Good morning, all!

Father, we know You are the Great Shepherd and like scriptures says ALL we like sheep go astray. Help us Lord, help us find the way back home just like the prodigal son. Help us to find the light of Christ that we would remove all darkness and keep us in Your way and Your path…faith to love always, Amen.

2 Corinthians 4

3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
But if OUR gospel…good news of God’s grace is hidden, it’s hidden to those that are LOST…not rotten.

4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
In whom the god of this WORLD (devil) has blinded the MIND of those that DON’T believe in God’s grace, otherwise the light of the gospel of Christ, which is the IMAGE of God would shine.

5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For what we say and do is NOT based on what we accomplish, but Christ Jesus the Lord and we your servants for Jesus’ benefit NOT ours.

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
God is the One in charge, He made light come from our darkened heart because we lost hope, He gave us the light of Christ in our heart so we would find our identity in Christ alone.

Bottom line

The gospel of Jesus Christ is hid NOT lost, and it’s only hidden from a life lived when we don’t BELIEVE in the power of His resurrection. We don’t believe we’ve been set free from sin and bondage, from fear, from worry, from thinking we live our life with absence or distance of God…NOT true.

[Eph 1:18 KJV] The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. So, what blinds our eyes from the love of God? Simple, we DON’T believe. I think we don’t believe because we can’t see it or it’s hard to comprehend a love so PURE. So, we pray Lord open our eyes so that I might see the glory of Your riches…GRACE! This is God’s gift to mankind, and I don’t believe we’ll ever really fully comprehend the fullness of His grace. It’s like asking you to measure heaven…NOT possible. Light should shine out of darkness, where? Your HEART. So, what might produce light in our heart? Love? Forgiveness? Compassion? Kindness? Long suffering? So, the opposite would likely produce blindness and darkness in a heart and that is NOT the image of God it’s the image of the god of this world. Who might that be? The devil blinds our mind, he tells us God doesn’t love you that much, He can’t forgive you that much, he tells us we have to work to get into heaven. But God tells us in this passage it’s NOT of ourselves, nothing we do or don’t do but Christ alone. This is where it’s good to have our eyes enlightened by His word, His truth and His grace.

[Rom 4:4 KJV] Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. When we don’t believe it’s God’s grace alone that saves us then we think we have to work for His love and salvation we make Him out to be a debt collector. Does that sound like a relationship established in love? And why do we think like that? Because that’s how we treat each other, you must remain in good standings to receive my love but the minute we offend one another the debt starts running and you owe me. Here’s the problem with that kind of thinking, none of us could ever do enough or say enough to cover the debt. First of all, scripture says we ALL owe one thing and one thing only in the eyes of God.

[Rom 13:8 AMP] Owe nothing to anyone except to love and seek the best for one another; for he who [unselfishly] loves his neighbor has fulfilled the [essence of the] law [relating to one’s fellowman]. What do we owe one another? What fulfills the law of God? Love each other and see the best for each other. Notice when we don’t love one another it’s a selfish act, we’re self-absorbed in our own little world. It has to be little it has NO room for God, for heaven, it’s SMALL thinking when we don’t forgive. You know what happens when you love little?

[Mat 18:32-33 NLT] Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you? If you love little you forgive very little, it’s like telling God I know the grace you have shown me but it’s NOT enough for all just ME!!! If God has loved us enough, shouldn’t we have enough to love others? Do you think God does anything small when it comes to love and forgiveness? The verse says TREMENDOUS, that doesn’t sound small to me. Maybe we have a tremendous heart already, maybe we have more than enough love in our heart to share with the world…we just need to think big, think like heaven without any boundaries and turn on a tremendous light in our life and love others.

Point to Ponder

How full are you? [John 1:16 KJV] And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. How could we not be FULL, we ALL received GRACE and so too we should GIVE grace.

Let’s all live by the power of His grace, In Him Phil

Faith – Family – Friends