Choose God First.

 What does it mean to put God First?

Mat 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 

Mat 22:38  This is the first and great commandment. 

The FIRST command. LOVE GOD.

What does it mean, to love God? We choose to love. Love is a choice. Love isn't some emotionally charge, physical reaction, a feeling, but a choice! 

You can be mated to someone and not love them, marriage doesn't automatically mean love. Being physically active with someone doesn't mean love. Love is a choice! We CHOOSE to love one another. No one is forced to love someone. If you pretend to love someone, that's your choice. No one can make you love them, not a single person can force that on another. You can be ordered to act like and talk like you love someone but each action and each word could be fabricated, a lie, not truth, not love. How many parents mouth the words of love to children but have no real love for them? A mother is told she'll automatically love her newborn, but that isn't true. A mother will choose to love her newborn, or not. Yes, there are maternal factors of hormones that can mess up brain chemistry and interfere with the choices we make, not just between mothers and newborns but in a lot of life's facets. A choice for me might be easy to make while for another it could be something that takes a long, long time, if ever to make. We have knowledge and with that knowledge we make decisions. We choose even to not make a choice. We choose to love. Even after we're raised to believe we owe love to those who share our bloodlines, we choose. We like to say family first before others. This isn't always the case. Some people have absolutely horrendous family members and why should a person be forced to love them simply because they're family? We aren't forced to love. We choose. We choose to love the seemingly unlovable. We tell ourselves we have to love our family members, we make that choice often to our own detriment. How many people have chosen to love a family member who has hurt them, when they know if it were any other person other than family they would cut off all ties with them? We can choose to love the unlovable, there is nothing wrong with making that choice. God did.

When God chose to love us first, He was choosing to love creatures that had the potential for great hatred of Him. God was choosing to love the seemingly unlovable. God was choosing to love those who would break His heart over and over, and over again in countless ways. 

What does it mean to love God? It means we CHOOSE GOD. When we choose God, we choose all that He is and He is love. He chooses us. 

As God chose us unlovable, detestable, people He showed perfectly how to love the unlovable. God chose to love His professed enemies giving them ample opportunity for enough knowledge to make a choice for Him or not. 

1Jn 4:19  We love him, because he first loved us. 

He chooses us for ETERNITY! No exemptions! We are all CHOSEN for eternity! We all have received the GOLDEN TICKET FROM GOD. HEAVEN HOME FOREVER. 

We are chosen by God for ETERNITY and that doesn't mean we aren't going to suffer horrifically right now. God offers HEAVEN ETERNITY, God doesn't not offer supplications answered now so life might be lived in a way endurable to you. You pray for a roof over your head and that roof is taken away. You pray for a life of a loved one to be spared, and you watch them suffer and die. You pray for just enough to live comfortably, and you are often very uncomfortable wondering day to day where your next meal will come from, where the means to stay living an acceptably livable life are. You pray for pain to be taken from you only to feel it increase. You pray for the good fortune for others, just to witness life torture them making them life lives of extreme discomfort. You pray for an innocent child's life and they slip away to death's sleep. You pray for so much, you make supplications to God and you want Him to hear your supplications and grant your requests how you perceive them to be best answered. God hears every word you think, every prayer prayed by you He has heard, but He did not promise you comfort now…

2Co 6:5  In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; 

2Co 6:6  By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned

2Co 1:7  And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation. 

2Co 1:8  For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: 

2Co 1:9  But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: 

2Co 1:10  Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us

Whipped, imprison, despairing of life itself all wrongfully, all unwarranted and yet choosing to remain Christ's! 

This world PROMISES temporary tortures - the minimum to the extreme and all in-between for all of us. Prayers or no prayers those tiny to extreme tortures will beset us all. A prayer, a supplication, a praise, a worship, a glorying, a beseeching, we cry out in agony and in joy to our God. We know He offers us ETERNITY A HEAVEN HOME after all is said and done with our temporary to eternity life.

We choose- and God must be FIRST CHOICE, not once, but ALWAYS.

If we do NOT have God first, then any attempt to put others second will fail. If we put others first before God, we fail them and us.

God FIRST, the spiritual FIRST, the heavenly FIRST. In EVERY and in ALL situations GOD NEEDS TO BE FIRST.  

When God is first, then others will be second, and we will be last.

God first is eternity all else is temporal.

God help us to this end, to this finish line, to be winners of eternity through our Savior, Jesus Christ now and forever! Amen.

Lay Aside All Sin.

 Lay aside- ALL malice (all intent to wish or do harm, hatred, spite, meanness, nastiness, cruelty, wickedness, mischievous) 

Lay aside- ALL guile (cunning, deceitfulness, treachery, slyness, wiliness, craftiness) Lay aside- ALL hypocrisies (insincerity, pretenses, duplicities, double standards, falseness) 

Lay aside- ALL envies (jealousies, resentments, spites, greed, bitterness) 

Lay aside- ALL evil speakings (morally bad, deliberately harmful, causing misfortune, maliciousness) 

We have to determine to be without any hatred of any kind, without any evil, we cannot deliberately hold onto anything untoward in any way at all. We can't cling to anything that would keep us from being open to the truth of God. We need to be willing to let go of ALL we are as sin corrupted beings. We can't defend our sinful selves in any way. We can't make excuses for our sins not the greatest of them, not the least. We can't justify our sins. We are tempted to give a reason for the sins we commit as if that can excuse them and make us righteousness somehow, it can't. There isn't a single good reason for sin. We sin because we are weak beings of flesh. We strive not to sin and pray constantly for the power of Christ in us to overcome the evil, the temptations, the sins in our lives. We can't overcome by our own power, but Christ in us can. All glory to God, all glory! Let us lay aside any and all sin we knowingly cling to. Let us renounce it right now, and if we find ourselves overcome by any of the sin we've laid aside- let us lay is aside again and again and again, never ceasing to comprehend we have to fight, to strive against sins that truly so easily beset us.

Heb 12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us

*

Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 15 Excerpt

"Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1 Pet. 1:1-3.

"One Faith." We may now stop to see how this that the apostle has said connects with what he has said in the fourteenth chapter, about Christ's being the minister of the circumcision, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God.

"Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations." Mark this: They who are to be received "as Christ also received us to the glory of God," are those who have the faith. Now there is but "one faith," as there is but "one Lord." Eph. 4:5. And faith comes by hearing the word of God. Rom. 10:17.

Since there is to be but one fold, and Christ, the one Shepherd, is not divided, there must be no division in the fold. Disputings, which come from human wisdom and human ideas, are to be left out, and the word of God alone followed. That allows of no disputing, since it tells ever one and the same thing. This is the rule:  "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." 1 Pet. 1:1-3.

One Fold, One Shepherd

 Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 15 Excerpt

"One Fold, and One Shepherd." 

In the tenth chapter of John we find some of the most beautiful, tender, and encouraging words of the Lord Jesus. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the gate by which the sheep enter into the fold. He gives his life to save them. Then he says, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one Shepherd." Vs. 16. Therefore when his work is completed, there will be but one fold, and he will be the Shepherd. Let us see who will compose that flock.

The Lost Sheep.

In the fifteenth chapter of Luke, that wonderful bouquet of blessed illustrations of the love and mercy of the Saviour, Jesus represents his work as that of the shepherd going to seek the lost and wandering sheep. Now who are the sheep that he is seeking? He himself gives the answer: "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matt. 15:24. This is emphatic. Therefore it is evident that all the sheep whom he finds, and whom he brings back to the fold, will be Israel. And so it is just as evident that the "one fold" will be the fold of Israel. There will be no other fold, since it is to be "one fold." And he will be the Shepherd. To-day, as well as in the days of old, we may pray, "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock;  thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth." Ps. 80:1.

The Characteristic of the Sheep. 

Those who are following Christ are his sheep. But he has "other sheep." There are many who are not now following him, who are his sheep. They are lost and wandering, and he is seeking them.

What determines who are his sheep? Hear him tell: "The sheep hear his voice." "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice." "Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice." John 10:3, 16, 26, 27. When he speaks, those who are his sheep will hear his voice, and come to him. The word of the Lord is the test as to who are his sheep. Every one therefore who hears and obeys the word of the Lord is of the family of Israel; and those who reject or neglect the word, are eternally lost. "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal.  3:29.

God of All.

 The God of Israel, the God of the Jews, and yet… through the Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, He is God of ALL. Yes, GOD of ALL! 

Our God is willing to be God to all who would seek Him, leaving none from that promise. It doesn't matter what religion a person is born into, finds him or herself in, God the Father wants to be God to all. He is NOT a God who demands obedience blindly, offering nothing, giving no hope. He is a God with PROMISES to all of us! These promises, as all of His promises, will be fulfilled! We have HOPE in God through Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit! HOPE. 

Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 15 Excerpt

The "Tabernacle of David." 

At the time when the apostles and elders were assembled in Jerusalem, Peter told how he had been used by the Lord to carry the gospel to the Gentiles. Said he, "God, which knoweth the hearts,  bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." Acts 15:8, 9.

Then James added, "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up;  that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Acts 15:14-18.

That is, the house of David is to be built up only by the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, and the taking from them of a people for God. And this was the purpose of God from the beginning, as the prophets witness,  that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Acts 10:43.

"The Blessing of Abraham." Again we read that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; . . . that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Gal. 3:13, 14. The curse that Christ was made for us, was the cross, as is stated in the words omitted from the text just quoted.

Therefore we learn that the promises to the fathers were assured only by the cross of Christ. But Christ tasted death for every man. Heb. 2:9. He was "lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:14, 15. Therefore the promises made to the fathers were simply the promises of the gospel,  which is "to every creature." By the cross, Christ confirms the promises made to the fathers, in order "that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy."

Jews and Gentiles- Christ's.

 

Peace In Believing.

Constant Chaos.

Rom 15:13  Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. 

Joh 14:27  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 

God said to me, "My peace is eternal peace."

Truly the world cannot give us eternal peace. Most people are grateful for a few moments of peace in this crazy messed up Satan ruled world. They grapple for peace from the chaos of living. It's a day to day struggle that assaults all of us. And peace eludes us because the world's anxiousness has infected us with a disease of constant chaos. 

The constant chaos has varying degrees. The constant is that it is always there, the varying degrees makes it so that it can appear quite subdued and bordering on giving away to peace, but then at the slightest provocation the constant chaos begins its ascent. Sometimes that ascent accelerates at a speed we can barely believe exists it is so fast. One moment the constant chaos is ebbed at a low hum of what we know as tolerability, and the very next moment it is screaming at a high roar of unfathomable magnitude. The volume on the chaos has been cranked up in one quick, smooth motion. At other times the constant chaos begins a gradual ascent barely inching up over time but nonetheless it increases, getting us further and further away from a comfortable chaos we've trained ourselves to live in. The thing is, we've really done that. We've conditioned ourselves to live in the chaos of our world, by adopting the various bits and pieces of the chaos we can, and accepting them. When the chaos steps out of our conditioned acceptance and starts to roar around us we long to retreat, we cry out for a moment of peace!  Then quite often the chaos tones down, it lessens to the point of our tolerability and while we might not claim it as a perfect peace, it is our way of life. Chaos lurks all around us, it hides behind every door, it rushes in a barely open window, it slaps us in the face when we least expect or want it, we live the constant chaos life.

God's peace is NOT like this world's peace. It's not a moment of peace here and there, it's not the low chaos life we call peaceful but know it's really not entirely peaceful at all. The stresses and worries we try to leave behind - to get away for a bit of peace and quiet, are still there waiting patiently or not so patiently in the back of our thoughts looking for the tiniest of openings in order to wiggle back up the chaos volume ever so stealthily. The peace we grapple for and seem to rarely find in this world is a peace of false hope taking us up to the pinnacle of happiest only to dash us down upon the rocks of life's upset, time and time again. We live in a Satan run world of that there is no doubt and he'll pass up NO opportunity to give us the false security of the peace this world has to offer. He dangles it before us over and over and like an eager kitten pouncing on a toy feather - we can't resist grabbing that peace he gives. We have to know on some level it is a temporary peace more than likely setting us up for a great fall into chaos, but still we want that momentary reprieve from constant chaos and after-all Satan tells us that maybe just maybe, this time the world produced peace he's offering will last a bit longer than last time. Satan does not want us seeking the peace our God has to offer us. Satan tells us that we must have peace NOW, we deserve a rest from the chaos right this moment, right now in this life we live! We shouldn't have to wait for who knows how long to get the peace God offers. We shouldn't have to place our hope in heaven, setting our affection on things above. Our focus shouldn't be on the eternal life He alone offers us, we have to deal with this current life, right? It's much more important that we focus on the here and now, getting peace wherever and whenever we can, and lamenting all the chaos that interferes with our peace. We want crumbs of the peace pie that fall all around us, rather than placing our desire on the whole pie that we can only get in eternity. Scrambling like rats for the crumbs leftover, thinking we can only survive by eating the crumbs. Satan has a million deceptions to drag us into his world giving peace, all set to keep us from the peace God can and will give us!  God says…

Joh 14:27  Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 

God said to me, "My peace is eternal peace." 

Our hearts are not to be trouble or afraid when we have the eternal peace, the gospel, the good news of salvation- eternal life that awaits all through the love of Jesus Christ who sacrificed Himself for us, to give us this hope now for eternal peace. Peace that this world can never, ever give to us. Our affections must be set on things in heaven, the eternal, the unseen, the past, future, and present of heaven's promises through the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit now and forever! The world's constant chaos ebbing and flowing will seek to distract us from the only real, everlasting peace to come- when our Savior returns for us. He is our HOPE, our Heaven Hope, our Heaven Peace. To have heaven's peace now is knowing the reward that will come after being immersed in Satan's world of constant chaos. Above all the chaos- large and small, above all the temporary peace teasing us with its deception, is the true peace, God's peace. 

Come, Lord, Jesus, come. We long to receive Your promised peace, our affections are set in heaven, with You always! You are the hope in Us now and forever!  By Your will, Your grace, Your mercy, Your love everlasting.

Amen.