents will find themselves being selfish and we call this NORMAL. We normalize everything so we don't have to recognize anything as a fault within us and seek refining through grace and forgiveness. 

We'd rather normalize our faults to pacify our self-serving than face the truth that all of our selfishness is wrong.

Do we have real needs that have to be met? Yes. But we've turned wants into needs and call it good.

We will be destroyed with self serving if we aren't careful. Satan will lull us into his deceptive ways if we give in to him. We need to forever be asking for the Holy Spirit to guide us in ALL things. We have to acknowledge God in ALL our ways so we can be directed by Him. 

Things we often call self-loathing could in fact be Holy Spirit conviction turned by Satan into something to despise rather than to be thankful for. We try to rid ourselves of self-loathing, but what replaces it is self-worship that we label self-acceptance. We should ONLY accept our Savior's worth! We are nothing without our SAVIOR and should always be nothing without our Savior!  In Christ we are sons and daughters of God! Of ourselves we are NOTHING. And I believe we need constant reminding of this.  Perhaps we are in a refining process in a lot of the self-loathing- hating the sin in us, feeling the flesh rule when with our minds we would serve Christ.  And we have to accept in that moment- CHRIST'S WORTH as being enough, because we have none to offer!

Never WILLFULLY accept the sins that would so EASILY beset us. Always strive against sin! Find HOPE in CHRIST, not in ourselves!  Never use Christ as an excuse to sin-  to not love God, to not love others as God would have us. Praise God when we are able to recognize our worthlessness without Him! Recognize and praise God when we comprehend Christ is our worth!

Satan would forever lead us to despair, to hopelessness and he'll use our self loathing to accomplish that if he can. We need to KNOW that Christ is our eternal life, we do not fashion our own life, our own hope, our own worth in any way!  We are dependent upon CHRIST and His promises!  CHRIST in us alone gives us worth!  And the possibility of Christ in ALL gives all around us worth!  Christ loves all and would have ALL be His! WE in turn must love all as if they are all Christ's because we have no way of knowing if even the worst of the worst, most hateful person is one God is allowing to be refined in another way for Him. If the early Christians hated Paul as He persecuted them, they were hating one who would be God's. They didn't hate him, they may have feared being persecuted but they had to love even those who persecuted them- these were the words of CHRIST whom they followed, whom they believed in. 

All, every single human being has the potential to be Christ's and we must never forget this!

We believe and we know, and one day they too may believe an know it isn't our right to decide they will never believe or know Jesus Christ, that is never our right.

May we forever believe in Christ, through Christ! He is our eternal life!

Now and forever, AMEN!