Love?

14th of February. For the couples out there it's Valentine's Day, a wonderful excuse to get mushy and buy presents for one another. For everyone else it's, it's S.A.D. Single-Awareness-Day, another day of being alone. Apparently.
 Most singles react to Valentine's in one of the following ways:

• Branding it a commercial holiday that's really all about selling tacky heart-plastered merchandise rather than love
• To state their independence and declare to the world that they don't need a significant other to feel special
• Having a night spent watching romantic films with Ben & Jerry, pining for the Valentine's Day to come when they'll have their special someone sat beside them on the couch.

I think that, since the time I realised that boys weren't just for playing sports with, I have probably reacted in all three of these ways at some stage. All I wanted was for someone I liked to let me know that I was special to them, and Valentine's Day was just a painful reminder that that someone wasn't in my life yet. 

Since coming to university, God has been teaching me more about who He is and how I can trust Him with everything; my family, my future, my feelings. He has taught me that He is worth trusting, and that only through trusting Him completely and surrendering all of these things to Him can I have His peace, peace that passes all human understanding. And why can I trust Him? Because through His Word, the Bible, and by His faithfulness towards me all my life, He has shown me that He loves me. 

This February 14th I won't be moping about, feeling sorry for myself because I don't have someone to share it with. Ultimately, Valentine's Day is about Love, and God has shown me the most perfect love that I will ever have. Throughout my life He has pursued me, just as He pursues you, relentlessly showing me that He loves me and asking me to love Him back. 

Just like in The Notebook, when Noah climbs up onto a ferris wheel just to show Ally that he likes her and relentlessly pursues a date with her, God has saught after my heart, proving again and again that He loves me completely.

 In the Bible, it often makes use of the imagery of a marriage to demonstrate our relationship with God. God loves us and pursues a relationship with us, ultimately proving His that love by sending His son to die for our sins, and we're just not interested. We tell Him that He's not needed, that we're not interested in anything involving serious committment, that we just want to have fun, that there's someone or something else in our lives right now that is more important. Sometimes we just think that we're not good enough for Him and so we can't accept what He's offering us- His eternal love.

 One of my favourite books of the bible with regards to this is Ephesians. In chapter 5 it talks about the relationship that a man and wife should have in a marriage, by using Christ's love for His bride, the Church, as an example:

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." Ephesians 5:22-25 

 Husbands should be willing to die for their wives, and wives should live for their husbands, just as Christ died for the church and we are called to live our lives for Him. In chapter 1, it talks about how, when we come to Christ and accept His offer, we are "sealed with the Holy Spirit":

"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory." Ephesians 1:13-14

I like to think of the Holy Spirit like our engagement ring to Christ. We have accepted His proposal, and He has given us His Holy Spirit as a sign of our promise to one another, until He returns and takes His bride home to be with Him forever. 

As a Christian, I still don't get it right all the time- far from it. I wonder from God and try to do things my own way in my own time, not trusting Him and His sovreignty. Sometimes I am downright disobedient and turn my back on His will. But it doesn't matter how many times or how badly I let Him down, He promises to never let me go, He has forgiven me and He loves me with a perfect love that looks past my imperfections because of the price that Jesus paid on the cross for me.

 God has shown me the greatest love story ever known, and given me the chance to be a part of it. This Valentine's, I can celebrate the love that I have through my Saviour Christ Jesus and praise the God of all creation who loved me enough to pay the ultimate price so that I could be with Him forever. That doesn't mean I don't look forward to a day where I can share a Valentine's Day with my beloved, or that I won't sometimes wish that he was with me now, but I can have confidence that he will come in God's time and that God's plan for me is going to be so much more amazing than any love story that I could come up with. I'm not afraid to be honest with you, sometimes I do feel like that day will never come; I think that there must be something wrong with me because no one seems to show any interest or pay any attention to me; that I'm not pretty or talented enough. 

 But God has never told me that. 

He shows me in the Bible that He has and will provide me with everything I have and ever will need, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and that He will fulfil the desires of my heart as I delight in Him. All I need to do is trust Him.

God wants you to be a part of this story. He's pursuing you and asking you to love Him back and accept His offer of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ. He's down on one knee, offering you everything that you will ever need. What will you say this Valentine's; yes or no?

Good Person?

It's a term we all know pretty well, in fact most people believe this term would cover most people- apart from that one person you really don't like and the obvious 'baddies' out there, and most people would say that it's only the "good" people who go to Heaven. So, what constitutes as a "good" person? Where's the line? Is there a line; or is it more of a gradual shading from good to bad? I'm sure, depending on who we asked and what their background was, that we could find a whole myriad of different answers to this set of questions.
  The issue is, surely there can only be one right answer? What's the point of being a good person if only a select group of people believe that you have done all that's needed to earn that label? Surely then, you couldn't be a good person unless everyone agreed and you met everyone's requirements and standards,  of which we know there is no end.

I'm going to tell you what the Bible, God's Word, has to say on the issue. I'm not going to tell you my opinions, because ultimately I'm a sinner and I'm flawed; God is Holy and Perfect and His Word is the only source that we can 100% put our trust in.

Now, what I have to say here may shock you, especially as most people would view Christians as people who claim to be "good" people- whether you believe them and their life reflects that or not is a different story. So, massive whop of Truth #1:

The Bible says there are no "good" people.

Say whaaaaaat. Isn't being a Christian all about just that; about being a good person? Isn't that the whole aim of Christianity; the rules, the morals bla bla bla?

 Nope.

Here are a couple of verses to back this up- (I wouldn't ask you to just take my word for it):

"Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins." Ecclesiastes 7:20

"The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one." Psalm 14:2-3   

(Italics my own)

So what are Christians doing then if the Bible says that no one is righteous; does this mean we don't need to be good people to go to Heaven? 

 I think if you spoke to most people, they would all have the same basic principles for what they think constitutes as a good person; someone who's kind, who doesn't murder people or act maliciously... the list could go on. The thing is, why do we, as humans, recognise this need to be "good", and why do we constantly find ourselves falling short of that standard? Wherever you go on earth, all people have these basic ideas of what it means to be good, and that we should aim to behave as such. Why is this? Some would suggest that it is because that is the only way that society can work, but then why do we find ourselves telling that occasional lie; stealing that odd thing from that person; having malicious thoughts towards those we don't like? We have this, it would appear, inbuilt standard of conduct but we can't even live by it ourselves- and yet these basic principles and morals do not change to accommodate this fact because, ultimately, we know that whether we like these rules or not that they are right.
 So firstly, why do we have this desire to do what is right; to be a good person? We are told at the start of the Bible that out of everything that God created, man was special; he was the pinnacle of it all. We are made in God's image.

"Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”" Genesis 1:26 

We are special. We're not just lucky that we happened to evolve into the most intelligent and capable beings on the planet- God made us specially and specifically to be like Him! So part of that is that we were created to have a special relationship with God, to worship and honour Him, and part of that is living in the way God would have us live. We were created to live for and serve the Living God, and that is why we all have this seemingly inbuilt desire to do good. So, why can't we?
  Because the story doesn't end there.
  In the garden of Eden, there were two trees (besides all of the normal trees): the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve were free to eat the fruit from ANY of the trees, including the Tree of Life, except for the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You know how the story goes: Satan appears to Eve in the form of a serpent and twists God's words to try and confuse Eve into eating the fruit from the tree, which she does, and then offers to Adam.
 Cue sin.
 From then on, man's first instinct was no longer to honour and obey God, being in conformation to His perfect character, but instead was disobedience and shame before God. It was then that man started the habit of trying to cover up the things we are ashamed of and to hide from God and we've been doing it ever since. We still have the knowledge of what is good and right, but because of the presence of sin, we are no longer able to do it which is why we are ashamed and spend our whole lives trying to hide it from the rest of the world and from God.
 When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, the whole of creation was corrupted. Their bodies became imperfect too and began to decay along with the rest of the beautiful world that God had made for them. Their relationship with God was made imperfect, their relationship with creation was made imperfect and their relationship with each other was made imperfect. Creation began to die. The Bible tells us that death is the natural result of sin:

"For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23

It all seems pretty hopeless right now, doesn't it? None of us can be good, we're all sinners, and the result of sin is death.
 But the story doesn't end there.
 Massive whop of Truth #2:

We can be GIVEN goodness.

"...but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Romans 6:23

Yes, the penalty for sin is death. Yes, we are sinners. But God sent His son Jesus Christ into the world, to live a perfect life, face all of the trials that we face, and to die a horriffic death on a cross at Calvary in order that we should not have to pay the price for our own sins- so that our relationship with God could be restored through him and we could have eternal life in him and be with God forever in Heaven. Sin and death no longer have dominion over us, and we are free to live the kind of life that God intended us to have. We're still not good, but we are told that we are given goodness through Jesus:

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus can take us from being enemies of God to being His children through the Holy Spirit:

"For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Romans 5:10 

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12-13

What a transformation! From a seemingly hopeless situation of being slaves to sin- knowing what was right and yet constantly falling short of it- and being the enemies of God, not only are we given the strength and ability to obey God through the work of Jesus Christ, but we also are given the right to become His children! The Bible even goes further than that to say that we are fellow heirs with Jesus Christ himself:

"The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him." Romans 8:16-17 

All we have to do is believe it, to accept this Get out of Jail Free card that is being offered to us; to have faith in what we cannot see but what we know is right. We're not perfect, but we are being perfected. Through the work of His Holy Spirit in our lives we are being conformed to the image of Christ, the only GOOD person that has ever existed or will exist on this earth. 

  As a christian, I am only able to truly know what is right and to do it through God's strength and the guidance of His Holy Spirit who now lives in me:

"You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness." Romans 8:9-10 

Through Christ's (The Son) death, we are reconciled to God (The Father) and the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us, giving us true life through the righteousness that it brings. However, we still have a choice of whether we listen to the Spirit or not. We are still imperfect and therefore we still get it wrong sometimes by choosing to ignore God because we think we know better. But God will always fight for us and wait for us to return to Him with arms wide open, like a Father awaiting the return of His lost child. He promises to finish the work that he starts in us:

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6 

One day we will be perfect. Not in this body or on this earth, but when God has defeated Satan once and for all, casting him and all who have rejected him into the Lake of Fire. There will be a new Heaven and a new Earth where everything will be perfect:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”"

Revelation 21:1-7 

Wow. Why wouldn't you want a bit of that, eh? Even though we are sinners, constantly letting God down and turning our backs on Him, He gives us this chance to be free; to have everything. To have LIFE. 

 But God loves us and so He gives us a choice. If you don't want Him in this life then He won't make you be with Him in the next, He'll let you pay for the consequences of your sin for yourself. If you reject God, then you accept DEATH. The passage continues:

 "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8 

At one time, we all came under one or more of these categories. Only through Christ can we be free from these sins and come under the category "Child of God" instead. God is giving you the opportunity to have your name written in His book of Life. Nobody ever has to go to Hell. It was made for Satan and his demons, not for people created in the image of God, but if you reject His offer of eternal life then this is your destination. It's up to YOU to change that.

As always, if you have any questions about anything that I've said please feel free to get in touch via facebook, if you've come from there, or my twitter account "Amy Ferry" (currently @amythebeth). The life that I've been telling you about isn't worth missing out on just because you didn't look into it. Ask questions, pursue the Truth for yourself. 

 Praying that you find God's peace,

                                    Amy