I don’t believe God uses an adding machine to measure our good deeds in attempt to determine our righteousness. I know people who believe a few well-placed good actions will outweigh any amount of misdeeds. Those people think they earn God’s love. What can I give the God of Heaven and Earth, who has given me EVERYTHING, to earn His love?
I, also, know people who believe God loves them, so, their actions don’t matter . These people consider God’s love, for them, as justification to live life without any regard of others.
I don’t know which attitude is worse! We don’t earn God’s love. He loved us before we were born. He loved us before we knew He existed.
So, do we need to do anything? Yes, we need to return His love. We return His love both in our thoughts and actions. We love others, as if, they belong to the God, we say, we love! We shouldn’t try to earn His love or use His love to mistreat ourselves and/or others. Our good deeds must outweigh our bad. It’s not to earn His love, it is to show our appreciation and to reflect we are leaning.
In Psalm 116, the question is asked, about repaying God, for the love He has shown. My answer comes from Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19:17-18. It is later picked up by the New Testament writer
“We ourselves love now because he loved us first. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if a person does not love his brother, whom he has seen, then he cannot love God, whom he has not seen. Yes, this is the command we have from him: whoever loves God must love his brother too.“
1 John 4:19-21 CJB
May your good deeds grow, until they are enumerable, not to earn His love, but rather, to show Him His love is not wasted, and for others will see God in you, and declare,
ישוע המשיח הוא אדון
Yeshua Hamashiach hu Adonai!’
Jesus the Christ is LORD!
Shabbat Shalom!
Thank you for sharing! Blessings to you and yours! Shabbat Shalom!
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Love this! I would like to offer that I see the fruit of love as growing on people who live through The Chosen One. We want to see the actions and fruit of a good life as a prerequisite for heaven, rather than a result. The fruit of a godly life is how we can know what’s inside them… but that’s never a justification to pretend we are allowed to accuse others or judge motives. Thanks again- I like following your blog.
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