Friday, January 4, 2019

"Everybody Matters"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…


"Everybody Matters"          

    

      We do well to keep in heart and mind the comprehensively loving and compassionate heart of God.  

      "The Lord is good to all, and His tendermercies are over all His works" (Psalm 145:9).  

     Along these lines, pastor and author A.W. Tozer withheld preaching on John 3:16 until late in his life and ministry.  He felt he could not do justice to the sublime affirmation.  When he did address the verse, a simple but sublime theme burst forth from the love of Christ in the Scriptures and in his heart: "Everybody matters to God."  

    "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16).

    Our Heavenly Father calls us to the same broadness of heart toward all.  

    "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men" (I Thessalonians 3:12).  

    We know, of course, that not all will be saved.   God, according to His love, righteousness, and holiness, must judge both now and forever those who will not receive His grace and truth in the Lord Jesus (Romans 1:18; II Thessalonians 1:7-9).  When we draw our last breath on this planet, we will nevertheless want to have lived in such a manner that all will have seen Christ in in our attitude, countenance, and demeanor.  We will desire to have served as the light of Christ to all.  Remembering that everybody matters to God, along with our calling to "abound in love… toward all men," reflects such illumination in our hearts, upon our faces, by our prayers, and through our willingness to self sacrificially determine that everybody matters to us.  

   The Lord Jesus prayed for those who nailed Him to His cross (Luke 23:34).  They mattered to Him.  The same Lord Jesus lives in believers by His Spirit to form in us His  heart of grace toward friend and foe.  "Love your enemies.  Bless them that curse you.  Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44).  We will never encounter a human being insignificant to God.  Brother Tozer did well when finally determining to preach a sermon on John 3:16.  We do well to heed his ray of brilliant light that illuminates our hearts, and the hearts of all who cross our pathways.  Yes, everybody matters.

"And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men; apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will."
(II Timothy 2:24-26)

Weekly Memory Verse
   I will extol Thee, o God, my King, and I will bless Thy name forever and ever.
(Psalm 145:1)



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