TODAY’S PROPHETIC WORD
God so loved the world that He gave his Son to die so that we might have life everlasting (John 3:16). God is always available for us to ask our Heavenly Father to forgive us. Just remember, our sins are never too big or wrong for God to forgive us. We must learn to forgive others so God can forgive us. We must be willing to consecrate our lives to God. Isn’t it great to know that our creator loves us so much? All we have to do is call upon Him because He is always reaching out to us. We just have to take hold of His hand and never let go!
A NEW REVELATION
God is not mad at you. He’s not. If you’ve ever thought that God is mad at you, punishing you or just indifferent to your suffering, my question to you is, who told you that?
Somehow, people have gotten the impression that God is the mean old man in the sky waiting to spit in our Cheerios if we mess up.
Lost job? Crumbling marriage or rebellious child? God must be punishing me for something I did. Financial problems, health issues, natural disaster? God is judging me. I must have messed up when I….
STOP! This is wrong thinking from the pit of Hell! The devil, God’s adversary, wants you to believe this lie so you will doubt your Father’s goodness. You see, Satan hates it when we know and understand how good God truly is. It shines a very bright spotlight on how evil and demented he is. He hates to be reminded that he is not God and has already been defeated.
Know this – God is not waiting for you to sin or mess up so He can squash you. He’s just not. That’s not who He is or how He deals with us. He does let us have the natural, or earthly consequences of our actions, but that is on us alone – not Him.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16
There is a beautiful scenes at the end of “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” Irving Berlin’s historical novel about Michelangelo that illustrates my point today.
An aging Pope Julius II visits the nearly completed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo has to help him up the last few rungs of the ladder. The pope looks up at the now-famous depiction of God, about to impart the gift of life to Adam.
Now, Julius had fought terrible, bloody wars in the name of the church. He had blood on his hands, and he wasn’t really sure if his cause was truly just or successful. However, as he looks at Michelangelo’s picture of God, a smile comes to his cracked lips.
“Do you truly believe God is that benign?” he asks the famous painter.
“Yes, Holy Father,” Michelangelo replies.
Pope Julius says, “I most ardently hope so, since I am going to be standing before Him before long. If He is as you have painted Him, then I shall be forgiven my sins.”
Looking at that painting, the pope saw an image of God unlike the one he had lived his whole life with. It was a revelation to him that God wasn’t killing life, but that God loved to give life. It had never occurred to him what a giver God is even in the face of his sins. That He is good.
That painting, you know the one where the finger of God is reaching out to impart life into a lifeless Adam, actually started a revival that would ruin the Catholic Church’s corner on the market of Christianity. When people saw that image, painted high, as if you were looking into Heaven, a new revelation of God’s goodness spread across Europe and beyond.
God is love. He is light and life. He never brings you hatred, darkness or death. Those things are brought our way by nature, the devil, and by man – oftentimes self-inflicted. God is good, period.
TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO GET THE REVELATION THAT GOD IS ALWAYS A LIFE-GIVER. HE’S NOT LOOKING TO PUNISH YOU BECAUSE HE KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS IF YOU ARE HIS CHILD. GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!
From my book: GOOD OVERCOMES EVIL
