Isaiah 1:23

“Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards.” (NKJV)

Isaiah 1 is basically God’s condemnation of the behavior of the nation of Israel. He lists sin after sin after sin. And then, in the middle of verse 23, my eye caught this phrase: “Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards.” This struck in my heart because I believe that it is a good description of American society. We are often (usually) in for what we can get. Think about it! How many times have you gone out to eat somewhere because you had a coupon? How many times have you bought something because it was on sale? How many times have you made a decision because there was some gift or benefit for you? I do these things all the time and each and every time, the benefit that I receive is a bribe or reward for making that decision. Decisions made in this fashion are about what we can get out of it, not what God wants or what might be best for someone else. Bribes. Rewards. It’s basically how our society works.

This is God’s judgment on such a society:

Therefore the Lord says, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, “Ah, I will rid Myself of My adversaries, and take vengeance on My enemies. I will turn My hand against you, and thoroughly purge away your dross, and take away all your alloy. I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.” (Isaiah 1:24-26).

I had a great-aunt. She passed away a number of years ago. But when she passed away and her children were cleaning out her home, they found rooms and closets full of dolls. Now there’s nothing wrong with dolls per se, but in this case, all the dolls were in their original boxes and hidden away. Most had been purchased from TV shopping channels. She just bought and bought and bought. Today we call such people hoarders. But the fact is that many of us buy things that we really don’t need. (That’s why dollar stores are so popular; we can indulge without bankrupting ourselves.) The idea is that we self-indulge; we buy to make ourselves happy (whether we buy food, experiences, or stuff). Rather than seeking the Lord and being content with what He has given us, we buy, buy, buy. We get, get, get. We do, do, do in an effort to assuage the pain of living this life rather than turning to the Lord.

The Lord wants to purge us of our compulsions and compel us into His loving arms. The prophet Isaiah writes:

“When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.” (Isaiah 4:4-5:1)

We don’t need to try to run away from the problems that pound us. God is our place of refuge and our shelter from the storm. There is an old hymn that talks about this:

The Lord's our Rock, in Him we hide
A Shelter in the time of storm;
Secure whatever ill betide
A Shelter in the time of storm.

A shade by day, defense by night
A Shelter in the time of storm;
No fears alarm, no foes afright
A Shelter in the time of storm.

The raging storms may round us beat
A Shelter in the time of storm
We'll never leave our safe retreat
A Shelter in the time of storm.

O Rock divine, O Refuge dear
A Shelter in the time of storm
Be Thou our Helper ever near
A Shelter in the time of storm.

Chorus:
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land
A weary land, a weary land;
Oh, Jesus is a Rock in a weary land
A Shelter in the time of storm.

How often do I run to Jesus during the storms of life? Rather I would eat, buy, do to distract myself from the things that really aren’t going to go away. Better that I understand that no foe can stand against my Lord and to trust Him, regardless of how the circumstances look. Better that I school myself against bribes, rewards, and self-indulgence and instead lean on the Shelter that is ever near.

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Isaiah 1:15-29

“When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” (NKJV)

There is a time when the Lord will not hear our prayers, even the prayers of those of us who are believers.

That is a harsh statement, but perhaps this is a harsh time, demanding harsh truths. The fact is, would you rather hear easy words that may not be true or harsh words that will change your life? I know for me, sometimes I’m tired of harsh things. But harsh things from the Lord are like goodness to my heart because they come from His heart of love, His longing for me to be in right relationship with Him.

“Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear.”

I think that many of us have been taught that when God is silent, He is not ignoring us. And that may be true some of the time. But there are other times when God is silent because He is refusing to hear our prayers, regardless of how many prayers we pray. You see, He is waiting for one specific prayer, the prayer of confession, the prayer of repentance. We know that He will always hear that prayer because He has promised so. 1 John 1:9 states, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” To whom should we confess? Well, first of all, we need to confess to the Father. After committing adultery (and getting exposed publically), King David prayed:

“For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:3-4, NKJV).

The evil that we do is first and foremost against God. It may also be against others, but our confession must first be to Him.

There is a sequence within the verses in Isaiah that I think are important. The first is to “wash yourself, make yourselves clean.” Now, of course, we can’t expunge our sins ourselves, but we can confess them and seek the Father’s forgiveness. He has promised to cleanse us from all unrighteousness once we confess. However, that cleansing is conditional; it hinges upon our willingness to confess at least the sins we know. (Are there sins we commit of which we may be unaware? Yes, of course.)

The second thing is to put away the evil that we are doing. In the words of my pastor, “Stop it!” It’s that simple . . . and that hard. Things that we have been doing have become habits. We may actually fall into the behavior without even thinking, at least initially. So we need to make a conscious effort to put the evil away.

I think about putting things away. It’s very easy to not put things away. Have you ever done that in your home? I know that teenagers are often accused of not putting away their clothes and other possessions, but simply dropping them on the nearest surface. I do that, too, sometimes, simply leaving things at the closest place and not putting them away . . . in the cupboard, in the closet, in the dishwasher, back on the shelves, in the drawer. It only takes a few seconds to put something away, but sometimes we feel so overwhelmed, so tired. We indulge ourselves by not putting away. And yet, it only takes a few things not put away to completely mess up our homes.

The Lord here is talking about more than just dropping our evil in the nearest drawer so that it is out of sight. He’s talking about putting it away from us completely forever. Digging a hole and burying it so that it can never be seen (or done) again. He says to “put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.” God sees all! So if we are to put away our sin, it means we can never, ever, EVER do it again.

A few years ago I developed an allergy to chocolate. Well, I think I developed this allergy. I spent six of the worse hours of my life in a hospital ER with pains that were so horrible that I wanted to die. The doctor was flummoxed and couldn’t decide what the problem was. They tested me for a heart attack, for ulcers, for all kinds of things. Finally after talking to me, he told me that his best guess was that I had developed a reaction to the chocolate that I had eaten that day. I decided to never eat chocolate again. Even if the doctor was wrong, it’s simply not worth the chance.

Never to eat chocolate again. Now I have to tell you that I absolutely love hot fudge sundaes, chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate cream candy from Sees. But I will never eat any of it again. I have put it away forever.

There are other things in my life much more important that my reaction to chocolate that I should put away forever. These are sins and are an affront to the Father Who gave His all for me. I need to put them away.

God emphasizes that when He continues with “Cease to do evil.” Just stop it! My husband and I were talking last night about how self indulgent our society has become. Our days seem to be filled with the question of “what do I want to do now?” rather than focusing on what we should be doing. (There are so many ministry opportunities staring us in the face if we would simply put aside the idea that our time, our resources, our efforts are our own.) The scripture commands us to “cease to do evil.” If we have the courage to ask, God will reveal to us those things we are doing that are evil.

Lastly He tell us to “learn to do good.” Do you know that we aren’t born good? We are born innocent, which is actually not a lack of sin but a protection from the sin that has already captured our hearts simply because, as babies, we don’t have the wherewithal to step aside from ourselves and see the Lord. But as babies, we are not good. Quite the contrary, babies are totally self-absorbed! We have to learn to do good. We have to find out what those good things are and then train ourselves to do them. And the best, most reliable teacher is the Holy Spirit. Other teachers may point us in the right direction, but we need to be careful to whom we listen. Some people who appear to be trustworthy actually are not! They are false teachers. But we can listen to the Holy Spirit every time and know that He speaks only the heart of God.

If we want the Father to hear our prayers, we must first deal with our sin. We must confess it, put it aside, and learn to do good. And then the Father, Who longs to speak to us, will hear and prayers and have communion with us.

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

1 John 1:7-8

The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (NRSV)

We don’t talk much about sin these days. You used to hear it from the pulpit (at least from courageous preachers who cared more about the Word of God than building large churches). But in the 1960's and 1970's, something happened to the Church in America. We began to buy into all of the psychological research about self-esteem and sin basically went out the window. With it went literally the gospel which also means “good news.” If we haven’t sinned, then we don’t need the good news that the Lord Jesus’ own blood has cleansed us from it.

The apostle John is very clear here: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. I contend that we often not only deceive others, but we more often deceive ourselves by filling ourselves with gobbledygook that sounds good but is, in fact, deception. Our society is filled with this kind of deception. There are many things that likely we take for granted as being true that are absolutely not true; we are deceived.

For example, do an Internet search on children and self-esteem. You will find site after site after site insisting that we need to increase our children’s self-esteem. “Healthy self-esteem is like a child's armor against the challenges of the world.” “Many observers believe that low self-esteem lies at the bottom of many of society's problems.” “Good self-esteem is an important factor in raising healthy children.”

However, Christian teacher Elizabeth Elliot insists (and I agree) that the Bible never concerns itself with self-esteem and, in fact, teaches against it:

“Jesus certainly didn’t die in order to build up our self-esteem. He didn’t die for us because we were lovable. He loved us because we were irremediable. There was no remedy without His shed blood on that cross. He wants us to live in company with Him. He is not interested in our building our self-esteem, but in our learning meekness, gentleness, patience, love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.” (http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Gateway-to-Joy/Self-Esteem-And-Sin.html)

We are sinners. I am a sinner. And there’s nothing that I can do, think, say, or believe that is going to change that. I can deny it and it still is true. I can believe something else and it still is true. I can go to college, go to seminars, read books, search the Internet, discuss with friends, do anything I can think of. None of that will take away the fact that I’m a sinner, that I have sinned and unfortunately may sin again.

The good news is that the Lord Jesus’ own blood cleanses me from sin if I accept that cleansing. Without it, I die in my sins regardless of what I believe. With it, I am cleansed and will live with Him forever. That is truly good news!

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Resurrection Day

1 Corinthians 15:12-19, 30, 51-53

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. . . . And why are we putting ourselves in danger every hour? . . . Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” (NRSV)

My Redeemer Lives by Eugene Greco

My Redeemer lives and I will see His glory
As He works all things together for my good
Whatever things occur, of this I can be sure,
I know my Redeemer lives

Even though I walk through the valley
I will fear no evil, He is with me
And on the battlefield, although the pain is real
My struggles soon will fade as His glory is revealed

My Redeemer lives and I will see His glory
As He works all things together for my good
Whatever things occur, of this I can be sure,
I know my Redeemer lives

I wish a blessed resurrection day to everyone!

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Isaiah 5:20

“Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (NRSV).

Over the years, I have learned to try to analyze my thoughts and actions, to discover why I think the way I do or act the way I choose. I say “try” because I’m not always successful at doing it. I am greatly influenced by the society around me, a society which isn’t trustworthy and which, if I were wise, I would ignore when it comes to making choices.

I look back over my life and see many places where I should have made different decisions, where I could have made better choices. I see so many times when I have been (and still am) self-indulgent rather than obedient to God’s will. Just this morning, I read a snippet written by a dear Christian sister. It said, “Will I cooperate [with God’s plan] despite emotional pain?” Will I take the hard road?

I think it’s very difficult to look at Isaiah 5:20 and realize that it is about the society in which I live. But it is! We are at the point where, at almost every turn, evil is called good and good is called evil; darkness is embraced and the light of God’s word is rejected; the bitterness of sin, death, and hell are desired and the sweetness of God’s love is thrown down. And this isn’t helped by the fact that many Christians are so confused about what it means to be a Christian! Pastors aren’t preaching hard messages anymore, either being content to preach wishy-washy words to keep the pews full or knowing that their congregations are so spiritually immature that they can only accept milk. And we as Christians haven’t demanded that our pastors step up to the plate; we have become content to listen to a 30 minute sermon, complete with one or two scriptures projected on a screen, and then released to go home for another week to whatever it is that satisfies the lusts of our flesh. “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NRSV).

Are we willing to walk the hard road for the cause of Christ? Are we willing to listen to the teachings that will compel us to grow to more maturity in the Lord? To become a Christian whose moral center is founded upon scripture means two things. First, we have to learn to rely solely upon the Holy Spirit. His will, His plans, His way need to be all that we think about or long for. Second, we need to be immersed in the Word of God. What we think, what we dream about, what we speak must reflect that our thoughts are overwhelmed by God’s word. Do you know that everything recorded in the New Testament as Jesus’ words are from the Old Testament? He was and is truly the Word of God and He wants to be that in us. He knows what is right and wrong, what is sin and what is righteousness. He longs to put that knowledge within us! “My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. . . . For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk blamelessly” (Proverbs 2:1, 5-7 NRSV).

There is so much of life that we embrace because it is fun or cute or even “innocent” when really it is the beginning step to destruction. Only God holds the Truth and only God holds the secret to living a life of morality. Even when His words don’t make sense to us, we can trust them—and trust Him—to know what is best!

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

1 Corinthians 11:1

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (NKJV)

“I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me” (1 Corinthians 4:16 NKJV).

I’ve had the opportunity of growing up in two different church cultures. The first is the culture that permeated in the 1950's (and has remained in some churches or some communities). In this culture, people dress their best for church, wash their cars before coming, remember to bring their Bibles, attend Sunday School before services, and hide their sins. If they smoked, it was far away from church property. If they had affairs, those affairs were carefully secreted away. If they cheated or lied or stole, those actions were carefully covered up.

The second is the culture that began in the 1960's and has continued in many churches and communities. In this culture, people have taken the understanding that “God accepts us as we are.” People dress casually for church (like they might going to a movie or the beach). They may or may not carry their Bibles to church. If they have habitual sins, they don’t worry about hiding them, but can be seen smoking in the church parking lots, going to the grocery stores to liquor after the service, bringing their live-in girlfriends or boyfriends to church with them.

Of course, these descriptions are characterizations that don’t describe all believers, but they describe many church attenders. I believe that both cultures are both right and wrong in their approaches. Often, people take the emphasis from the “wrong” part of the approach, rather than understanding the truth of scripture. There are others, of course, who God places in our lives that become the “Pauls” for us; they become those that we can imitate, to whom we can go for support and advice.

Yesterday, as Ken and I were driving home, I told him that I wished that Uncle Paul and Aunt Doris (two wonderful saints who went home a number of years ago) were still here with us. We are facing a monumental decision and I would love to have simply been able to talk it over with them, to get their advice. I began to think of my wonderful Aunt Doris, my mom, and my Aunt Audrey—three women who have greatly influenced my life. They were my best friends, at different times in my life, and I miss having their lives to watch and imitate. Immediately, God brought Paul’s words to mind: “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” I said to Ken, “I wonder if Aunt Doris, knowing that so many of us younger women were watching her, was influenced by this scripture? Did this scripture encourage her, at times, to be better than she thought she could be because she knew we were watching her?”

If you knew that people were watching your life, were forming their own Christian walk by yours, were learning what decisions to make based on your decisions, would you live differently?

Recently Ken and I have been going through a huge issue in our lives. (It’s not over yet.) As a result we have become more “visible” in people’s lives. Not only are people around us more aware of the fact that we are simply there, but they are watching our reactions to what is happening. I have become aware that people are looking to see how I will respond, perhaps even thinking that they will imitate me in a similar situation.

Am I imitate-able? Could I say to someone, “Imitate my actions because I’m imitating Christ”?

I believe that when we think (or know) that others are watching us, we are challenged to become better, to become more Christ-like, to spiritually and morally rise higher. At least, that’s what we should be doing.

I believe that, as a Church, we have become very comfortable in the casual atmosphere that exists now in many churches. Our clothes reflect our actions; our actions reflect our current morals and beliefs. We are convinced that God will accept us as we are (He does!), but we have forgotten that after that, He has challenged us to die to ourselves and to allow His Holy Spirit to live in us. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. . . So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:6, 11 NRSV). After we have come to Christ, we should refuse to give Him simply “whatever” and strive to give Him the best that we have . . . and more! To allow Him to make us better than we ever think we could be. And that comes through self-control (a fruit of the Spirit), through love, through kindness to others, through faith in His plan and purpose, through trust in what we cannot see, through reaching out . . . and through become the kind of people that others can imitate. My prayer today is that my actions will become those that others can imitate and, in doing so, become more obedient to Christ and His will for their lives.

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Galatians 1:1

“Paul an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead—“ (NRSV)

Paul begins this letter with this powerful phrase: “God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.” What is more powerful and affecting in our lives than death and that circumstances that surround it? Nothing changes things more (either for the person who died or for her family and friends). Nothing has a greater final outcome.

Except with the Lord Jesus. Through His resurrection, He brought us the ultimate hope, the ultimate ending to life: more life! “Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52 NRSV). What seemed, prior to the Lord’s resurrection, to be eternal death, is now a temporary state because we are going to receive new bodies, bodies that are incorruptible! Bodies that cannot be sick, that cannot fail, that cannot sin. And Paul concludes this passage in Corinthians with this:

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (v. 58 NRSV).

In Galatians, Paul establishes his authority based on the fact that God the Father raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. In Corinthians, he establishes our authority based on the fact that God the Father is going to raise us from the dead (our labor cannot be in vain).

What does Paul mean in his description for us?

“Steadfast” is hedraios which means “moral fixity” (Vine’s G1476). The command is for us to be steadfast, to fix our morals upon the Word of God and to not waiver from that moral stand. Morality for the believer is far more than we think of morality. There are so many aspects to it, all of those being the fruit of the Spirit in our lives: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22b-23 NRSV). Most of us know by now that the “fruit” of the Spirit is one thing, not many things. We are expected to be all of these things all the time, not sometimes one and then sometimes another. Father God’s character is all of these all of the times. When we allow His Spirit to live in and through us, He is all of these things in us.

The only way that we can do that is to stay in the Word and stay in prayer. It is impossible for us to be gentle or self-controlled, to be kind or patient, but it is always possible (not only possible, but predictable) for God because this is Who He is!

“Immovable” means being fully committed through hope and trust in God, never wavering. James talked about the wavering believer:

“for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord” (1:6-7 NRSV).

The word picture is so descriptive! My parents and I used to sail small boats along the Pacific shore. We never went far enough to lose sight of land and were often within swimming distance of the shore. But one of the things we never did was to go out when there were small craft warnings. Small craft warnings are times in the ocean when the waves and wind are so severe that there is a danger of the smaller boats capsizing. A few times we were caught in the ocean when the warning occurred and had to scurry for the safety of the harbor. But being out in the ocean during those times was not fun. Our little boat was hurled from one wave to another, bobbing back and forth, with water drenching everyone on board. I’ve seen the wind whip the water back and forth, even taking it against the current or normal flow pattern.

As believers, we have two choices. We can look at our circumstances and allow those circumstances to raise doubts within our hearts and minds, tossing us back and forth with anxiety and distress. Or, we can look to the Word, to the heart of God, and trust, regardless of what is happening around us, knowing that this is the God Who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead; there is nothing too hard for Him!

Paul tells us in Galatians to be immovable. This means that our faith in the Lord is rock-solid; we refuse to doubt His love or His plan for our lives. We may be in a dark place temporarily, but in the end, He will resurrect us from the dead that this is all that matters!

Finally, Paul tells us to be “always excelling in the work of the Lord.” It’s interesting that he doesn’t tell us to “always being doing the work of the Lord,” but rather admonishes us to excel. God the Father excelled for us in giving us His very best, His only begotten Son. God had many choices in the dilemma of sin and death. He could have destroyed us all and started over. He could have turned His head and let us all die in our sin. He didn’t! His love compelled Him to solve the sin and death dilemma with no less than His best! Why would we then be content to give Him less than our best? And that can mean something as small as providing the best hospitality that we have, be it a feast on china or a sandwich on a paper plate; providing the best friendship to others that we have, be it a long conversation or a snippet email; providing the best witness that we can, be it a sermon or simply living morally straight for others to see.

Paul was empowered by the fact that God the Father raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. He recognized that, after that miracle, there was nothing that God couldn’t or wouldn’t do for His people. We are the same as Paul—believers whom the Father loves. There is nothing that He can’t or won’t do for our good, to demonstrate His love for us.

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.