Keepin It Real

In my heart of hearts I want God to be pleased with me. I know He wants me to live a godly life. My natural emotion is to lean on my own efforts to justify His love for me. Even as I succeed most of the time to do right, I still often fall short in my attitudes, habits and interactions with others. Sometimes I feel like God may want to give up on me.

I have to keep reminding myself that God loved me enough to sacrifice his own Son. That is A LOT! I have to remind myself that despite how I feel, emotionally, God has promised that, through Faith, my sins are forgiven and forgotten and each day His mercy to me is new. If God is for me that is a really good place to be! I can come before God with a good conscience because God is in charge of defining our relationship. God calls things that are not as though that are. If God says "yes" it IS yes.

As the Apostle Paul says "My conscience is clear but that does not make me innocent." I know the waywardness of my heart but I also know that God has promised that as long as I keep seeking Him in Faith and reaching for holiness He won't give up on me. That is a powerful incentive to get up every day and keep my eyes on Jesus. It is the source of the power within me to reflect that love toward others in my life.

Don't give up! God loves us and his Grace is proof that he is rooting for us to overcome the world and it's siren song of sin which, although superficially alluring, sucks it's victims into a condition of addiction, bitterness and spiritual death.

It is important to strive to live our lives reflective of Gods will and principles. It is important to forgive others as we have been forgiven. But remember it is also important to forgive yourself even as God has promised to forgive you. Draw near to God and open the door of your heart so He in turn can draw near to you. Let God love you and that will, in turn, give you power to live a more godly today.

God's love endures forever. God is long suffering and His mercies are new every morning. Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Testimonial commentary by Cameron Smiley