Jesus made it very easy for us to know who to love and serve: Everyone. Our approval is not required. People do not need to be perfect, pulled together, or washed to be loved. We are all broken, that’s why we need a Savior.

Judgement is not our job. Our job is to love people regardless of who they want to marry, what they eat, or the color of their skin.  Yes, they are probably living outside the parameters that God set up, but love them anyway.

Change comes when people feel accepted for who they are. Once they feel valued, they will be open to hearing what you have to share. But don’t share with a pointed finger. Share with arms of love. Be a friend. Help where you can. Pray for them.

The kingdom of God is about people loving people, and not just other people in the kingdom. The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) was despised by the Jews, yet he was compassionate and generous. Imagine a kingdom where we all lived like that.

If you know you have issues with other people, give them to God. Confess your judgmental attitude to God and ask Him to fill you with His love. Be the heart of God to others and you will release blessing on yourself.

Our salvation is so much more than we know. We think we just got a get out of jail free card, but God has much, much more in store for us. Paul said the church at Ephesus, people who were already saved: I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, —since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints... (Eph 1:17-18)

He encouraged them to get spiritual wisdom so they would understand their glorious inheritance. We need to be enlightened. We need to understand all the wonders that come with our salvation. It must be pursued. We need to ask God for this revelation. He’s waiting to see who wants more. It’s free to everyone, but not everyone will ask for it.

The eyes of your heart have been enlightened by receiving the Spirit of God. He’s given us the opportunity to access all of heaven. Are you interested in what that is? Do you wonder how that might affect your life? Press in and find out. There is a hope and glory that belongs to you.

God does not make our promises automatic. And it’s a good thing too. Many times He will promote us before we feel ready to receive it, but other times, He needs to clean us up a bit. Before we can share love, we have to be able to receive love.

Love God first, then love other people. Everything hinges on those two necessities. Before you can be trusted with promise, you have to love. It can’t be a decision that you make when you feel it’s justified. Love has to flow out of you because it’s the love of God living within you.

This is the one area that will take continued development for our whole life. We have to learn to love more. To do that, we have to humble ourselves and ask God to remove anything that prevents us from loving more. It may involve opening some old wounds that we’ve chosen to ignore. There will have to be forgiveness and acceptance where it’s been hard to do. We have to be renewed in our minds. We have to want to be changed.

Our old nature is pretty stubborn and will exert itself if we let it. We have to be diligent to want what God wants for us. He wants us to love. Everything He has planned for you starts there.

Transformation takes time.

Our salvation doesn’t come with an instant perfection switch. We still have a lot of overcoming to do. Many people accept that Jesus died so they’ll go to heaven, but they lack faith to trust Him for anything else. Plus, there will be a history of bad attitudes to let go of.

The good news is that God knows that and He is expecting us to go slowly. For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil 1:6) In other words, our new life in Christ is a process of being made perfect. God takes us as far and as fast as we’re able to keep up with.

Since we all walk at a different rate, we should not compare ourselves to other people. You don’t know how long it took them to get to where they are. And don’t beat yourself up if you feel human. There’s a reason for that — you are! Our complete perfection will not come until we get to heaven. In the meantime, there will mistakes and bad decisions made.

The important thing is to repent when you know you need to and look to God. His mercies are new every morning. That’s very good news.

We don’t always realize how much our history affects our present. We respond to how we’ve been treated. If we’ve been treated well, then we can be open and trusting. If we’ve been hurt, we don’t want to go through that again, so we put up walls. Trusting becomes difficult, if not impossible.

Unfortunately, that past also affects how we respond to God. If we never had a loving relationship with our father, we won’t be able to receive love from our heavenly Father. Those walls will only allow what we feel we can handle, which may not be very much at all. Even a bad divorce will affect our ability to be loved by anyone.

You don’t have to live like that. All the blessings of heaven are yours in Christ. But to truly receive them, you have to let go of the bad stuff. Forgive where you need to forgive. You have to do it. Then ask God to take it all away. Now ask God to release all His goodness in you. Receive His love. Receive His joy. Receive all that is yours.

You are a new creation in Christ. Let go of the old and enjoy all that Jesus has given.

Predestination is one of those tricky concepts that a lot of people choose not to think about, because if you do, your brain just might explode. Do we make your own choices or not? It sure feels like it.

But we read in Ephesians, … He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will… (Eph 1:4-5)

God definitely chose us before the He even made the world. He knew who would serve Him and who wouldn’t. So how are we predestined, if we make have a choice?

Here’s how I figure it. We all have a destiny. That means that we all have a plan that God made especially for each of us. It’s tailor-made to suit our personal gifts, hopes, and dreams. It lines us up with God’s plan of redemption and how we should live in His kingdom.

But here’s the thing — we choose whether to accept it or not. The plan was designed for us before the world was made, but we are not forced to live it. If we decide to ignore this amazing blessing, then we are free to do so.

Predestination doesn’t mean that we are forced to live without personal choice, it means that God thought of how He wanted to bless us long before we ever created. That destiny lives in every one of us. All we have to do is receive it with grateful thanks.

Repentance is not just about being sorry for what we know we’ve done wrong. We have do something about it. We have to change our ways. If we are truly repentant, we don’t want to do that same thing again.

When you repent, confess to God what you know you need to confess, then give Him the issue. Ask Him to take it from you. Visualize yourself handing Him a box with the bad actions in it. Then ask God for the good things He wants to replace it with.

We act badly out of our own sinful nature. God wants to renew us in our new identity in Christ. For everything we let go of because it’s from our old self, God has a good thing to replace it with to build up your redeemed self.

That’s how we grow in maturity. Faith upon faith. Line upon line. Precept upon precept. As we let go of actions and attitudes that hold us back, we receive better gifts that protect us and show us how marvelous God is.

Embrace repentance. There’s no need to hold onto anything that keeps you from being the amazing person that God sees you as.

Sometimes we have an odd response to blessing — we don’t want to receive it. We’re like an animal that has lived in a cage for a long time. When the cage door is opened to to freedom, the animal doesn’t know what to do. The cage is familiar and safe.

We have a calling on our lives to do amazing work in the kingdom. But we have to get past our own self-defeating limitations and step out with God. It takes trust that He will back us up when we need Him to.

You can’t walk on water until you get out of the boat. It’s crazy to think about, but miracles are like that. Let go of what you have to control and trust God to open doors for you. And when the doors open, go out! Yes, the familiar feels safer, but the blessing of obedience brings amazing opportunity.

Ask God if you’ve been holding back. Ask Him what He wants to do for you. Ask Him for faith to follow Him where ever He leads. Then enjoy. It’s going to be awesome.

God is definitely in the habit of messing with our heads. Jesus went to great lengths to describe an abomination that He expected His disciples to receive — eating His body and drinking His blood. Everyone was grossed out. What was Jesus’s response? Does this offend you? (John 6:61)

What’s the right answer to that? To say yes would be admitting that you don’t receive the word the He gave. To say no means that you’d be ok with eating flesh and drinking blood. Without understanding the real context, you just have to believe that Jesus wasn’t being disgusting.

Does this offend you? How often has offense kept us from understanding deeper truths?  Yes, we understand that we are saved by grace. That’s a basic truth. But that’s just the doorway to the kingdom. There is so much more to learn about our God. Jesus tried to teach more, but could not. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (John 3:12)

We’re supposed to pray on earth as it is in heaven, because our world doesn’t look like heaven. If we are to learn heavenly things, then what He has to teach will be radically different from what we think we know. Are we prepared to be radically changed? Or will we be offended? A smart answer would be to press in and learn more.