2-2-2023

Good Morning All,

       Romans 5:8; “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

    Have you ever heard or used the phrase “true colors”?  It usually gets used when someone, presumably a friend, turns out to not be a friend.  Kind of like the time in high school when your “best friend” stole your girlfriend (boyfriend) right before the prom.  Maybe it was the fellow worker who “suddenly” got the job you applied for.  There are times when the true nature, the true attitude shows itself.  It is usually when we trust someone to do one thing and the turn around and do something else.

     Of course, those “true colors” can sometimes show themselves as good colors as well.  Maybe the neighbor who really helped you out when no one else would.  After that, you look at your neighbor differently.  His true colors were far more positive than you thought.  Either way, good or bad, at critical times of our life, we find out who our friends really are.  In our verse, we read just one of the many verse in the Bible that reveal God’s true colors his true nature.

    “God himself has revealed and opened to us the most profound depths of his fatherly heart and his pure, unutterable love.  For this very purpose he created us, so that he might redeem us and make us holy, and, moreover, having granted and bestowed upon us everything in heaven and on earth, he has also given us his Son and his Holy Spirit, through whom he brings us to himself.  We could never come to recognize the Father’s favor and grace were it not for the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the mirror of the Father’s heart.” (Large Catechism) 

    It is through Christ, the mirror of the Father’s heart, that we know God’s true nature.  God is love.  His very nature, his very essence, is to love us.  The really wonderful thing is that he loves us just as we are.  With all of our faults, with all of our shortcomings, with all of our blemishes, God loves us.  He treasured you so much that he sent Jesus to die for you so that you might have eternal life. 

    This should give us great comfort.  We know God’s attitude toward us; he loves us.  We can be confident of this; we can be confident of his blessing and therefore can go about our life certain of our eternal grace and salvation, illuminated and blessed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

    God's true nature is to love you, to claim you as his own.  He has made you heirs of his eternal kingdom.  God is by nature, your loving Father.  His true colors are revealed by the fact that while we were yet sinners, the very enemies of God, Christ died for us.  His love for you began before you were and will continue after you are gone.  His love for you precedes our love for him.  God has embraced you with loving hug of the Father, embrace him back and hold onto his love.  Let God love you as he wants.

Dear Father, we give you thanks for your unutterable love.  It goes deeper and wider than we can ever fathom.  Keep us in your loving arms and guard us from the ways of the devil who seeks to harm us.  We pray for those who do not know your great love and we ask that you move their heart to have faith in you.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret