Genesis 15:17 (NET) - When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking firepot with a flaming torch passed between the animal parts.
God made a covenant with Abraham.
The smoking firepot and flaming torch passing between the halves of the sacrifice Abraham prepared was God confirming this covenant.
I have always considered this more than just an assurance on God’s part.
After all, every promise from God is always kept.
This was also a gesture on the part of God demonstrating His love.
God made other covenants as well.
After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and his sons.
God’s covenant was that he would never again destroy all life with a flood.
God confirmed this covenant with the rainbow.
Genesis 9: 13 (NET) - I will place m rainbow in the clouds, and it will become a guarantee of the covenant between Me and the earth.
As before, this guarantee was not only a confirmation, it was also God showing His love in a gesture that continues to this day.
God’s always kept his promises.
His word is sufficient.
Yet, for our sake, I am glad that God offers us such gestures of love.
As our journey through Lent continues, my thoughts turn to the death, burial ad resurrection of Jesus.
Every time I have considered these circumstances, my heart always embraces a particularly awesome gesture on the part of God the very moment that Jesus died on the cross.
Mark 15:37-38 (NET) - But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. And the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.
I can never read these two verses without mixed emotions,
On one hand there is an overwhelming feeling of sadness that Jesus had to die in this way to save a fallen world.
On the other hand, there is an extremely powerful feeling of hope.
A hope confirmed by a most marvelous gesture demonstrating God’s love as He tore the curtain in two.
At the very moment Jesus died a tremendous price had at last been paid.
The barrier that separated a fallen mankind and a perfectly Holy God was removed.
It was no longer necessary.
It was removed by none other than God Himself because of the blood shed by Jesus.
Scripture tells us time and again that God loves us.
Beyond telling us this, He also demonstrates it.
What was the greatest gesture of His love for us?
God willingly sacrificed His only Son for us!
That same Son also demonstrated His love for us as He followed the Father’s will all the way to the cross... and beyond!
John 3:16-17 (NET) - For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
Now, it is our turn .
We must now love others.
1 John 4:11 (NET) - Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.
This is neither impossible nor difficult.
A great place to begin is to follow God’s example and start with a gesture of love.
If we do, the possibilities are endless.
Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com
God made a covenant with Abraham.
The smoking firepot and flaming torch passing between the halves of the sacrifice Abraham prepared was God confirming this covenant.
I have always considered this more than just an assurance on God’s part.
After all, every promise from God is always kept.
This was also a gesture on the part of God demonstrating His love.
God made other covenants as well.
After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah and his sons.
God’s covenant was that he would never again destroy all life with a flood.
God confirmed this covenant with the rainbow.
Genesis 9: 13 (NET) - I will place m rainbow in the clouds, and it will become a guarantee of the covenant between Me and the earth.
As before, this guarantee was not only a confirmation, it was also God showing His love in a gesture that continues to this day.
God’s always kept his promises.
His word is sufficient.
Yet, for our sake, I am glad that God offers us such gestures of love.
As our journey through Lent continues, my thoughts turn to the death, burial ad resurrection of Jesus.
Every time I have considered these circumstances, my heart always embraces a particularly awesome gesture on the part of God the very moment that Jesus died on the cross.
Mark 15:37-38 (NET) - But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed his last. And the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.
I can never read these two verses without mixed emotions,
On one hand there is an overwhelming feeling of sadness that Jesus had to die in this way to save a fallen world.
On the other hand, there is an extremely powerful feeling of hope.
A hope confirmed by a most marvelous gesture demonstrating God’s love as He tore the curtain in two.
At the very moment Jesus died a tremendous price had at last been paid.
The barrier that separated a fallen mankind and a perfectly Holy God was removed.
It was no longer necessary.
It was removed by none other than God Himself because of the blood shed by Jesus.
Scripture tells us time and again that God loves us.
Beyond telling us this, He also demonstrates it.
What was the greatest gesture of His love for us?
God willingly sacrificed His only Son for us!
That same Son also demonstrated His love for us as He followed the Father’s will all the way to the cross... and beyond!
John 3:16-17 (NET) - For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.
Now, it is our turn .
We must now love others.
1 John 4:11 (NET) - Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.
This is neither impossible nor difficult.
A great place to begin is to follow God’s example and start with a gesture of love.
If we do, the possibilities are endless.
Blessings,
Jim Pokorny
The Other Brother Jim
http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com
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