GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 10
GOD’S WORD FOR JULY 10 ~ ~ Matthew 10:30~ ~ “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
In showing how the Creator is intimately involved with His creation, Jesus Christ said that the very hairs of our heads are numbered by Him. This is true, just as He knows the number of stars and names each one. This means that no detail is too small to escape His attention; no change misses His careful and loving eye.
The hair that you see is nothing more than dead protein that is produced by the cells of the hair follicle anchored inside the layers of the skin. The total number of hair follicles on the adult body is about 5 million; only about 100,000 of them are on the scalp. Each hair grows out of one follicle for about three to five years. Then the hair is shed and the follicle rests for about three months before starting to grow hair again.
So, you see, once you know how many hairs are on your head, it’s still no easy job to keep track of their changing number. The average scalp hair grows about one inch every two or three months. This means that each day, your head is growing the equivalent of one hair, 100 feet long – that’s nearly seven miles per year!
It’s not just our hair. We are changeable creatures in every way. Our emotions, opinions, and physical attributes change by the minute. Our Savior keeps track of every little change—inside and out—-mental, emotional, spiritual, relational, and environmental. He knows our problems, our sins, our omissions, our joys, desires, and our relationship to Him. He will always know it, and love us. If we are truly His, He will forgive us, because of His sacrifice for us. If we are not His, He will still love us, but His Justice will have to be done, because we have rejected His sacrifice for us, and He must reject us for our sin, which is still with us, because of our choice to reject His substitution.
Before you dismiss this as false, or judge Him as cruel, consider what we have done in comparison to what He has done. He is not obligated to do anything for us. We all have sinned, and continue to do so. He has every right to throw every one of us into hellfire forever. He created us, and loves us. He has come to earth and taken cruelty from mankind (and let’s not think that we wouldn’t have joined in), and He did it to save us. He provides for us our entire lives, He molds everything for one purpose——to draw each of us to a saving knowledge of Him, so that we could enjoy eternal life with Him.
So if we don’t take advantage of what He has told us to do in order to receive all that for eternity, we have no right to blame Him. He has done all an Almighty God can do, and most have rejected His offer. They’d rather do it themselves. That includes “religious” people and churches. Jesus never told us to be religious. Following Him isn’t religious, it is loving Him and living for Him, knowing Him, and submitting totally to His Lordship. It is knowing that our works of religion are worthless for our salvation.
Once we know and do these things, we will do more and better worship of Him than we ever did in bare religion. We will worship through the Holy Spirit, in Spirit and Truth, as He commanded us to do, and we will do it out of pure, joyful gratitude for what He has done, does today, and will do!!!
We can’t do that before we are “Born Again”. That word sometimes closes the door in the minds of many. But Jesus said we absolutely WILL NOT be saved if we aren’t born again. Here it is in the third chapter of the gospel of John, in the words of Jesus Himself, speaking to Nicodemus, where He told him we all must be born again—-He told him not once, but twice, in very strong language:
“Now there was a certain man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler (member of the Sanhedrin) among the Jews, 2 who came to Jesus at night and said to Him, “Rabbi (Teacher), we know [without any doubt] that You have come from God for no one can do these signs [these wonders, these attesting miracles] that You do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “I ASSURE YOU AND MOST SOLEMNLY SAY TO YOU, UNLESS A PERSON IS BORN AGAIN, —(spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified by God], HE CANNOT SEE THE KINGDOM OF GOD”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” 5 Jesus answered, “I ASSURE YOU AND MOST SOLEMNLY SAY TO YOU, UNLESS ONE IS BORN OF WATER (flesh, physical birth) AND THE SPIRIT (spiritual rebirth done by God) HE CANNOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD.” 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh [the physical is merely physical], and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be surprised that I have told you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Notice, when Nicodemus was speaking worshipful words from his mouth, Jesus was not impressed.
He basically said, “Give it a rest, Nic, you are playing religion, worshipping from your mind, not your spirit.” And He went on to tell him that no one can worship Him with outside religion, we must be changed by God. In order for that to happen, we must stop relying on our outward signs of religion, and desire the TRUE worship that only God Himself can put into us. When Nicodemus argued with Him, He ignored it, and just told him plain out what the Truth is. So don’t think you can engage your mind and sift what Jesus plainly said, and expect to make it to heaven by your own religion. God will not be mocked.
Since Jesus knows everything about our inner hearts, why not be just as open with Him, and stop trying to impress Him with religion from the mind? Our sins, which He knows, will condemn us, but He is asking to save us. He stands at the door and knocks. It is up to us to open the door of our heart and let Him in.
Again, Jesus Himself speaks in Revelation 3:20
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me.”
and in John 6:37 Jesus says, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.”
Live in the Light of Our Lord 