"To Be Loved" -2

"For His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." (Psalms 30:5) Giving thanks and being thankful are not just words, it is a life style of living out thankfulness to the God that loves us; that is what "Song" represents, and to "Sing unto the LORD" is a true natural reaction to being thankful for Him loving us, even though we surely do not deserve it most of the time! His love is not conditioned upon our actions, but knowing His love is! I really don't think many of His children completely understand that; and if they do, they are surely not living it out in their actions. I have got to say something about small churches, they are filled with life; and when I say life, I mean the living and breathing life that is lived out every day in each and every one of us. I started out in big churches, and as a new believer, it was good to have lots of options and things to get involved in, like the church softball team, or teaching Sunday School; so many programs and possibilities to stay busy and in fellowship with other believers. Unfortunately, the bigger the church, the easier it is to get lost in a crowd and the more easy it is to be lost in the crowd; that is unless that big church has small group fellowships, then you will at least stand a chance of really knowing what fellowship is meant to be. The smaller the church, the better; that's the way I feel today, because it's not about numbers, it's about loving God, rejoicing in the Lord, and being thankful for all that He has done to save us! The most important message with the Scripture above is the part about, "in His favour is life", because it sums up the whole reason that we are thankful, we should be thankful, and that we must be thankful; that basically means that we have no excuse to be unthankful, seeing that God loves us so very very much. The word "favour" is a word that might cause you to stop and think about how you treat the love that you have been so freely given, because it goes way beyond God's favorable acceptance of us, it goes to the heart of our acceptance of His love and what we are to do with that acceptance. In other words, the "life" that is the result of His favour is not our eternal life, but it is living life, as in something that is alive, breathing, and growing day by day; it's life that has sustenance and requires maintenance to keep it going! Okay, maybe you need me to give an example of what I mean, yes? Then let me use the a word called friendship, which is a word that has both sustenance and requires maintenance; we don't say, What a friend I had in Jesus; now do we? No we don't! It is "What a friend I have in Jesus!" Which means that it is an ongoing relationship that requires maintenance, because it is not a fairytale, it has real sustenance... "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." (Hebrews 13:5 & 6)