Do You Love God?

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Verse of the Day
And He said to him, " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. Matthew 22:37-38 (NASB)

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I got an email today that started out, "I almost deleted this email but I was blessed when I got to the end. Read [this] only if you have time for God." The email continued:

Please follow the directions. Jesus said, "If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father." Not ashamed? Pass this on ONLY IF YOU MEAN IT!!...If you love God, and are not ashamed of all the marvelous things He has done for you, send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you.

The email went on to admonish me to make the time to forward the email to all of my friends, because if I don't, some day when I stand before God, he will "look into his book and [say] 'Your name I cannot find. I once was going to write it down...but never found the time.' " And a final warning: "Are you going to forward this, or delete it? Just remember-God is watching you."

Hmmm...just for the record, I deleted the email. Not because I don't love God; I simply don't believe God bases His decision to write my name in His book on whether I forward an email or not. Revelation 3:5 says that "He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." (NASB)

So what does it mean to overcome? I think it all begins with God changing my heart "of stone" and giving me a "heart of flesh"; His mercy in regenerating my heart so that I have the ability to believe in Jesus Christ and His saving work accomplished on the cross. It continues in God empowering me to live my life in a way that honors Him. Not by my might or power, but by His strength/His Spirit. The Apostle Paul explained it in Galatians 2:20 "...it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God." It is Christ's righteousness, imputed to me, that God sees. When God looks at my life, He sees Christ, not an email I sent to someone. THANK GOD! (literally)