KNOWING THE HEART OF GOD

God loves you completely. He wants only the best for you. 

He created you to be a wonderful person, just like himself. Because He loves you, he wants you to be happy and healthy.

• Most of all, he wants you to be just like his son, Jesus Christ.

For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to him

—and all along he knew who would

—should become like his Son, so that his Son would be the First, with many brothers. Romans 8:29 (TLB) 

We all need to be transformed dramatically to be like Jesus, all of us. 

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 1 John 1:8-9 (NLT) 

The man who wrote these words was the disciple whom Jesus especially loved, the man who wrote the Gospel of John.

• A good leader knows he too is a brother or sister and not a superior holy being.

That doesn't mean a preacher must always be available for everyone who wants his attention. 

• Many people cry for the preacher’s attention like babies for their mother. 
• Because preachers and leaders are only human, they need time to rest, think and listen to God. 

Don’t expect a preacher to give you what only God can give, to give you his complete and undivided attention, to give you perfect wisdom and to love you as his own child.

Once someone rang up our pastor after 2 o’clock in the morning because he couldn't sleep. 
The pastor answered: “Now there are two of us who can’t sleep.” 

But God never sleeps and when you can’t sleep, he is there with you.

God sees the end from the beginning. 

Before your grandparents were born, he looked down the centuries to come and saw you choosing to love him and trust him with your life. 

• He saw you learning to know him and experience his deep affection, to know the intense devotion that he has for you. If you belong to Jesus, God is your FATHER, the perfect Father who adores his children. 

• A good mother adores her baby and the love of God is even stronger.

Sing for joy, O heavens; shout, O earth. Break forth with song, O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion upon them in their sorrow. 

Yet they say, "My Lord deserted us; he has forgotten us."

• "Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son? Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you. Isaiah 49:13-15 (TLB)

What is God like?

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NLT) 

Who can understand what this means? 

A child can understand best of all. A child knows what the love of a good mother or father feels like.

Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew 18:3 (NLT) 

When it comes to understanding THE LOVE OF GOD, scholars and teachers often become confused.

• In one usually good commentary I found this strange contradiction.

For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:8 (NKJV) 

“How desperately the minister and church need such tenderness and affection for each other!” 

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. Philippians 1:9 (NLT) 

“ ...love in the Bible never focuses upon good feelings...The focus of love is knowledge.”  Preacher's Outline and Sermon Bible - Commentary.

God is not controlled by his emotions but he feels intensely. 

He wants you and me to know His heart and feel what he feels.

IS SALVATION CONDITIONAL?

Christian history is full of extreme overreactions. 
Medieval Catholics lived in fear of judgement from day to day based on their variable moral and spiritual performance. 

Then came Martin Luther and declared that salvation is a free gift from God which we cannot earn. This is true.

• We access the grace and favour of God by trusting once and for all in the finished work of Jesus who paid for all our sin on the cross, once and for all time. This is also true.

But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for 

• "the just shall live by faith." Galatians 3:11 (NKJV) 

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; 

• it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) 

But then Luther and Calvin really overreacted and adopted an extreme opposite teaching to Catholicism.

• They said a believer once saved can never be lost.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 

And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 (NKJV) 

Yes of course all true Christians believe this. 

Eternal life is the free gift of God and eternal life means what it says.

Luther and Calvin rightly taught that we cannot earn salvation and they were right. 

• But that does not mean salvation is unconditional.

Salvation is conditional on our decision to trust in the love of God who gave His only Son to die for our sins.

• Right through the Bible, God gave free choice to men and women, to choose for Him or against Him, to trust or mistrust, to obey or disobey. 

But the LORD God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

• If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2:16-17 (NLT) 

God created Adam in His own perfect likeness, with the moral character of God Himself and the free gift of eternal life but for Adam, eternal life was conditional. 

• Adam could keep or lose eternal life depending on his decision to continue trusting God. 

It is the same for us today.

Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him." Hebrews 10:38 (NKJV) 

Of course we may grieve God and still be His children. This was the true revelation of the Reformation.

• But if we keep on presuming on the mercy of God without a serious attitude of repentance, we cannot take our home in heaven for granted.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14 (NIV)  

The Bible cannot be telling unsaved people to make an effort to be holy. That makes no sense at all. 

• The writer of Hebrews is telling born again believers they must be serious about living a holy life after they are saved, or else they will not stay saved.

So often we can become like the church in Laodicea and there is no automatic ticket to heaven for lukewarm Christians.

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 

• So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Revelation 3:15-16 (NKJV)

Jesus cannot vomit you out of His mouth if you are not IN CHRIST to begin with.

• This is not talking about nominal believers who have never said the “Sinners’ Prayer.”