"For Today!"

"Unto Thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defense, and the God of my mercy." (Psalms 59:17) You know, I really believe that God is for me; more than that, I believe that He is right now rooting for me; like the loving Father that He is, He is encouraging me and applauding enthusiastically when I get something right. Only God can make me feel this way! You cannot describe the peace that comes from knowing how much God loves you regardless of your endless failures, He still loves you! I have a son that I need to love! Talk about being an unfaithful servant, I am just that and more; only if I would treat my son the way that I want God to treat me! But you see, there is the little twist in my thinking: God has already treated me the way that I should be treating my son, now it is my turn to live out the mercy that I have been given! It is like that in all of our relationships, not just with our children, but everyone; we must love the way that God loves us, and it needs to be real!!! The word "defense" is more about being a refuge than it is about being a defender; it's about the fact that God is always there for me to take refuge in His loving arms, no matter how bad that I have been, or how bad I have screwed up, He is always there with open arms! So where do we get the strength to love like that? The Holy Spirit? Yes, I believe we do; but we also need to die to our selfish flesh! The Holy Spirit will not force us to do anything; He will lead us, guide us, and strengthen us, but He will not make us love one another; we must perform the action of loving each other in our own will; and if we don't have the will to do it, then we need to ask God to give us the will to really love: His real love endures all things...
"Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So do not be attracted by strange, new ideas. Your strength comes from God's grace, not from rules about food, which don't help those who follow them. We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle have no right to eat. Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp. So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make His people holy by means of His own blood. So let us go out to Him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace He bore. For this is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come. Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to His name. And don't forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God." (Hebrews 13:8-16)