On the journey that we are on, being transformed back into the image of God, there is another aspect that we can mention: In the first place, mankind ran away from God and away from relationship with Him; away from good behaviour and away from stable life. Now we are in a place where no one really trusts anyone and it can be pretty hard to know what to do; even when you are in a relationship with the Maker of the universe.
We were free, in the beginning, to leave God and we are free now to return to Him. Freewill was given to us in the start and we still have it now; we can do whatever we want!
That is an amazing and rather serious aspect to this world. It is ours to manage, ours to explore, ours to repair and ours to cover with loving, honest relationships.
We give our lives to God and He is always with us, will always help and will never let us go. We are also still free to seek things out, get things wrong, to cause havoc if we are not careful and to return towards the perfection that we talked about yesterday.
This world requires a lot of mending and that mending is going on inside our hearts and minds; that is the only place that counts. That mending needs us to harness the immense powers of compassion, empathy, understanding, patience, forgiveness etc…
So, on this return journey how do we tell good from bad. How do we know the way to go on this road to perfection.
Well, John said this:
“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
1John4:16 (NIV)
- God is Love – and we are to become like Him.
And Paul said this:
“If I…… do not have love, I gain nothing.
- Love is patient
- Love is kind
- It does not envy
- It does not boast
- It is not proud
- It does not dsihonour others
- It is not self-seeking
- It is not easily angered
- It keeps no records of wrongs
- It does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth
- It always protects
- Always trusts
- Always hopes
- Always perseveres
- Love never fails”
1Cor13:3-8 (NIV)
- Those are the characteristics of God’s personality.
We need to seek out those attributes with our hearts and minds and learn to love them. We should do our best to exhibit them whether or not we feel like it at the time.
Also, we must never forget that God is always here and will always help us; he will never let us down and never let us go.
This point is a very important: He has not made us robots. He will help us on our transformation and will make sure that we get there no matter what but He has not made us robots. That is a massive gift and also so important. We are not robots; so let us take hold of our freewill, let God help us to harness it and then drive it in the right direction. No matter what.
We have a world to rebuild; and we have God on our side.
What’s stopping us.
The Dynamic Force 