Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Who among the gods
    is like you, Lord?
Who is like you—
    majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
    working wonders?
“You stretch out your right hand,
    and the earth swallows your enemies.
In your unfailing love you will lead
    the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
    to your holy dwelling.

• Exodus 15:11-13

Though the mountains be shaken
    and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
    nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

• Isaiah 54:10

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

• 1 John 4:7-12

“God is love.
“Love is our Father’s nature. He doesn’t love us because he has to; he loves because he cannot not love us. God didn’t tolerate us in the Old Testament and decide to love us in the New. He didn’t decide to love us because Jesus told him to. His love for us was what set our rescue in motion. He gave his Son to express his love for us. His love cannot be conquered by rejection and self-loathing. We could never convince him to stop loving us, for long ago, before we had any say in the matter, he set his love over us as a banner and welcomed us at his table.”

• Lisa Bevere, Adamant

Ms. Bevere points to the two Scriptures above from the Old Testament to prove her point that the God of the Old Testament loved as much as the God of the New Testament.

God loved all people.  He instructed the Israelites to help their enemies, showing love.

God wanted Israel to be God’s light to the world, but they repeatedly followed after false gods.  With this going on, God showed Mercy and withheld His wrath until the people, as a whole, were committing far too many sins and not repenting.

In every case, if the people repented and turned back, God was waiting with open arms to show His love for them.

If someone cannot see the love of God in the Old Testament, they are reading those books with blinders on.

And look as far back as Genesis 3 when God tells Eve that her offspring will crush the serpent’s head, God had already put everything in motion for Jesus to come upon the scene to save us from our sins.  It was in God’s plan from the beginning.  He wanted us to have free will, so that we could freely choose Him.  Only someone with free will can freely choose.  In so doing, God knew that mankind would screw up the perfect Garden where Adam and Eve lived, but He had His plan to redeem those that repent and turn to Him.

We only have to trust and believe, lay our lives at His feet, and we get Heaven, but we get God’s Love within us now.

Lord, guide me.  You are Love.  No greater love is shown than when One gives His life for another, and Your Son did that for us, for me.  We praise You every day.  Help us to praise You more.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.