FEBRUARY 21 DEVOTION BIBLE READING: 1 JOHN 4:7-21
God created man with the ability to love. Love, to be genuine, cannot be compelled, but must be freely given. Adam and Eve were created in perfection. Part of that perfection required the ability to make genuine decisions, including the decisions to obey or disobey God. When temptation came they chose to believe the lie instead of God and found that rather than further perfection they moved to imperfection. Sin entered into the earth through the choice made that day and it changed everything...even mankind's ability to love God and to choose to follow Him.
The Bible says of we who love God that, "We love Him, because He first loved us." We did not choose to love God on our own...on our own, because of our fallen nature, we would always choose sin. God reached down to us through His Son Jesus...He touched our heart by His Holy Spirit and loved us. In this He has made it possible for us to now choose to love Him. In our fallen state we were dead to God...we were in bondage in our sin...we could not even conceive the love of God. The message of the Bible is one of redemption. Because of man's original choice to disobey God, everything changed. The earth changed...the animal kingdom changed...man was estranged from God...death and all kinds of sickness and decease entered into creation. God in His love and mercy, even though man had rejected Him, never changed His plan for humanity. In the fullness of time He sent His Son Jesus. Jesus came born of a virgin, sinless and when the time came, He willingly went to the cross and died as the ransom for we who were guilty of sin and separated from God. Jesus' finished work on the cross makes it possible for us to know the forgiveness of God...to have a genuine relationship with God...to once again obey God...and to choose to love Him who first loved us!
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