Never

"For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” Hebrews 13:5 NLT

For the past two Wednesday evenings I have been teaching on the power of the tongue. This is a powerful lesson because it's can so drastically change someone's life. One of the biggest topics that I cover is Always/Never. in 1 Corinthians 13:5 we are told that love keeps no record of wrongs. Here me on this..."She is always late", "He always leaves my fuel tank empty", "He never buys me flowers", "She never shuts up". That is keeping a ledger of wrongs. I have told you before that my spiritual mother never lets me say the word "again". Same idea...I am keeping accounts.

How about if you say "I will never marry someone like that", "I will never treat my children like that". Then we are talking judgements. Matthew 7 :1&2 tells us that we will be judged in the same way we measure others.

So when God says to us ...Never. I take special attention. John 14:6-7 tells us, "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Jesus is the Truth, He can't lie to us. If Jesus is how we know Father God, then Father God can't lie to us either. When he says "never" he means just that "never". NEVER.

God says to us, "I will never leave you, never will I forsake you".

Never...when you had your abortion, when you had your affair, when you lied about how much you spent. God was there. The Holy Spirit was in you. He created us...the Spirit is within us waiting for us to want His will. We are never alone, because our faithful Father says, I will never. NEVER. So I guess my question is why do we try to keep it all in the dark. We hold it in ourselves and shame ourselves...abuse ourselves...in lieu of bringing it to the altar and allowing Him to seperate them from us. We fear that his punishment is worse than our self-inflicted punishment so we hold it as an entitlement, as a scarlet letter on our chest. Then we can feel justified in our unworthiness. Our shame can be fed and can continue to exclude ourselves from the calling to be apart of the body of Christ.

"For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." Romans 11:32

He will never leave us, but, how often it is that we will leave him. We will take the lies and the shame and define ourselves in a way totally contradictory to His Word, His Truth.

Lord, I just praise you for your goodness. That you can open someone's ears in a whole new way. That Lord how everything plays together and it is all aligning with your purpose. Lord, I thank you that you have never left me. I have drug you some pretty ugly places but you have never left me. Lord, thank you for your forgiveness, and for your provision. Thank you father, that you made us all disobedient, so that you could have mercy on us all. We all need you, none of us more than another. I praise you Lord, I love you and I just sit in awe of you this morning. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.