A Friend Who Never Leaves You

 A Friend Who Never Leaves You

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 31:1-8

Focus Verse Deuteronomy 31:6  "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you, He will never leave you nor forsake you."

I have noticed as I go through life that I have friendships and relationships of different levels with people.  Some close friends and some distant friends.  Sometimes we may feel lonely because we don't put forth an effort to be a friend to others.  Have you gone through a hard time and you had one friend who would stick with you and encourage you but another friend was not checking with you about your life.  There is a friend who will never leave you.  The very best friend is God. He offers his relationship to you through Jesus.

Relationships are made stronger by the time and effort we put into the relationship.  God wants us to put time and effort into our relationship with Him.  As a result, He said that He would never leave us.  Even though we may do things that displease Him, He still will never leave us.  Just as a wayward child that displeases his parents, he is still their child.  We can never do anything that would make God turn His back on us and quit loving us.  He also loves us so much that we can't do more good to make Him love us more.  What a great comfort for us as God's children in knowing that Hebrews 13:5 will always be true.  "Never will I leave you, Never will I forsake you." Nothing changes God's love toward you. 

Bobby Johnson
Interlocking Ministries

A Warning For Christians

 A Warning For Christians

Scripture Reading: Revelation 2:1-7

Focus Verses: Revelation 2:4-5  “But I have this complaint against you.  You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Look how far you have fallen!  Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.  If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.”

I heard a story of a man who did a lot of exercise.  He did weight lifting, and running to get his body in the best physical shape.  And to look at him you could tell he would eat all the best foods and you could see all his muscles and could tell he did all this exercise.  Then one day he died of a heart attack.  He did all this exercise but he had a bad heart.

In our scripture reading there is a warning about our spiritual health.  You may look good on the outside, go to church, help your neighbor in need, and do all these good things.  But on the inside you’ve got a problem; you have lost your first love.  The church in Ephesus had left their first love.  Satan will say to you “God has put all these restrictions on you so your life is no longer fun.”  You may be tempted, but God's Word has guidelines to protect us.  Maybe you have built a fence on your compound and your children say “I want to play outside the fence” but you know it is dangerous outside the fence because of a busy road or dangerous animals.  Even more than a good earthly father, God always knows best. 

Jesus said in John 10:10  “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”  A rich and satisfied life is a life where we joyfully serve Christ, have a passion for the Gospel, and a hunger for God’s Word.  These are all indications that we have not lost our first love.

Bobby Johnson
Interlocking Ministries