God's Loving Desire

Throughout the New Testament, we see God's universal call to salvation repeated a good number of times (Jn 1:12; 3:16; 6:40; and 2Pe 3:9 just to cite a few). While the call is universal our reply to it must be a personal decision about answering God's call. When He calls, it's up to us to accept His gracious offer.

Why would God care about us and want us saved? First off, He loves us (Eph 2:4). But it's critical that we understand that God's divine love isn't based on any worthiness in us; but rather, love and care for His creation is part of God's very nature. Another reason is that as His followers, we become "trophies" of the Lord's grace (Eph 2:7). We believers were once rebellious creatures, whom God transformed into obedient servants ... that's a change He wants to celebrate for all eternity. Finally, our good works glorify the Lord (Matt 5:16). Every single thing we do in His name increases other people's awareness of Him. For good or for error, we are living, breathing testaments to God's grace and sovereignty. Trophies though we may be, God doesn't just keep us up on a shelf to show us off. He takes us into His hands and forms us into the people He wants us to be: loving, faithful, and obedient people.

It's critical that we realize that salvation is possible only through Christ Jesus and no other name. He reconciles sinful people to Himself, holy God. It is Christ who reconciles us with the Father. It is impossible for us to reconcile ourselves to God who is holy. Isaiah 53:6 teaches us that we all, each and every one of us, are sinners in desperate need of salvation, and Romans 6:23 further states, "the wages of sin is death." Without God's divine solution to this problem, we would remain indebted and utterly hopeless. But Christ's death on the cross paid the full penalty for the entire human race so that anyone who wants a personal relationship with the Father can have one and can sit approved in the glow of His glory. When we believe Jesus died for our sin, when He died in our place for our sins and transgressions, and when we submit to the Lord's will for our lives, we find that's all that's necessary for us to enter into eternal fellowship with Him. When we submit and allow the Savior to save us and let the Redeemer redeem us, we are placed in a right relationship with our heavenly Father for all eternity. Eternal fellowship in God's grace!

As impossible as it sounds, God loves us and wants to be with us forever. The only thing that can possibly separate us from His love and devotion is a decision on our part to reject His invitation. Once we are His, and this is very important ... once we are His, no human action or character flaw is able to sever our relationship with Him. Nothing we ever say or do can drive a wedge between us and the Lord who loves us enough to die for us. Once we have accepted Christ's offer to be put right with our God, we are forever secure in our relationships with Him as His very own children. Can you grasp that? Nothing we can ever say or do can cancel out this right relationship we have with the Father in heaven. We are His and He is ours. Period.

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Another hot day here in the foothills of the beautiful Sierra mountains. Right now it is 105 and we haven't peaked yet, it's still early. Yesterday was 116 degrees out on our deck and by our front door. The thermometer down in the yard under the shade of our big oak tree said it was 107. Any way you look at it, it's hot. Thank God for our cooler and I mean that with the most reverence possible. Thank you heavenly Father! I do believe I might die if we didn't have the cooler. It kept the house under 90 degrees yesterday and just worked its little heart out for us. We have A/C here but it costs too much to run so we use the less expensive evaporative cooler. I got so hot yesterday I stripped down and took a cold shower in the middle of the afternoon. I may have to do that again today if I get too hot. I get so hot I feel like I'm in an oven and I feel like I can't breathe and so then my claustrophobia kicks in and I go very quickly to "miserable." I don't like anything over 72 degrees. I am most comfortable at around 70.

I can't believe I slept the day away. I got up early when the alarm went off at 7:30 but then gave up and went back to bed. Any time I do that I risk sleeping until noon. And while I didn't sleep until noon today it wasn't too far from it and I hate it when I do that. I didn't even get my quiet time out side. Bummer!

I have an Executive Board meeting tonight and I'm not looking forward to that. It's going to be really hot to go out of the house for any reason. I talked Michael into going to the Post Office for me since I went on Monday and did it. He should be back home any minute.

I feel lost without my morning quiet time. I sure adopted that habit in a hurry! Now I have to decide if I want to do it as soon as I finish this post or if I just want to do twice as much tomorrow morning. I'll probably do it a little later.

I finally got in and bleached all my counter tops yesterday. That was something I'd been wanting to do for a long time but just couldn't get myself up and doing things like that. They look so nice now. Maybe that's something I'll try to do every day instead of letting them build up the way I usually do. It's aggravating the way they stain like they do. But it was nice getting them all done and cleared off. I tend to let things accumulate on the counters, making my kitchen look messy. I'd much rather not have anything on them but then where would I put my lotion and my pens and pencils by the phone?

The smoke is very, very heavy this afternoon. It's completely blocking out the sun and reduced it to a hazy, orange ball up in the sky. And the only good thing about it is it has prevented the heat from getting us as hot as it would have without the smoke cover. I don't think we've ever seen the smoke this bad ever here. Cough, cough, wheeze, gasp, choke, it is hard to express just how bad the smoke is right now. I'd swear there must be a closer fire to blanket us with this much smoke but they're saying on the news that it's from the Paradise fire up north. I don't want to have to go out in this stuff for my meeting. My chest quickens when I try to inhale deeply. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't die of smoke inhalation!

This isn't much of a post and I apologize but I have a herd of things to get done today and I think I need to get busy. I'll try for a long, interesting blog next time. That's a pretty tall order I just gave myself so I'm not sure just how long or how interesting my next blog will be but that's what I'll be shooting for. It just keeps getting hotter and hotter. It's now 110 degrees! Ouch!!