Hey everyone! Isn't God great!? Yes! Why? Well because he's God of cores! But not just because he's God but because he loves you! His love is overwhelming! His heart is tender and loves you no matter what! If you have kids, (I don't) you can relate. When your child is born, that baby can do absolutely nothing for you. All it does is eat, sleep, poop and cry. But you would die for that baby right in that moment. ((I assume you would at least.)) God is the same. When you do something you were told not to,the consequences will follow. But Gods heart is the same. He loves you and admires you! He looks at you and goes, "oh! Look how beautiful they are! Look how cute!" ((God thinks Japanese people are the most adorable people he has made btw. Hehe)) "I want to be with them! I love that person!" Then he takes millions of pictures of you and shows his angels. I want his heart for his people! Sometimes it's hard. That's why it's so amazing! God loves the people we have a hard time loving! Isn't that awesome! He only gives us raindrop sizes of his heart and they overflow us!
When we love God with ALL our hearts, he will give us that love for others! Striving and working hard to love others is impossible! We can do NOTHING apart from him! Isn't that awesome!? Sometimes we take the things God says as anger, or frustration. But everything He does is out of Love. When you speak to someone, sometimes they will hear something totally different than what you were saying. We are the same with God. For example, in Genesis 4, Cain and Ables story. God accepted Able's offering of the Lamb and not Cain's offering of plants. ((Must always point to Jesus!)) Cain gets angry and kills Able. ((God speaks only in love towards Cain the whole chapter! He wasn't angry with Cain's offering.)) then God goes to Cain and says,
Gen. 4:11-12 "You are hereby banished from the ground you have defiled with your brothers blood. No longer will it yield abundant crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless fugitive on the earth, constantly wondering from place to place."
Then in Gen. 4:13-14 says; Cain replayed to The Lord, "My punishment is to great for me to bear! You have banished me from my land and from your presence; you have made me a wondering fugitive. All who see me will try to kill me!"
Ok ok, wait a second. Cain, KILLS his brother. GOD confronts him and gives him his punishment. And Cain...he says this? He must have known who God is! It's almost like he's gone into a self pity mode. And wait, when did God say, "I'm banishing your from my presence!"? Nowhere. God takes away what Cain finds his identity in. His crops! The things he grows! He was probably really good at what he did and probably took that as who he was. So God was taking away what he found to be the most important thing in his life. He had gone into a panic if I think of it from my point of view. Like, "Ha!? Wha- what is this? God! You can't do this to me! I have nothing to live for!" Something like that.
Then, (haha) Cain throws this extra thing again that God never said, "all who see me will try to kill me." What? Suddenly the whole world is agents him now. But I love how God responds. Not in frustration. Not in anger.
Genesis 4:15
The Lord replied, "They will not kill you, for I will give seven times your punishment to anyone who does." Then The Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him.
Sometimes people translate this as a "curse" put on Cain. I believe it was not a curse. It was protection. God doesn't want more killing to take place as well. And he loves Cain.
Then in the next verse it says that Cain left Gods presence. Cain left by the way. God didn't cast him out if his presence.
But anyway, that's a great example of hearing things that weren't said. God loved Cain very much. Even after he killed his brother.
There's so much more! I love how this week, Greg Lilly broke down these bible stories and told them in prospective ways. My favorite was the story of creation and satin.
Lucifer was cast out of heaven for trying to be like God. So, what do you think his reaction was when God made man in his image? God breathed his life into man and gave him authority over ALL the earth! And the angles! "Get out of bible study mode!" Satin must have been like, "what is he doing!? I got cast out of heaven for wanting THAT!" The jealousy he must have felt! The anger and confusion! So he destroys it by lying.
Something I find it interesting. The devil KNOWS the truth. He has to. You can't lie unless you know the truth. God also knew Adam and Eve would sin. Yet, he already loved us so much, he still made us. We are more powerful than satin and all his demons. God gave us what Lucifer wanted. So he hates us from the deepest core of his being. So cool.
We aren't God. But we are made in his image.
God is good, God is big, all the time.
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