The entire Bible is the story of God’s love for us. Even before Jesus died on the cross to pay the full price for our rebellion, God valued His people and planned for them to spread that love to the entire world.
The pattern of God’s interaction with people throughout scripture is consistent: God gives them laws/rules that will make life good for them, but the people rebel against those laws/rules because they think they know better than God. He allows them to experience the death that comes from trying to be their own God. When that happens, the people see how wrong they’ve been and ask Him to forgive them, and He forgives and restores them … until they do it again!
We needed a lasting solution that would break this pattern of behavior. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are that solution. You and I live in the glorious time of history after Jesus came and died for us and rose again to give us eternal freedom from our rebellious nature that separates us from God. When we acknowledge the ways that we rebel against God’s good plan and receive His gift of forgiveness and relationship, God puts His Holy Spirit in our hearts. God’s Holy Spirit is like a beacon of light, pointing us to God and His goodness, prompting us when we need to admit we’re “doing it again and thinking we’re smarter than God,” and helping us step back onto the path of God’s love and life.
God promises us in Ezekiel 36:26,
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.
The longer we follow Jesus, the more we realize how much we need Him to give us this new heart. That’s because the Holy Spirit keeps refining us and we see ways that our hearts are hard that we never saw before. When that happens, don’t be discouraged. Just come to the Lord and ask Him to change your heart. He longs to make our hearts more and more like His!
Will you respond to God’s love today with repentance for the ways you fail to live in love? And will you act on the joy and love Jesus gives you by reaching out to your neighbor with a kind word, smiling and thanking the person behind the cash register at your grocery store, or offering to pray for someone? If God opens the door, share the life you have received in Jesus—your testimony is the most powerful way you can spread God’s love in this world.
PRAYER: Dear Lord, thank You for the Holy Spirit who lives inside me! Help me listen to Your quiet voice in my heart and follow You closely today. Amen
ACTION: Pray and Give today to share Jesus with the world at SPIRIT 105.3.
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