"LOVE AND PRAISE FOR WHO HE IS"

Good Evening to All!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (2) The same was in the beginning with God. (3) All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (14) And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
(John 1:1-3, 1:14)

My point of this post is this. We are always giving God praise for what He does. He created us, He created the universe, He delivered us from bondage, or addictions. He brought us out of a bad marriage, a bad life. He supplies all our needs. We love Him because He did. . . . We love Him because He FIRST loved us. Why can't we just praise Him and love him for WHO HE IS? Not just for what He has done for us, but literally Who He Is?

I mean lets face it. I sit and oogle over Mark Harmon every night on NCIS. (No I don't love him, but I still like watching Him). He is just another person that makes A LOT more money than I do, who has a beautiful smile, and is famous. We should look at God with MORE admiration and excitement than these movie stars. I don't like Mark Harmon because he did anything for me. Why should we do that to God? Just love Him and praise Him because He is God. He is love. He is truth . He is the way, the truth and the light. Yes, I know Jesus says He is the way, the truth and the light. See a common thread? God also said He (God) saved us. Jesus is our Savior. Notice the commonality? While I'm on the subject, when we go to concerts, or ball games, we get up and hoop and holler, wave our arms about and you would thing we won the lottery. That is another source of excitement. See? I keep coming up with all these exciting things and I'll bet you're sitting there agreeing with every word. Now, you'll probably hem and haw about this one. We should show God just as much excitement when we praise Him. He has done more for us than these football games or music stars. He deserves ALL of our praise. Without Him we are nothing. See, there I go talking about what He has done. We need to concentrate on just thanking Him for being who He is.

OK, that is another post. What I am truly trying to get at is yes, we SHOULD praise Him for what He did for us. God came to earth in the form of a human child, grew up among us, walked among us as an adult, went through more than His share of human suffering all so that we could be cleansed and sinless when we get to heaven. God did the hard part. He allowed His human body to be killed and blood to be shed on that "altar" of a cross so that we could spend eternity with Him. An even more amazing thing to me is that He told His Divine (Father) to forgive the same people who mocked, ridiculed, spat, and hung Him on the cross. I wonder how many of us could do that.

The thing is, the journey of "staying saved" is up to us. He expects us to live according to His Word. (Word in Greek is Logos or plan). So, God wants us to live according to His Plan. On a much smaller scale, my mom used to tell us girls, as long as you girls live under my roof, you will live according to my rules. In other words, she had certain rules for us to abide by and if we didn't we suffered the consequences. Anyway the point is if we are going to live with God in eternity we have to abide by His rules now. This once saved always saved idea sounds good, but and it is as long as you live for God, love God and realize that if you turn away from Him enough eventually He will count you as a reprobate (which means Hopeless case according to the dictionary).

God is love and He gives us every chance in the world to get our names in the Book of Life. We need to praise Him and love Him for His loving attributes. He equips us with everything we need to live for Him.

We live in a world where unfortunately there is too much emphasis put on conditions to be loved. To much of I love them because they did this or they will do that. I cannot imagine the generation of today living back in the old days, when women stayed with their husbands through thick and thin, or in Biblical times when women called their husbands lord. That would definitely stick in my craw if I had to do that today, but still we put conditions on our love for each other.

God is ONE who there should be NO CONDITIONS.

God gets lots of praise for what he does, but not enough for just being God. We need to acknowledge Him for WHO HE IS JUST AS MUCH.

I know that I have repeated myself probably WAY TOO MUCH in this post, but I guess you could say, I'm trying to get it through MY OWN THICK SKULL to do this. I am really harping at myself, because most of the time, that is what it takes to get things across to me, and it's ok for God to chastise me, or me to harp at myself, but I don't like my hubby to do it. I would say I am trying to beat him to the punch, but he doesn't like to talk about this subject, and that's another story.

All I am asking is that you LOOK UP, OR CLOSE YOUR EYES AND TELL GOD YOU LOVE HIM FOR WHO HE IS as well as for what He has done.

Good night to All and May God Bless!