God is in a Good Mood!

How did you end up here. . .  at this site, that is?  Chances are you are being intentional about your pursuit of Jesus Christ and are responding to the invitation to go deeper with your relationship.  Maybe you ended up here by searching for information on bondservants or possibly looking for info about knights of the round table.  Anyway you arrived here, it is not by accident or by chance.  The One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, is a soverign God who oversees all things.  He has been passionately in pursuit of you and will stop at nothing to wrestle you to the ground and convince you beyond any doubt that He deeply loves you.  He will guide people into your life who will point you toward His love.  He will guide your searches online toward His truth.  You ended up here not by accident, but by divine intervention.

Why?  Simple. . . . God really likes you and He wants you convinced of that regardless of where you currently are in life.  The Bible says that Jesus Christ laid down His life for you, before you even realized who He was (Romans 5:6-8).  You see God is NOT angry. . . His heart aches with love for you and desires so much for you to see Him as He is.  There have been many portrayals of God as an angry, vengeful God and this mindset has been running rampant for centuries, a tool used by Satan to keep people away from God.  But the truth is that NOTHING (Romans 8:38-39) can separate you from the Love of God, no scheme, no physical location, nothing.

God is not a mysterious thing in the sky, His is a person that has feelings and desires and plans.  His love letter to us (the Bible) actually says we were created in His image.  So all the things you feel and love and are hurt by, He knows all those feelings well.  He is in pursuit of you and had you come to this website, not by accident, but because you are His Treasure of infinite value.  He is also sending people into your path who are sharing the goodness and Truth about who He is.  The good news is that he won’t relent until you choose to take Him up on His free gift.  All you need to do is receive it.  Just like when a friend buys you a gift for your birthday and hands it to you, all you need to do is take it.  The gift is already bought and paid for and just waiting for you to receive it.

Jesus is offering you a free gift, the gift of restoration of relationship with Himself and His Father.  Being a follower of Jesus Christ is NOT about religion, rather relationship.  Our relationship with God was broken when sin (rebellion against God and His protection) entered the world with Adam.  See God didn’t want robots who only took commands because they had to, He wanted people who He could pour out His radical love upon.  Let me tell you, when you start to receive His radical love, it overwhelms you and stepping into the knowledge, that the Creator of all things knows you by name, sings songs over you and desires your help in sharing His radical love. . . . talk about a great adventure!!  So because He didn’t want robots, he gave every human heart free will to choose to love.  Way back in the very beginning of mankind, Adam made a choice that any one of us would have made and he chose to believe a lie and chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Once that choice was made, the atmosphere on earth shook and sin entered the world.  To this day, we still live in a fallen sinful world and Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.  Sin (rebellion against God) separates us from Him.  Only the sacrifice of an animal where blood was shed could atone sin and satisify the cost of sin.

God is a good God and he is True and Just and perfect and He created the world to operated on Truth and Justice.  That means when a law (command) of God is broken, there is penalty that needs to be paid.  Just like if you get a speeding ticket, you will get a fine and that fine must be satisified before a judge.  This form of Judicial system is by God’s design.  Why does God have laws in place? Same reason we have laws in our cities and states, laws are created to protect people.  They provide safe boundaries so that you can live a life full and without fear.  We have stop signs so that you don’t have car crashes at intersections, because that always results in pain. God has laws in place to protect us.

So for many centuries, in order to pay the cost of sin (breaking the law of God), there needed to be a sacrifice and blood needed to be shed.  See the wages of sin is death. It is a very high cost.  Whenever we sin against God, someone needs to die.  The incredible news is that as part of God’s master plan, He asked His son Jesus if he would be willing to pay the ultimate price and take on the sins of the world once and for all?  Jesus, while seeing your face and my face couldn’t resist the offer because He is lovesick for us.  He said yes and willingly stepped out of His throne room and was born a baby human.  Jesus, who is Fully God took on becoming Fully Human as well.  He walked on earth for about 33 years, enduring all the things we endure, from temptations to Satan accusing him to deep pain.  As the time drew near to when Jesus would make the ultimate sacrifice, he spent a lot of time praying to His Father, teaching us how to pray and to live.

Then He did the unthinkable, He allowed himself to be arrested, tortured and killed on a cross because He saw the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).  At that historic moment in time, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on the cost for every sin, past, present and future once and for all.  He endured the wrath of Judgement against sin, as His Father, Holy, Perfect, and Just, pour out the penality of death upon His own Son and turned His gaze away as Jesus became sin.  We cannot even come close to getting our small minds around the reality of what happened in that moment, the ultimate pain, separation from the Father.  Jesus was dead and He did it for you and for me!

For 3 days, he was buried and mourned over. What wasn’t known during those three days was that Jesus was taking care of business and descended into the depths and stormed the gates of hell and took back the keys of death which had been stolen when Satan deceived Adam and Eve.  And on the 3rd day, Jesus came back and was physically resurrected and over the next several weeks, appeared to hundreds of disciples, explaining what happened and fullfilling the prophecy of His resurrection. (Mark 16:9-20, John 20:10-31, Acts 26:12-18)   He has made a way for our relationship with God to be restored.  Jesus paid the high cost for our salvation and made a way for us to become adopted sons of God.

This is the free gift Jesus now offers all mankind. He is holding out His hand and all we need to do is receive it.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  We don’t have to clean ourselves up or get perfect.  Jesus knows exactly where we are at in our heart, all we can do is say yes to Him. We can acknowledge that we have been rebelling against God (sinning) and that there is nothing we can do to fix our broken relationship with God.  We can then chose to receive the free gift of salvation and put our full reliance upon Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross.  And in that moment, we become adopted children of God and our future is secure.  You don’t have to do anything, just receive it. Receive it! It’s a gift that has already been bought and paid for.  Receive it.

Did you receive it?  Crazy how simple it is, but God knows what he is doing and He is a Good God! Remember He chose to adopt you, He likes you, He loves You and He even has a specific plan for your life.  He is going to show your how to live your life to the fullness that He has planned.  His plan for your life is so much bigger than you can even fathom!  He is going perform the work in your life, as you continue to allow His love to penetrate your heart!

The cool thing that Jesus promised those of us who put our reliance upon Him is that He would send a counselor to help us.  He gave us access to Holy Spirit.  Holy Spirit brings gifts too (runs in the family. . . )  Holy Spirit comes and teaches us how to allow Father God to transform our lives into the fullness of what we were created for.  Holy Spirit does this by reinforcing Truth when we read it or hear it. Awesome!

You may be asking yourself, sounds good, but now what? I am like you, a practical person, so I like practical steps. Get ahold of God’s love letter to us (Bible).  NIV, NLT, NKJV, AMP are all good translations.  Start reading about Jesus in the book of John (New Testiment, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John).  Why John?  Because John really had a good understanding about how much Jesus loved him.  He often refers to himself as John, the one Jesus loved.  As you read John, you too will start seeing the beauty of Jesus, who he was and how much he loves people.  As you read this, Holy Spirit will also be confirming Truth in your heart and mind.

Once you get through John, head to Acts where you will learn about how Jesus’ disciples changed the world.  These guys are average people, just like you and me, who said to Jesus, I am “all-in” and in their submitted heart posture, they changed the face of the earth!  So if you don’t think you can change the world, your wrong!  Co-laboring with Jesus, you can!

Next find a Bible preaching gathering of followers of Jesus.  This can be a traditional “church” or a house church, the main thing to look for is there teachings are straight from the Bible without adding or taking anything away.  Listen to Holy Spirit as He will guide you.  Pay attention to any checks you may have, He is there to counsel you and He will be speaking.

Find a local house of worship and prayer where you can go and soak in the manifest presence of God.  Yup He actually loves it when we come to worship and enjoy Him and will manifest Himself in tangible ways because He loves it when we shower Him with adoration!  IHOP-KC is a great model to look for.

God is in a Good mood and wants everyone to know it!  May our Lord reveal Himself to you in new amazing ways as you begin your journey with Him!

In His Strength and For His Honor