Discover: Deeply Loved

 

16 God has loved us and made us happy through his kindness. He gave us everlasting comfort and good hope. 17 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, comfort your hearts and make you strong to do and say everything that is good. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 WE 

16 God our Father loves us. He treats us with undeserved grace and has given us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father 17 will encourage you and help you always to do and say the right thing. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 CEV

 Discover. Discover means to become aware of something, to make an observation or a finding. When we discover something wonderful, it brings us great joy. 

 As believers, it's imperative to discover who you really are in Christ, what belongs to you because of Christ, and how God the Father sees you now. Growth in Christ is maturing into who you already are in Him. 

 The most important discovery in Christ is to know that you are deeply loved. God the Father deeply loves you with an unconditional, eternal love. This love is based solely upon Him and has nothing to do with you. 

 There is nothing that any of us can do to make God love us more. There is not one thing you can do more of or do something better for God to love you more. He already loves you with an everlasting love that is greater than any love known to mankind.

 On the other hand, there is nothing any of us can do that will cause God to love us less. This idea is met with resistance because it seems God is rewarding bad behavior. That is not the case at all.

 God loves you and me unconditionally. That is what Agape love is all about. If you can do something to make God love you less, then His love IS conditional and rooted solely in your performance. This would put God in the place of mere man, because mankind loves with conditions, with strings attached. 

 God isn't pleased with poor choices, wrong actions, or selfish behavior. He will even send corrective instructions to His own during these times. This doesn't equate to God loving His people less whenever they sin. In fact, it's His love and Goodness that bring change. 

 Some may be thinking about the Scripture in 2 Corinthians 9:7 as proof that we can make God love us more. It says God loves a cheerful giver. This statement is not some kind of new doctrine Paul was sharing. That financial givers are more special to God. 

 What the context is revealing is the heart of God. He is saying that God takes pleasure and is lovingly pleased with a cheerful giver. He is not looking for a grudging, obligation-oriented giver. This passage does not teach that there is a way for God to love you more.

 God loves you with an eternal, unconditional love. This love transcends time and space and all eternity. From the beginning of time, God saw you and loved you deeply. That's why He offered His only Son to pay the penalty for all sins. The Father sowed a Son and reaped a family. 

 God loves you even though you have sinned and made mistakes. Let's not take the amazing out of Grace. You, just like me, were lost, sinful, rebellious in your thoughts, and self-centered. Yet as wicked and unjust and sinful we all were, He still saw all that and chose to love us unconditionally. 

 This is amazing, Grace. This is wondrous and matchless love. This is the Love of God. You are loved, deeply loved by the Father. Discover this deep love the Father has for you again. 

 

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Fully Secure in His Love

 

Praise the Lord! He is good. God's love never fails. Psalm 136:1 CEV

38 I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love—not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, 39 and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord! Romans 8:38-39 CEV

 God's Love is real and tangible. Love is the motivation for all He has ever done. When one receives His Love, it turns their life around and spins their world upside down. It changes everything for the better.

 God is Love; it is who He is and is revealed in every aspect of the Godhead. His Goodness, His Grace, His Faith, His power, His Word, all are extensions of His great Love. Now, many believers will concede that God is Love, but then try to downplay its importance in light of works, behavior, and performance.

 Why is this? Primarily because humanity's default setting is to earn and achieve, rather than simply receiving. I have used this illustration before, but it bears repeating. 

 In the 1982 film adaptation "Annie", the orphan Annie was invited into billionaire Oliver Warbucks' mansion to stay as a guest for one week. As soon as she entered the wondrous abode, she immediately grabbed a scrub brush and bucket, expecting to "earn her keep." She had to be told, informed that she was a guest and not a servant. 

 Isn't this the default setting in Christianity? It's actually the root of all world religions, sects, and cults. They are built upon the foundation of human effort and achievement. In Christianity, it seems man's behavior and performance are what secure God's blessing and favor. 

 In fact, the way some teach it seems that God loves His people even more the better they behave or obey. The little orphan thought she needed to earn her stay. This is exactly the position some Christian theology assumes. 

 The good news was explained to the little orphan. She was a guest and not a servant. She didn't have to work or earn her room, her food, or her clothes. She was an honored guest. In essence, she was receiving the benefits and blessings that were procured by the work of another. 

 Now what does that sound like? That is the Good News Gospel of Grace. When we first trusted in Christ, we were not servants, not even a guest; it's so much better than that, we are now sons, children of the Most High. 

 We are receiving the full benefits and blessings procured for us by the perfect work of another. Because of Jesus, we are now a New Creation. We are now the Righteousness of God in Christ. We now have all the benefits and blessings afforded to Christ as our own. 

 So much theology wrongly focuses on working, earning, and striving. We get saved not by performing, but by simply believing. Once we are saved, we aren't accepted and approved and favored by achieving but by being. 

 Our identity is in Christ; we are Righteous, accepted, approved, and favored because of who we are, whose we are, and what we have become. We are born again children of the Most High. We belong to the Lord. We are the Righteous, New Creations, and habitations of God through the Spirit.

 This new identity is because of Jesus and the Father's Love. Seeing all this, now we can rest secure in this Love. All of this was presented to prove just how secure we are in Christ because of His unfailing Love. 

 This Love has made us unconditionally eternally secure. What can we possibly do to fall out of God's hands? Some say we can sin our way out of God's salvation. 

 That is false, because we never obeyed perfectly or performed well enough to earn our salvation in the first place. Our conduct didn't earn our place, so therefore our conduct can't undo what only Christ could do and who He made us. 

 Some then claim, well, we can jump out of His hands. That's not possible because we are now New Creations. We have the very life and nature of God within our spirit. The Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. We are a habitation of God; God is not going to deny Himself.

 What people are referring to are simply people who have rejected Christ after an apparent conversion. In these instances, one of two things has occurred. Either they were never born again, made a New Creation, and simply fell away, in favor of something else worldly. Or they are believers, but have become deceived in their minds; this doesn't change their identity, it just means they aren't receiving from it.

 In summation, the encouragement is to lean into this Love. Fully embrace His Love, knowing how secure you are in Christ. He will never forsake you or abandon you. His Love never fails, and He has never failed you. You are eternally His, and nothing can change that. His Love has won! 

 

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The Marks of the Religious (minded) Man: Relationshipless

 

making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.” Mark 7:13 NKJ 

Don’t let others spoil your faith and joy with their philosophies, their wrong and shallow answers built on men’s thoughts and ideas, instead of on what Christ has said. Colossians 2:8 TLB

They act as if they worshipped God, yet they do not let God's power work in their lives. Keep away from people like that. 2 Timothy 3:5 WE

 Religion is a man-made attempt to reach God. Religious tradition is humanity's attempt to approach God on its own terms. Religion creates carvings of stone, temples, and altars as a means to connect with God. Religious tradition relies on experience, what has been passed down from others, and their own understanding to explain who God is and what He is like.

 In examining the anatomy of religion and tradition, we have seen that religion is powerless. Religion cannot transform lives. Religious tradition explains away the supernatural, and thus they walk without the power from on High. Religion is Faithless. It can't access the power of God, and doesn't even believe it is possible. It is rooted in much unbelief.

 Faithless religion also relies on works and performance, attempting to earn what was freely given. Religion is knowledgeless. Religion is ignorant of the Cross, the Finished Work, and who God is. They walk in inconsistencies and place blame on God for tragedy and tribulation. 

 Religion is also loveless and Graceless. They put their rules and principles and traditions above compassion and believe they must be kept, or God won't hear your prayer. Religion is about works and performance; religion says do, and Jesus says done.

The Missing Element: Ritual Without Relationship

And at the core of all of this—beneath the powerless rituals, beneath the works and the rules—lies the most tragic mark of dead religion: it has form without fellowship. It has rituals without relationship. It goes through motions but never connects with the Majesty on High, our Lord Jesus. 

Religion can quote verses, recite prayers, and observe ceremonies, yet never encounter the heart of God. It replaces intimacy with instructions, fellowship with formulas, and the living Christ with cold creeds. Religion can sing about Jesus while never knowing Him, serve in His name while remaining strangers to His grace. It turns Christianity into a schedule, a system, a ceremony—anything but a Savior.

 Lastly, the worst manifestation of religion is that it has no actual relationship with God. We have seen these marks or this anatomy of religious tradition in John 9. We see how the religious leaders claim to know God and speak for Him, and yet they deny the works of God performed and demonstrated right before them. 

 They completely rejected God in the flesh, God Almighty manifest before them. Jesus said they were blind. They had no relationship with God. They presumed they were following God, and yet they were in opposition to Him and His works.

 One powerful illustration of this mark of religion, which Jesus gave us in Matthew 7, is often misunderstood and misapplied, perfectly demonstrating relationshipless religion. Many attempt to use these passages to promote eternal insecurity and a performance-based faith. Jesus was actually giving us a glimpse of dead religion that has no relationship with God

 In this passage, Jesus tells us what the fruit He is referring to. He is speaking of the teachings of leaders, not merely a warning about performance or behavior. In context, He is referring to the teachings of men. 

 This gives us the key to understanding what He refers to when He tells some to depart from Him. He said to these religious people who claim to do great works for God, I never knew you. He was not teaching the loss of salvation. He said I never knew you, not I once knew you, but now I don't know you. This is key to understanding in seeing what Jesus was revealing.

 Jesus showed us that religion can exist apart from God and without a relationship with Him. In religion, people can attend meetings, be a part of gatherings, and join temples and other religious fellowships, and not have received eternal life, not trusted in Jesus, and not received the new birth.

 Modern Culture: A New Religion With the Same Old Problem

And today, religion has simply changed clothes.
Culture has baptized its own beliefs and called them righteousness.
Sin has been renamed “authenticity,” rebellion has been renamed “identity,” and compromise has been renamed “compassion.” Modern culture preaches a gospel of self, of feelings, of universal acceptance—yet none of it is Jesus. Good is called evil, and evil is called good, and because the language sounds spiritual, people think it is holy. But any gospel that removes the Cross, the Blood, repentance (change of mind), and the new birth is not the Gospel—it is just another form of relationshipless religion.

People can gather and claim the name of God, of Jesus, and promote what current culture calls justice and righteousness, and be completely lost. People can come together for whatever “cause” or current “thing” the world determines is good or bad, but this doesn’t mean they are following God. Men can gain a following and proclaim universal salvation and inclusion, but this isn’t the Gospel.

The Gospel is about trusting in Jesus’ Finished Work, nothing else. The Gospel is about the Grace of God pledged through Jesus, demonstrated by His sacrifice at Calvary. The Gospel is the realization and acknowledgment that, apart from Christ, we are lost and in need of a Savior.

In Summation

Religion is a man-made system that offers no help, no hope, and no happiness. Religion is powerless, Faithless, knowledgeless, loveless, Graceless, and is not the way to find a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Religion is man’s attempt to work toward God. The Gospel is God’s work reaching toward man. Religion takes, Grace gives, and God never takes away. Christianity isn't religion. Christianity is God reaching out to man, with the price paid in full, offering hope, help, healing, and life eternal. 

 Looking back to Matthew 7, Jesus spoke that only those who do the will of the Father will be known of God. What is His will? To simply believe in Jesus the Son, trusting that His work was enough! This is Christianity and the Gospel; it is not lifeless religion. 

Image by Łukasz Tekieli from Pixabay