Gods wonderful destiny for you

God loves you and wants to give you a great destiny

God loves us and therefore His desire for us is to have happy lives, happy not only for the short-time we are here on earth but for eternity.

But God also knows that because of our sins and disobedience to Him we are actually often very unhappy and unfulfilled deep inside.

Therefore John 3:16-17 tells us that God loved us so much that He send His own son so that we could be saved.

Many are the people in this world who want to control and use us, some use seduction, others use violence, others use manipulation and even some use religion to control us and exercise power over us so that they can exploit our money, our energy, our abilties or even our bodies. But really they are thieves for they want to take from us by stealth. But Jesus is very different. He says in John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Jesus did not come to take from us but He has come to give us life, fullness of life

NO NEW RELIGION!!!

He has not come to bring a new religion with more rules and regulations trying to force people to change. The Bible makes it clear that people are so flawed by nature, so affected by sin that no law can force people to live in a way that meets Gods Holy demands.

Rules and laws are based on fear and threats of punishment but even the threat of painful death cannot change who we are inside!!!

Besides Gods demands are much higher than the rules people impose on other people. God wants that we live holy and without sin, full of love for all human beings, even to the point of loving our enemies and forgiving and doing good to those who persecute us.

This no human being can ever achieve, no matter how much pressure we put them under.

SIN IS A MORAL AND SPIRITUAL DISEASE

You see sin is more than an act of disobedience to God for it is also like a spiritual and moral disease that cripples us. We are morally and spiritually so affected that it is simply impossible for us to live as healthy spiritual and moral beings.

“No one is righteous, not even one…” .we are all morally sick and inclined to sin as Romans 3:10-12 reminds us.  We are all so affected by this moral and spiritual disease that all of us are unhealthy. In fact the Bible even calls us spiritually death because it is a progressive disease that goes from bad to worse until we end up spiritually death and destroyed in hell, eternally separated from God like a body wasted away by disease until it ends decaying buried in the soil.

GOD HAS A BETTER DESTINY FOR US

This is not the destiny God has in mind for us. He has a cure, a way to save us. But the cure does not consist of all kinds of religious and moral commands, church rules or cultural and societal regulations…..

Such rules characterized by "do this, don't do that" do not have real transforming power. In fact they add to our burden with guilt, shame and their threat of punishment, rejection and social isolation. It may force us to try hard to be morally and spiritually healthy but we will sooner or later fail for it does not cure us! Often all it does it encourage us to pretend to be morally healthy and deny or hide our sins and errors. At most it helps us cope with the disease but it holds no hope for healing.

The cure God has is to give us a new heart, a transformed heart, to bring us to live spiritually. This was foretold more than 2500 years ago by the prophet Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 31:33-34

33"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34"They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

And this became reality when in His love God send His son Jesus 2000 years ago to become the cure for our disease.

JESUS IS THE CURE, ONLY HE IS OUR HOPE

Jesus lived a sinless life and yet he died on the cross to take the punishment for all our sins and moral flaws away so we no longer need to live under condemnation, in shame and guilt.

But He did more, He rose from death in the power of God and then send His Holy Spirit to dwell within us so that we are transformed in our hearts into people that live morally and spiritually healthy.  Not under the threat of punishment by law-enforcers but prompted by an inner law, a law of love, a law that gives life and motivates us to eagerly do what is good.

For this all we need to do is come to Christ and abide in Him who is the life-giver.

It starts with trusting Him and putting your faith in what He achieved by dying on the cross and by overcoming the power of decay and death when He rose from death in his resurrection.

Let me summarize it in 5 main points:

1) Trust Gods word where He says that He loves the whole world and does not want anyone to perish in their sins

2) Trust Him that His sacrificial death on the cross is enough to take away the punishment for all your sins

3) Trust Him that His sacrificial death on the cross is enough to cleanse you from all your sins

4) Trust Him that He will give you his Holy Spirit when you ask for it

5) Continue to focus on Jesus and trust Him to inspire, prompt and empower you to live right, out of love and not out of fear of punishment. Trust Him to continually transform you into His likeness as you focus on Him.

Really my dear friends, Jesus is trustworthy and His promises are reliable and in Luke 11:11-13 He says:

11"Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? 12"Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? 13"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?"

Let us trust God and turn to Him

Let us stop pretending that we are good morally healthy and flawless people and instead admit that in our own strength we cannot cure ourselves. We need God’s forgiveness, we need im to wash away our guilt and shame and we need Him to give us a new heart, a transformed heart, a heart full of His Holy Spirit so that Christ lives in us and we can truly be His followers and instead of going from bad to worse we change from glory to glory and find the happiness God had in mind for us all along.

2 Cor. 3:17-18

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

If you want this to happen in your life put your trust in Jesus, for the forgiveness of your sins, for inner cleansing and healing and for giving you His Holy Spirit so you will be transformed into His likeness.

Amen