God’s Heart for All People
How many of you listened to the Rising’s teaching a couple of Sundays ago (7/23/23)? It really spoke to my heart.
I was raised in a Christian family, and accepted Jesus when I was young. I grew up hearing stories from the Bible about Moses, Daniel, Jonah, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ – initially through the lens of a child, then as a teenager. I did my best to follow Jesus and live the phrase “what would Jesus do.”
Fast forward to now, as I’ve been a Christian for nearly 50 years. I certainly don’t know everything –
God teaches me something new each and every day.
This Sunday’s message was one of those moments.
Pastor Kevin covered Romans 6:15-29, where Paul talks at length about what master we follow – are we slaves to sin? Or slaves to righteousness through God? That’s a pretty powerful statement. As another old fable says – what master do we feed?
What I hadn’t stop to consider was that God loves ALL mankind. He makes the sun rise over everyone regardless of whether or not they believe in and follow Jesus. He blesses all of us with good things; He loves us. That knowledge goes a long way in easing my heart when I see “bad” people who seem to have it all, and “good” people struggle to put food on the table. That God loves us all.
This is a good reminder that the heart is the center of our lives. As Kevin shared, our heart is what draws us close to God; we release it to Him, and He restores it so we become a new vessel, with “new wiring.” Ezekial 36:25-26: 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
However, if we don’t fill that new vessel with the Holy Spirit, it will fill with the filth of the world.
You would think as a life-long Christian, filling my heart would be an easy thing. But it isn’t always. Every day I wake up and pray that God will fill my heart with His spirit, His love for others, His righteous. That I will be a model that others can see. And every day I am faced with the wickedness that is out there – the lady who cut me off in traffic, the frustration of hearing yet another profane word or twisted behavior. Another day of sometimes feeling “am I good enough for God?”
And every day is a reminder of what Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:11: 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” When I’m faced with things that frustrate me, I get to choose every time to love Jesus, to listen to the good things he’s put into my heart, to choose His way..
And that’s God’s heart for all of us – not just Christians, but every one of us.