October 4, 2016

Greetings My Friend, I am a believer in the whole Bible as God's Word and I do not believe that because Jesus came the NT is the only part of the Bible to live by. I have learned so many lessons from the OT, I also see that Jesus and the NT writers each quote from the OT which says to me that God wants us to learn from the entire Bible. Many people believe that the God of the OT was a God of wrath which does not make sense to me. He to me showed His mercy to a stiff necked people time after time before punishing them. He warned them what He was about to do and taught them to turn and repent. When they would not, He disciplined them in His righteous anger. A few times the people repented and God took away His wrath but soon afterward the people turned from Him once again. In Ezekiel this morning I saw God's loving ways. "Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel everyone according to his ways, declares the Lord God. I learn from this passage that God judges each of us according to the way we listen to Him. I read further "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God;so turn and live." Our Father does not enjoy watching us destroy ourselves, it grieves Him. He tells them to turn away from their sinful ways, He would rather they live. God is compassionate and I feel it in this passage. He also will not tolerate the ugliness of sin either. He can't and won't. I love the analogy of the potter forming the clay. If the potter does not like the way the clay turns out, he will destroy it and begin again until it shaped just the way he wants it. So God does with us. In order to enter into God's presence we must truly believe Jesus is His Son, died for our sins and rose again. If we do the Holy Spirit dwells with us, leading us into righteous living. We can not just believe Jesus is Lord, we have to believe and then begin the work of being changed from what we are at the moment of asking Jesus into our hearts. Another passage in the NT teaches us that we are a new creation in Christ, which means we can not believe and then go on with the way we always have before. God understands that it will take the rest of our lives and is patient with us if we are working with the Holy Spirit. Learning to listen is a challenge but the more we are hearing His direction in our lives we see that we are changing. It is amazing to turn and look back from time to time to see where you once were to where you are at the moment. Even more amazing is realizing that from this moment to years into the future you will change even more so. Our walk of faith is not a stagnant walk, it is a changing walk, a daily walk. I find that I need to commit daily to walk with God just as I commit daily to Junior in our marriage. Junior and I have been married 18 years now and in the same way I see my faith has grown so has my marriage grown. The first years were learning each other, our sensitive areas and respecting those. We have worked hard and are a team. I also know if we do not continue working on our marriage we will loose the closeness so it is in our relationship with Jesus. We must commit each day to stay in relationship. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet