Daily Devotion - Monday - March 22

So, I have been exposed to more people with different ideas of our faith working with horse’s full time now. A few things that they have left me with this week are things that never occurred to me as something we should take a look at. The person who shared this with me talked about how people always talk about it is God’s will for a person to go to heaven or to put you through this hardship and how God does everything for a reason. Pastor Vicky challenged some of these ideas already but this person shared more than I could have ever thought about on my own. We have made everything a legality with God instead of letting him do right by us and bettering us as humans. If we do wrong, it is not simply a sin of man but something to be punished by God over. God freely forgives us but we make his forgiveness as a result of a payment to him in return. Instead of purely accepting Jesus into our hearts and believing in the resurrection, we accept his blood as a pardon to get into heaven. Are we trying to be at peace and at-one with God? Are we only trying to appease one who already loved us fully and unconditionally? Through Jesus, God has healed us of our sins, but we still talk to others as asking for healing and understanding punishment for what we have done. God has a doctrine of love and only love. He loves us even when we have sinned. I think this is something we should remember when sharing our faith with others. Not sharing how they have to ask God for forgiveness and to lift his punishments from our lives. My friend shared that we do this as a result from the medieval period where kings were chosen by God and all punishments were due to God and not by kings. We have continued this talk though we have come to realize that this is not how God works. God does not tally all of our sins and refuse us to heaven for it. He knows our true hearts and looks at us with love.- Mara