The Love of God!

"Never did his love begin, and never can it cease. It is from eternity, and shall be to eternity."

- C H Spurgeon

Dear Reader,

Today I would like to share with you one of the most awesome things God has shown me lately through His Holy Word. I want to share on the love of God, a love that is perfect, pure, unconditional, and faithful. As Christian one of the hardest things you will ever have to do is to look into the mirror of God's Word and see your sin as it truly is, and believe God loves you as much as He says He does. That is a good thing but a hard thing. To fully grasp this love of God, lets start with some verses you may not expect to hear when talking about the love of God. 

Exo 3:14  God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."

When Moses asked God, "who are You?" God said "I AM WHO I AM". It's like if an alien came down and asked you who you are, you could say "I am like him or, in a sense like her, I am like the rest of everyone on this planet, but when God is asked this, He says "I AM THAT I AM", for there is nothing and no one for Him to compare to, He is who He is, He is GOD! He is not like you, and He is most certainly not like me, thank goodness. He's not just a large version of us. Again, He is GOD! 

God's love is the same way, nothing can describe or compare to it. We can not even begin to measure His love, describe it is some way that is worthy, or must less show the kind of love God has shown us. Jesus Christ is the only man who can show this kind of love for He is both God and man and He is perfect. And the one event that shows love in all its fullness, perfection, and beauty is the cross and what Jesus did at Calvary. Our love as humans, that is for example a fathers love for his son, is like hatred compared to God's love for His Son, and so great is God's love for His people, that He would

sacrifice His ONLY Son for our sinful undeserving souls.

Now, I would like to take a look at Psalm 7:11-13

God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day.  (12)  If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready.  (13)  He has also prepared for Himself deadly weapons; He makes His arrows fiery shafts.

I know what you are thinking right now, "this verse doesn't have anything to do with love, so why do I bring it up when talking about the love of God?" 

The love of God is perfectly displayed in all its glory on the cross of Calvary. Where Christ, God's only Son, took upon Himself the full wrath of God, that was due you, because of your wickedness. God is angry at sin, He is wrath filled because of sin, and if we can understand God's holy hatred toward sin, and that we deserve nothing but Hell for eternity, than His LOVE is all the more beautiful, and glorious. Take this analogy for example, during the day you look up, where did all the stars go? Did someone remove them? No! They are there, we you just can't see them. But when the night grows black as pitch, the stars come out in all their glory. The more you see your sin and how dark your depravity is, the more gloriously revealed is the love of God the Father toward you. 

The darker the night the more brilliantly you can see the light. What you must understand before you can comprehend the magnitude of the love of God, is your own sin. We are not just lost sheep looking for God, we are not deserving of what He has done. As Romans 3:11 says, "There is NONE who seek after God." Unless you and I understand what we were, sinners, enemies of God, under judgment, deserving death, Hell, and condemnation, unless we believe all that, the magnitude of the love of God is all together lost!

So there is a sense that when we understand the darkness of our own heart and what we actually deserve before God, then we can begin to rejoice and appreciate the love of God. This is why people who were saved out of a life of drunkenness, murder, sexual immorality, drugs etc., have such a zeal, they know what they were.

"The deeper and darker the picture is painted, with regard to our moral failings, the greater and more intensely is the glory of God revealed." -Paul Washer

God is love! But He loves us because of Him, and inspite of us. You are loved because God is love, not because of your performance. Some people serve God so He will love them, this is pointless and wrong. On the other hand others serve God because He loves them, and they love God. We love Him because He first loved us and gave Himself up for us, and if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

Romans 5:6-9 is, I believe, one of the greatest pictures of God's love for us in all of Scripture, yes even more than John 3:16, cause these verses show how undeserving of such a love we are, yet freely given by God.

Rom 5:6-9  For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  (7)  For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.  (8)  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  (9)  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 

It starts out in verse 6, "while we were still helpless." In the Greek that word "helpless" can also be translated as "sick" or even "unimpressive", there was nothing impressive about us, our malady of sin dooming our souls to Hell. But, the best part, "in the right time" or "opportune time", CHRIST, the Son God, the Holy One, the Pure Spotless Lamb of God, DIED for us the "ungodly".

Now, I don't have a son, but I know that I wouldn't sacrifice my son for a wicked person, or even for you.  Not many would die for a righteous man, and very few would even dare to die for a good man. Thank God, He is not like me or like you! But verse 8 sums the love of God up in one verse. But God, this little word "but" is such a beautiful word, that is often over looked! BUT GOD, the Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Holy One who will judge the world in righteousness, demonstrated His love. It was like God said, "Let me show you how much I love you. Despite your wickedness and depravity, I will send my only Son, Jesus Christ to die for you. 

"Christ did not die to make his Father loving, but because his Father is loving: the atoning blood is the outflow of the very heart of God toward us." C H Spurgeon

Now verse 9 is so important cause it shows us what and how a we are actually saved from by this love. God being just, can't justify us from His wrath, a payment must be made to satisfy God's wrath and justice. Look at the first three words of verse nine, "much more then", Paul is say basically "because of verse eight, we have verse nine. Christ died for us while we were yet sinners and through His death we are justified, and shall be saved from the wrath of God. This is so important, it is the central doctrine of justification, without it we can not be saved. 

"Jesus must have found the cause of His love in His own heart, He could not have found it in us, for it is not there." -C H Spurgeon

Now verse 10 I saved until now because it, well you will see why.

Rom 5:10  "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

This verse, simply sums up everything I just said, but it is such a beautiful thought, while we were enemies we were reconciled to God, to be made right with God, through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. And we shall be saved by His life, for Christ did not remain dead. No! He rose again, and is coming back to take His Beloved to glory, and to cast everyone who rejects this love into eternal hell.

If you are not saved, you have just heard the good news of the gospel, now you must repent and believe the gospel, and put you faith in Jesus Christ, cry out to God to save you. No one has ever come to God seeking salvation that God has not saved.

If God put us in the coolest part of hell it would be more than we would deserve, if He would only make us angels it would be more than we deserve, but He makes us sons and daughters. The worst sin you can commit is to break the greatest commandment God gave, "love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul and strength. How can we keep this? Because He first loved us.

Oh, what love! Christian, I would plead with you please don't belittle such love. Don't minimize it as many do with ideas that God's love for us is a little romantic love or a love like He's your best pal, it is so much greater than these trite forms of love. Study the love of God as He displays it in Scripture and you will find a much more beautiful love than anything you ever imagined or thought it was like.

If you Christian, doubt God's love, it is wrong, you're doubting His character, you say He is not who He says He is, or He hasn't done what He says He's done. God has never given you any reason to doubt His love. A true Christian when seeing the love of God, wants to give more of themselves to God, to growing in holiness and to grow in their love for God. The non-Christian will hear of the love of God and continue living in their sins, relying on grace, without repentance and faith, to save them.

Now I want to leave you with this last thought. If God loved you at your darkest, ugliest moment in you life, how much does He love you now, through the reconciliation of the blood of His Son?

Thanks you for reading, and may God shed abroad His love in your heart. God Bless! 

For His Glory!

Jordan Bednar

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

Dear Reader,

I realize now I have made a mistake in not presenting the gospel first, before any other topic, for it is the one message that truly matters. It is the gospel that we must be willing to die for, and must never cease to proclaim it, for it is the central message of our faith. I do not claim to know or understand everything in scripture, but as for the gospel of Jesus Christ, I know what the Bible teaches, and that it is true. To the unbeliever this may sound arrogant, but that is because I believe in and am saved by the One who is Truth itself. In this humble attempt to bring glory to God through the most glorious message ever, the gospel, you may see me quote a lot of men, men who understood the importance of preaching the true gospel, and men who frankly are much wiser than I. That being said we will start out with these quotes from scripture and godly men of old.

Gal 3:24  Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

"The proper effect of the Law is to lead us out of our tents and tabernacles, that is to say, from the quietness and security wherein we dwell, and from trusting in ourselves, and to bring us before the presence of God, to reveal His wrath to us, and to set us before our sins." - Martin Luther

Sin (Man apart from God)

Rom 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 

Gen 6:5  Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 

Gen 8:21 ......"I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth;"............

All have sinned. Well what is sin, translated from Greek it means "to miss the mark". So what is the mark? The mark, my friend, is perfection, and we have miss this mark by miles. God gave us a mark to aim for, perfection, that is best illustrated in Himself, and said "aim hear", and we in our disobedience and pride turned around and aim the exact opposite direction of perfection. We missed the mark completely, in-fact I would submit to you that before we are saved we have done nothing but sin. For as it says in Isaiah 64:6 "...all our righteousness is like filthy rags..." You may be thinking to yourself, "I am not that bad of a person, I mean, I've done small little sins, but compared to Hitler or Stalin I am a pretty good person." 

Paul, in Romans, spends the first three chapters striving to bring all men under condemnation, stating in chapter 3 verse 10 "There is none righteous, no, not one;" So lets just see how good you really are. The Ten Commandments, God's moral law, have you kept them? Lets look at just a few: Have you told a lie? Then your a LIAR. Have you stolen anything, even if its small? Then you are a THIEF. Have you ever used God's name in vain, as a curse word? That is blasphemy, it is taking the name of the God that gave you the very life and the very air you breathe and using it to express disgust. If you blaspheme you are a BLASPHEMER. Jesus said, Mat 5:27-28  "You have heard that it was said, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY';  (28)  but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust (sexual desire) for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So have you ever lusted? Than you are an ADULTERER at heart. One more, Jesus also said, Mat 5:21-22  "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.'  (22)  "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. So if you're even just angry with someone, than you are a MURDER at heart. 1Sa 16:7 ".....for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." God has seen your thought life He know your every deed, and the very intentions of your heart. You say, I haven't do that much bad stuff. If I could record every thought, not even your deeds, just all your thoughts you ever had from the time you were born to this moment, and played them for all your family and friends to see, you would never show your face to them again, for you have thought things so vile, so wicked, so perverted that if you best friend know the things you thought about them, they would no longer be your friend. I know this to be true, not because I am a prophet, but because it is what scripture teaches and like you I too am a man. So lets sum up, looking at only five of the ten commandments, you are a liar, a thief, a blasphemer, an adulterer at heart, and a murderer at heart. If God judges you by the ten commandments, would you be innocent or guilty? Would you go to heaven or hell? The Bible says,  Rev 21:8  "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone (hell)......." and also in its says,

 Eph 5:5-6  "For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.  (6)  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." 

   Because of sin which we commit the wrath of God abides on us. God hates sin, for He is a Holy God, perfect in all He does and all His ways. God is so Holy and HATES sin so much, that one bite of a fruit in disobedience to Him, plunged the world and all of humanity from Adam on, into darkness and utter depravity. And you, its not the you sin every once in a while, you have done nothing but sin from the moment you were conceived. Say David puts it in Psalms:

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 

You are not a sinner because you sin, you sin because you are a sinner. Sin is your very nature. Here is something you need to understand, Hitler was not an anomaly, Hitler was not a phenomenon, Hitler was what everyone has the potential of being. And even in all the wickedness of Hitler, even he was restrained by the common grace of God. And you need to know this, that if it wasn't for the common grace of God, restraining you in your unconverted state you would make Hitler look like a choir boy. The Bible calls all men "haters of God". 

Rom 1:30  "slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents......."

And you may say, "but I have loved God from childhood!" No, you have loved an image of God which you created in your own mind and you loved what you created, but if someone where to come to you and pointed out the God of the Bible, you would have said, "That’s not my God, I could never love a God like that." A man who does not except his illness can not be heal, and man who does not have all his hopes crushed, in regards to his own self righteousness, merit, and worth, can not turn to Christ. All men are evil, therefore we must die. God's righteous judgment is upon us and we must pay the penalty, and the penalty for in is death. Now here is the part left out most in the gospel preaching today, besides everything I just said. If God is Just He can not forgive you. For if we look in Proverbs: Pro 17:15  "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD." God being Just, MUST punish sin. So then we ask ourselves, how can we be saved, how can we be redeemed, and God still be Just, for God also being perfect can not go against His own nature, and Justice is apart of His nature. So when we read in Romans, 3:24  ".....and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (25) whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." Reader, this is the gospel, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, that God, set His son born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, suffered and on the cross. And God taking the His wrath that was due you, took it and placed it upon His only Son and crushed Him under the full force of wrath. For we see in Isaiah 53:10 "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him..." For Jesus took the sin of man upon Himself, to be the propitiation, the payment, for our sins. Looking at Romans 5:8-9 "But God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.(9) Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him." Jesus was then buried after suffering on the cross for about six hours, He was dead for three days, and on the third day He rose again, defeating death, and forty days later ascending to heaven where He sits at that right hand of God, and will one day return destroying evil once and for all, establishing His Kingdom in righteousness, were there will be a day for judgment and all the of man kind will be judged in righteousness. He is risen! Before I go on I must share with you a quote about what the cross is and what it is not. 

- "The cross is not a sign of your great worth, the cross is a sign of your great depravity, that you were so evil the only way you could be saved, is by God's Son being crushed under the full force of the wrath that was due you!" -Paul Washer

My friends, this is main thing Christianity offers that no other religion can, forgiveness of sin, yes there are other things, but this is the main thing, the most beautiful thing, that Jesus Christ in all His glory, beauty, holiness, and love, died for us, wicked, evil people. You must truly know who you were without Christ, before you can truly appreciate the love of God, and the cross of Christ. It was on that cross that we see the greatest demonstration of love that has ever been or ever will be. If you are now thinking, wondering of what you can do to earn this love, forgiveness, and eternal life, STOP! You can not earn this. I don't care how holy you try to live from not on or how much you say you believe in God, or how you have confessed you sins, or how you are going to stop sinning, you can't. None of this can save you from the punishment of eternal hell. Salvation is a free gift of God, but given only to those who receive it and to those who reject it, hell. Receiving it, now this is much debated on, but yet so important when it comes to salvation. Salvation is by grace, the grace of God, demonstrated on the cross dying in your place for your sins. Salvation is through faith, not of work, lest me boost, but faith in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Like a parachute, you don't just believe in it, you put it on, put you faith into it. And this faith is, if it is genuine, will be immediately proceeded and followed by repentance. Repentance, a turning away from sin, a hatred for the things God hates, and a love for the things God loves. This repentance is not a work to earn your salvation, but it is a repentant faith, the two sides of the same coin, the two wings that fly you to the Savior, you must repent and put your trust in Jesus in order to be saved. But we also must understand that salvation is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. It is God regenerating you heart, as He says in Ezekiel 36:25-28, notice the "I will", not you, God will. 

Eze 36:25-28  "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  (26)  "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  (27)  "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.  (28)  "You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. Salvation belongs to the Lord. 

I know that what I am about to say may anger some of you, but this is what the Bible teaches, and I will not apologize for this God of the Bible. Eze 36:22-23  "Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.  (23)  "I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD," declares the Lord GOD, "when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight." It is not for our sake we are saved but for His Holy Name sake, for His glory and to make His name great among the nations. God's motivation for saving you come forth from Himself. God is Love, yes, but also God does all that He does for His own glory and to make His name great among the nations. You see, God found His motivation for saving you, in Him, not in you. because if God had to look for motivation to save you, in you, He would not save you because there is nothing in you that would ever make Him save you. Never! Find one thing, something that God could grab, something that would motivate Him to save you. If you find something, than you do not understand the doctrine of depravity, the Christian doctrine of the sinfulness of man. The only motivation that comes forth from you, would motivate God to condemn you, for God to rid the earth of you and cast you into the deepest part of hell. It is the only right that you could claim. The only thing you truly earned is condemnation.

So what could move a Holy, Just God to do something other than condemn you? It must come from Him, everything must come from Him! Absolutely everything must come from Him, cause it is all about Him! What is your part, what I said before, repent, and trust the Savior, humble yourself, and cry out for mercy!

Why did God, knowing man would sin and He would go to the cross, create the world? To show, to declare His Greatness. The higher plan in all of creation is so that God can be glorified, and He is right to do that! Why does God save a man, that could not be saved apart from Him? To demonstrate His power, and His love, so that He might be glorified.

God saves you, Why? To demonstrate how great He is. Will He then fail, NO! If He saves you, He will transform you, and will bring you to glory, why? Because you are worth it? NO! For His reputation. God does not start anything that He does not finish. That the nations may know that He is God.

The Bible know of no such thing as a continually carnal Christian, or the continually immature Christian, what the Bible knows is that when a man is saved, the One who began the good work in him will complete it. Once you taste and see that the Lord is good, the things of the world will make you vomit. Salvation is not a mere human decision, but a supernatural work of God, and the work He does He carries out to perfection, and fails not in a single one of them. 

God is mighty to save! My friend, please if you have read this and you are not a believer or you thought you were but you are having doubts, please humble yourself before God, cry out to Him for forgiveness and mercy. Repent, turn from you sins and put you faith in Him, and He will save you. You don't have to wait for Sunday, or for a priest, simple cry out to God, repenting and putting you trust in Him, and He will save you. Please don't wait, today is the day of salvation. And if you are a believer reading this, and you never heard the gospel presented this way, I want to challenge and encourage you to study scripture and to see if what I am saying is the truth, if not that just for get about it, but if it is than be sure that you will be held accountable for what you learn, but remember, I must line up with scripture on all the essentials, do not compromise. In closing I would like to leave you with probably the most famous verse in scripture. 

Joh 3:16  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

Thank you so much for reading, and your comments and questions are very welcomed.

with much love in Christ,

Jordan