"God's Preference" -2

"He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah." (Psalms 47:4) Really, when we are talking about God's preference, it is His preference that we get blessed beyond belief, and that we live life to the fullest; He loves to bless His children, and He has so much planned for our lives, if we would only walk in obedience. I can't begin to count all of the ways that I have messed up over the last 33 years; I sometimes try to imagine where I would be, or what I would be doing had I totally submitted my life to the Lord. Obviously God is not done with me yet, but I sure wish that I had some things that I could do over; okay, most things is more like it! From the very beginning, the devil has put forth the lie that God just wants to hold things back from us, as if He doesn't want us to do something because He is just being strict or controlling; but the real truth of the matter is that God loves us and wants our minds to be pure and our hearts to be filled with love. I think the biggest issue that we have when it comes to love, is that we really don't love ourselves; oh, we might love pleasing ourselves, that's for sure; but we surely don't love all of the things that we have done, and that's the part of us that we hate. Getting prepared for next Wednesday night, I have been studying Romans 6:1-14, and I believe that there is more to "reckoning the old man dead" than just being dead to sin; everyday is a new day in Christ, and every day we must "reckon" the old man dead, and the new man "alive in Christ". Don't we know by now that God loves us more than we even love ourselves? He is not being strict and controlling, He is pouring out mercy and grace! I am not getting what I deserve, and He is giving me that which I do not deserve, all because I am able to walk in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, my Lord. We all mess up, that's why the "grace in which we stand" (Romans 5:2) is not based upon our righteousness, but upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ and God's abounding grace; grace that cannot be overtaken by our sins, because His grace abounds more than our sins ever could. With Adam's curse handed down to us, we never had a choice, and we inherited damnation; but God, He has choose something else for us, but it requires us making a choice, something that we did not have in the case of being born in the curse. God's preference for our lives is that we walk in the inheritance that He has choose for us, not in the inheritance that Adam left for us. I think "the excellency of Jacob" tells it all, not that Jacob was excellent, but that God saw the righteousness that would come forth from Jacob, despite Jacob's unrighteousness... "Yea, thou heardest not; yea, thou knewest not; yea, from that time that thine ear was not opened: for I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb. For My name's sake will I defer Mine anger, and for My praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For Mine own sake, even for Mine own sake, will I do it: for how should My Name be polluted? and I will not give My glory unto another." (Isaiah 48:8-11)