MARCH 3, 2025 ~ FROM A PASTOR'S HEART

MARCH 3 DEVOTIONAL BIBLE READING: PSALM 119:1-16

There are many who see God as some kind of cosmic tyrant, who only exists to make our lives hard and to take away our fun. Nothing could be further from the truth. God loves us and wants what is best for us. He wants us to enjoy a full and abundant life. Jesus said, "I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly." God's plan for our lives is one filled with joy, peace, goodness and His presence. Jesus didn't come to take away our freedom...He came that we might know true freedom. There is no freedom in sin that is the deception of the temptation to sin. The promise that you will be free to do anything you want, you don't have to answer to anyone, because you know what is best for you, is the lie of sin. Sin always leads to hurt, pain, disappointment, depression, discouragement, bondage and eventually death. Christ gives life and true freedom.

It was in perfection and innocence that we have the first recorded temptation. These first humans had everything, yet they were tempted with the lie to have more. Somehow God was cheating them. He had lied to them; because He feared them. He didn't want them to know all things. They were tempted by a lie and a false characterization of God. They believed the lie and their world changed, but not in the way they were told it would. They lost everything, especially that close relationship they had experienced since creation with God. They chose to listen to a different voice, a lying voice, a voice that would attack the goodness and promise of God with a lie. They brought sin, sickness, pain and death into the world. The next time you are tempted to accuse God of being a tyrant because He says, "Though shall not...” remember every one of those things He forbids, He does so out of love and because He wants you to know the true, free and abundant life in Him.

Please share your thoughts.