This is a very encouraging article that focuses on the steadfast love of God toward us who are His adopted children. “Steadfast” is not a word that can be used very often in our world today, but we can always rely on God’s love for us. From PlaceforTruth.org ………….
https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/the-steadfast-love-of-the-lord
A very important point: Even our secular culture wants to think of God as only loving. While the Word says that God is love because of the eternal loving communion within the Godhead, the Word also says that God is holy. I believe from these two foundations of love and holiness flow all the other attributes of God, including His justice. Another great article from Randy Alcorn and Eternal Perspectives Ministries………
It is one thing to have a mental understanding of God’s love, but it is vastly better to feel and experience His love. From OpentheBible.org………..
The “P” in the acrostic “TULIP” for Calvinism stands for “Preservation of the saints.” Well, as this article shows, this is an unfortunate term, because our remaining saved is not up to us, but it is due to the loving heart of the Father (don’t forget the lessons of the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Forgiving Loving Father!). From Jesus Musings……………….
This is a question I have often asked myself. “I know that God loves me because I am part of His eternal family, but does He love and like me…Nicholas?” The answer is YES!, in many and varied ways. Here is a nice article to flesh this out from Ligonier Ministries……………..
Favor by Southern Baptist pastor Greg Gilbert is written to try to show the true purpose and meaning of the term “favor of (with) God.” Gilbert makes a strong case in this book that the biblical term has sadly been co-opted by the “health and wealth” preachers and authors to mean some kind of special rewards or blessings that God bestows on those Christians who demonstrate exemplary “faith” and “works” to earn God’s special attention and delight. But Gilbert strongly argues in the first section of the book called “Favor With God and How to Get It,” that the description provided by the “health and wealth” preachers is directly counter to what the Bible says God’s favor truly is. In short, God’s favor is already demonstrated for every believer, because God’s favor with Christians in based on His favor toward His Son, Jesus. So, the really good news of the Gospel is that we have nothing to earn or do to get special attention or affection from God, because Jesus has already earned all of that for us through His earthly ministry of living a perfect human life, and His sacrifice on the Cross and subsequent Resurrection. This truth was strongly taught by the Reformers and all conservative biblical scholars since. Gilbert makes this point understandable to laymen by using Jesus’ own description of the “vine and branches.” As taught by Jesus in the Gospel of John, and as expanded on by the Apostles Paul and John especially; a branch has no life on its own apart from the parent vine. But when the lifeless branch is grafted in to the healthy vine, those branches take on the same life and fruit-bearing abilities of the Vine — Jesus.
Then in Part Two, Gilbert describes the main benefits that Christians will find by really recognizing and living out the truths of the Bible in regards to being united to Christ. Chapters in this section cover benefits like contentment, peace with God, new Life, and the power to fight for our own souls and those of others as favored sons and daughters of the One True King.
Favor is a short book of less than 100 pages, but packs heaps of truths and encouragement on every page. While written specifically for both young and mature believers, pastors and ministry leaders will also find much here to use to strengthen their own faith and better feed the people God has assigned to them. Highly recommended.
Averagechristiannet 