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Everlasting Love

How long is everlasting? Perhaps that is a trick question. Everlasting means something that will last forever, or for eternity. It will never end.

 

We read in the bible that Jesus loves us with an everlasting love.

 

Jeremiah 31:3 in The Message version --God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. 
   Expect love, love, and more love...."

 

The New King James Version says in Jeremiah 31:3 "The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying:

      “ Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; 
      Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you."

 

Here we discover that God has always loved us, and He always will. It is an "everlasting" love. Since we humans are acquainted mostly with things that have a beginning and especially an end, it is a little challenging to us to really comprehend EVERLASTING love, a love that never ends. I am not sure I even can understand it completely.

 

But knowing that God says He loves me with an everlasting love sure makes me feel special. And like He says, it draws me to Him. Only by love can love be awakened.

 

I can't force anybody to love me. And God won't force or compel anyone to love Him. But He just keeps on loving us, and that love (once we experience it) just naturally draws us to Him.

 

Jesus said, "I, if I be lifted up (on the cross at the crucifixion) I will draw all men onto me." Why? Because that is such a compelling and vivid demonstration of His love for us.

 

God is the source of love. All true love comes from God. And he is loving us with EVERLASTING love. Maybe by experiencing this divine love from God, we humans can even learn to love each other!!

 

(if you have any thoughts on the Love of God, please share them with me....)

 

 

Sincerely,

David A. Youngs

Look--LOVE!!!

The beloved Apostle John could not even hardly believe how much God loves us. He simply says in effect: "Look at how much God the Father loves us--He calls us His children!!"   You can read it for yourself in 1 John 3.   1 John 3  1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.    When we think about this, it is utterly almost beyond comprehension. The creator of the universe, of everything in the far flung realms of outer space, has selected us, we little humans and decided that we should be His children. And this is after sin. Sin in which Adam totally disobeyed God, and obeyed the suggestion of the serpent through whom Satan was speaking.   Children of God... Who is the most powerful person on earth you can think of? Maybe President George W. Bush who is president of the United States of America. Perhaps he is the most powerful man in the world. Just for the sake of illustration, suppose he said, "David Youngs--from now on, you will be called my son. You will be my child." Suppose President George W. Bush told everyone, "David is now my son." How would people treat me?   They would give me respect and honor, because I am the son of the President of the United States of America.   But even though he is very powerful and important, George W. Bush is still just a human.   We have GOD saying, "from now on, David Youngs is my son. I want everyone to know, he is my son." Can you imagine how people would treat me if they really believed that God was my father? Wow!!   What an incredible privilege. It is not something I deserve or you deserve. Why does God say, "from now on, when you see these people, I want you to know they are now my children?"   If you read the verse, John is saying, "What manner of LOVE is this?" It is because He loves us that God calls us His children.   How much do parents love their children. Some parents (the good ones) love their children so much that they would even die for their children if it would make it so their children could live.   And that is what God did. He gave His real son Jesus to die so that we can live. What kind of love is this? It is so far beyond anything I can understand.   All I know is that I really like it. God says, "David, you are my son." And if God says it, that makes it true, because God cannot and will not lie. I really like being God's son. Knowing I am the Son of the greatest and most powerful entity in the entire universe is wonderful. It makes me feel really special, and super loved.   I enjoy being God's child, don't you?   Sincerely, David A. Youngs

Marriage of the Lamb

Jesus wants to have a deep relationship with us individually. In fact, He uses marriage to illustrate just how incredibly intense and totally complete he wants this relation between us to be.

In the beginning, when God made Adam and Eve he explained that they would bond together so tightly that they would become "one flesh." Another place he said that a man should leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

And when Carla and I got married, the preacher said, "What God has joined together, let no man put assunder." 

A marriage relationship is the closest possible relationship a man and woman can have on this earth. It is the highest realization of love that we can know. That is why God uses marriage to tell us how intimate he wants to be with us.

In Revelation 19:7-9 John writes, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.  And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.  And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God."

You and I can become the spiritual wife of Jesus Christ. In Genesis you can read where a man "knew" his wife and she bore him a son....

That is the complete way that Jesus wants us to know each other. Completely and intimately. He wants us to understand that He is willing to send His Holy Spirit to actually dwell inside of us, to become a part of us, to control and direct us. To actually create a new life out of our old one.

You can see this in the verses above. The fine linen, clean and white that the "bride" wears is the righteousness of the saints. These saints are pure. That is what white worn by a bride signifies, that she is a pure virgin. She has saved herself for her husband on their wedding night. These saints are pure. They have not worshipped other gods. In fact, the marriage supper of the Lamb (Jesus) is a victory supper. It will take place in heaven after He has taken all the saints back with Him at His second coming. Just like a man sort of is the "victor" and has won the woman over all the other men who might have wooed her, the Lamb has married all these pure saints. And we together will have a victory supper.

David wrote about it in Psalm 23 "He preparest a table for me in the presence of my enemies." This is the table of the victory supper at the triumph of the Lamb. These saints have chosen HIM!! They are united in spiritual marriage to Him. They have become ONE with Him. They have His Spirit filling them completely. They have chosen to follow Him completely.

Thus the deepest love between a husband and wife is used by Jesus to begin to try to describe the incredible union that He wants to have with us. He loves us and wants us to become ONE with Him. And God sent Jesus to come and die for us, to enable us to reclaim the wonderful relation that Adam and Eve had before they sinned. 

We will actually spend eternity being able to talk to our Maker face to face. And it will be a life of Joy, of fulfillment, of satisfaction. I want to "marry" Jesus, don't you?

 

 

Sincerely,

David A. Youngs

Love goes on

I am sure you have heard stories of where a soldier from the United States was on assignment over seas and he fell in love with a local native girl. Then he suddenly found out his unit was being shipped back home or he got wounded, or whatever happened, and the romance was sort of left hanging while he had to leave. Perhaps the frustrated soldier did not even get the opportunity to say "Good bye," to the girl he had fallen in love with.

 

Then, as these stories generally go, years go by, and then one day, these long separated lovers somehow find each other once again, and finally the romance blossoms into marriage.

 

These stores have a happy ending, but in the middle, the couple who are in love are torn apart by the ravages of war.

 

In a way, all Christians are at war. Jesus told us that the world would hate us, because they don't understand or know us.

 

But the good news is that God won't ever forsake us or leave us. In fact, even though this war for our souls may grow really severe and prolonged, it cannot separate us from God's love.

 

We read what Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

Wow. NOTHING is able to separate us from God's love. The devil may even kill us, but even death will not separate us from God's love. God will simply resurrect us back to life (much like the solder reuniting with his lady friend) and take us to heaven to be with Him.

 

In fact, Jesus second coming is likened to a bridegroom coming for his bride.

 

Oops, I am out of time for for today. But we will continue this thought in part two tomorrow.

 

Sincerely,

David A. Youngs

Let your LOVE shine!

There are several equations in the bible. One of them is that "God is love," which you can read in 1 John 4:8 It says, "the person who doesn't love does not know God, for God is love."

 

There is another one that says "God is light." You can find it in 1 John 1:5, "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

 

So if God is light, and God is love, then I would like to propose that light and love are almost equivalent.

 

We read in Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

 

But since light equals love (almost) I would like to propose that this verse could be change to read, "Let your LOVE so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Does that make sense?

 

Jesus said, "by this will all men know you are my disciples, in that you have LOVE one for another." John 13:35

 

And from that verse before we just read we find that when we love men will see our good works... GOOD works. What make them good? God is the source of Love, of life, and of wisdom and joy. Love in action results in GOOD WORKS. Godly works.

 

I will have more to say on this later. I found some incredible statements which I am going to share with you. Hang on because the best is still to come.

 

If any one else has anything at all to say about this love of God in us, be sure and email me. I will read it, pray about it, and perhaps even post it to the whole group.

 

Jesus came to demonstrate God's love. And he wants us to love too.

 

Let's DO it. Let us glorify our Father in heaven by loving each other.

 

 

Sincerely,

David A. Youngs

5000 men

Jesus fed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loves of home made peasant bread and 2 small fishes.   We can read about this amazing miracle in Matthew 14:15-22, "And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals.  But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.  And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither to me.  And he  commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.  And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.  And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children. And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away."   This was a super miracle. Everybody had been there all day and many of them had not brought anything with them to eat. One little boy had a lunch his mother prepared for him. He was willing to share it, and then Jesus prayed, and shared it with the disciples, who shared it with the people. And when all was said and done, after all the people had eaten all they wanted, 12 baskets of fragments, of leftovers if you will, were gathered up.   Where did all these people come from? Five thousand men, plus woman and children. That is a whole lot of people. Jesus did not advertise, "come to hear the gospel by the sea." There were no newspapers, or radio or television in those days. They did not have the internet with UTube to promote things. In fact, Jesus did absolutely NO advertising of any kind.   These people could have all been someplace else. They had jobs. They had other things that probably needed doing. So what was it that caused them to skip work, to stop their house cleaning, to set aside all the plans for that day to go and listen to Jesus instead?   I am trying to put myself right into the story. WHAT was the thing that drew these people to Jesus.What could he have possibly said or done that would make all these people from all different walks of life, from poor people to wealthy people, from the leaders to the lowliest followers come  out to hear Jesus?   It was the fact that Jesus LOVED them. He was talking to them about a kingdom founded on LOVE. His ideas and concepts were so startling and innovative, so mind boggling and yet compelling that these 5000 men (plus women and children) not only came to hear what Jesus said, they stayed all day. They were spell bound by what they were hearing.   It made sense. It fed the deep longings of their hearts. Jesus showed them he loved them. There were entire villages  where Jesus had passed through where there was not even one sick person. Jesus had healed them all. He LOVED them.   He did not just TALK about love, he WALKED the walk about love. He healed them all. And here we find that the disciples were concerned. These people had been listening to Jesus all day!!! They had not gone anywhere. They could not get enough. And now it was almost night. The disciples were suddenly aware that THEY were hungry. They said, "Jesus, send the people away so they can go into the surrounding towns and villages and get something to eat." And Jesus said, "no.I have a better idea. YOU feed them."   With WHAT? the disciples asked. Even if we had thousands of dollars, we can not buy a meal out here away from all the towns and villages. There are no facilities here to cook anything. How are we supposed to feed this vast multitude. There were probably at least 10,000 people there including women and children as well as the men. Imagine the expense of catering for that many people. It would have cost a fortune, if it could have even been done. I mean a simple wedding meal today costs several thousand dollars for a few hundred guests.   And Jesus said, YOU feed them. One disciple said, "all we have is this one little boys sack lunch." All it is is 5 small loves and two tiny fishes. What good is that among 10,000 people? It barely will feed the boy who brought it. You have got to be kidding Jesus. Feed these people. HOW???   Then Jesus blessed that tiny bit of food and started giving it to his disciples. They started handing it out to the crowd of people. And everyone ate all they needed, and there were twelve baskets of left overs. One basket for each disciple. YES!! It was a miracle.   The disciples knew it. The people knew it. The little boy who shared his lunch with Jesus knew it.   Imagine the story he had to tell his mother.   "Mom!! You won't believe what happened!! Jesus took that little lunch you gave me and fed over ten thousand people."   Why did not Jesus send the crowds away hungry? It would have been the sensible thing to do. It was what the disciples suggested.   I would suggest that he did not send them away hungry because He felt their need. He loved them. This was just a graphic illustration of God's love, of Jesus love. He was teaching everyone, including the twelve apostles, a lesson. It was a lesson that they never forgot. And now we can read about it in the bible.   The reason all those people came out to hear Jesus was that he LOVED them.   Sincerely, David A. Youngs

Heaven's Zoo

I recently saw a video in which dolphins were happily playing with rings of air in the water. You know, God made the dolphin to enjoy playing with rings of air, silvery vortexes in the water that they can create. Isn't our God a great God!! Even the animals play and have fun.  Does our God really want us to have joy and happiness?   Of course He does. He created us to enjoy our lives. One of the very first fun things that Adam got to do after he was created and then God woke him up, was to look at all the animals God created. God actually brought each animal to Adam, one by one. Of course he was fascinated by them. He could see their form and function. He could sense their total and complete enjoyment of life.   Then God gave Adam the privilege as the first man of naming all the animals. You can read it right there in Genesis  2:19, 20 "19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field."   Imagine if you will all the fun and incredible pleasure seeing and naming all the animals must have been for Adam. Even today we go to the zoo -- to do what?  To see the animals God created, because it is a lot of fun. And we watch nature programs on television. WHY? To see the animals that God created, and marvel at their diversity. So here is Adam, and God brings all the animals to him. What an incredible time that must have been!!   "Adam," God might have said, "Look at this big animal. What do you think about this one?" And Adam would say, "Wow, it certainly does have a long neck, and look at those long, long legs. It stands so tall God. Why did you make it stand up so tall like that with such a long neck?" And God would say, "just wait a minute Adam, and you will see why." And then the animal would reach WAY up in the air and way up in a tree and eat the fruit found in the top of the tree. "Now do you see why Adam? I wanted it to be able to get the upper fruit from the trees. You can reach the lower fruit, but this long legged, long necked animal that I created can reach the fruit way up in the tops of the trees so that fruit can serve its purpose too. "Oh yes, Jesus," said Adam with a happy chuckle. "Now I understand. I think I will call this animal TOP FRUIT EATER." And Jesus laughed and said, "that is a very good name Adam. Yes. That is what we will call it. Top Fruit Eater."   Of course Top Fruit Eater in the language of heaven sounds a lot like "gee raff full" in our language which today we have shortened and compressed so when we see a Top Fruit Eater we just call them a "giraffe."   That first day of Adam's life must have been a whole lot of fun. And that was only the very first moments of his consciousness. Yes, God created all his creation to be full of Joy, of Happiness, and of Life. And the good news is that when God restores everything back to the way it is supposed to be someday soon, His creation again will be full of joy, happiness, and life. And I believe that then God will bring the zoo to us too. "Look at this animal that I have made," Jesus will say, "What do you guys think about this one?" I want to go to heaven and see God's zoo with no bars, no cages, no limitations, and the animals will live forever--don't you? Because I am pretty sure that we are really going to have a lot of fun there. Lets go...   This is David Youngs sharing a moment in God's word.     Sincerely, David A. Youngs

John the Revelator REVEALS!!

John the beloved disciple of Jesus says that the person who does not love his brother whom he HAS seen has not got a clue about how to love an invisible God who he has NOT even seen.   Then in the parable of the goats and the sheep, Jesus separates them according to how well they loved other people. He sets the sheep on one side and the goats on the other. Then he tells all the people in both groups why he put all them in that particular group.   To the Sheep he says, "you fed me when I was hungry. You clothed me when I was naked. When I was homeless you took me in. You visited me in prison." In other words, you LOVED on me.   They of course ask "When did we do any of these things to you?"   And Jesus answers, "As you have done it to the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me."   Wow! Jesus is calling all of us his brother. That means that we are related!! When Jesus came as a human, now we are all his brothers and sisters. He was given to the human race, and will forever be a human through eternity.   And Jesus says, because we are all brothers, how we treat people around us right now is just like doing it to Jesus.   Now this is incredible love. To voluntarily become part of your creation. For example, I have created several computer programs. But I would never consider lowering myself to the point where I would become a lowly computer program, and give up my humanity. I can't even imagine considering doing that, even if somehow I could.   But in effect, that is what Jesus did. He was so much higher than us it is like comparing us to ants. How many of you would become an ant to save the ants? Right. I would not do it.   But Jesus loved us so much, he volunteered to become human. He stepped out of His Omnipresence or ability to be everywhere at  once and is now limited by his human body. He can only be ONE place at a time now. He gave up far more than we will ever be able to comprehend.   I believe we will be studying His great gift to us for all of eternity. This gift is so huge, so big, it will take us forever just to begin understanding it. I understand only the tiniest portion. But I love the fact that God loves me!! That is tremendous.   People name drop from time to time. They say, "I know so and so, (always a movie star, or very important person like the president of the United States). In fact, some have their picture taken with other people. They proudly display this picture.   One lady I know had her picture taken with Willy Nelson, the singer. She proudly displays this picture and will tell any one who will listen about that moment when the picture was taken.   But God loves me. He is far more important than Willy Nelson, or even President Bush. He created EVERYTHING, including these people, and me. And he loves me. I have His word saying so.   In fact, Paul asks, "if God be for us, who can be against us?" It doesn't matter. God is for us, he loves us, and that is allthat really matters, isn't it?   And someday soon we will see Him face to face. And He will LOVE us personally. I can hardly wait. Heaven awaits us.   Let's go!!!   Until next time, David A. Youngs