Down Payment

     I had to put a down payment on a contract the other day.  This was something I really wanted, but I sure didn't like having to shell out the money it would take to secure the contract.

 

     Do you ever stop to think if God had second thoughts about the down payment He made when He allowed His Son to die for our sins?  Yet He did it anyway, knowing all the while, that this deed would be rejected by so many.  There would be people who would mock Him.  They would do anything in their power to prevent prayers, His commandments, His people from existing in this very world, today.  God knew, even those who accepted Christ into their lives, what kind of life they would live. 

     I am guilty on so many counts.  I am sure I disappoint the indwelling Spirit much like a child often disappoints a parent, or vice versa.  Rebellion and discord are built into our very nature.  They are not placed there by God, but by our own fleshly, self-fish motives. 

     Do I think and say the right things at the right time?  Do I care? Do I watch what I put into my body, keeping it clean for the indwelling spirit? Do I love others or just, at times, wish they would go away and leave me along, taking their burdens with them so I don’t have to shed a tear, help, tend, and care about them?  Do I resent giving my time and tithe to God and to others, even when I know without a shadow of a doubt that all I have and all I will ever have comes from God?

    Even if God had second thoughts, I am so glad He sealed me.  I am so glad He loves and forgives me.  I am so glad He directs my path.  I am so glad He laid out His promises for me to read about, seek, and to claim. 

     God is All Power.  His power can move mountains; His power can heal; His power can change lives.  What is so amazing is that God shares His power through the Holy Spirit living within me.  He bestows His power to me!  That power will allow me to change.  It can turn my self-fish desires into love.  It can take my weakness and turn it into strength.  It can give me the desire and the will to break the chains of any bondage in my life so that I can have a truly joyful walk with Him.  
     I do not believe that God regrets, for an instant, the downpayment He made for our lives.   

“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.  Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is god, Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” 2 Corinthians 1: 20-22