Encouragement

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When La Moyne was a teenager, she sang a song entitled, 'The Love of God' in her home church (First Baptist Church, Hobart, Oklahoma).
Several years ago, I served as Interim Pastor for that precious congregation...
and my nephew (Keith Wiginton II) is serving as their pastor now.

La Moyne sang that same song when she auditioned for a voice scholarship in 1951.
She received a scholarship to Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas where she became a member of Wayland's International Choir.

The lyrics of 'The Love of God' are based on the Jewish poem Haddamut, written in Aramaic in 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai, a cantor in Worms, Germany and have been translated in at least 18 languages.

Since the words were found penciled on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum after he had been carried to his grave, the general opinion was that this inmate had written the epic in moments of sanity.

"The Love of God"
Words: Frederick M. Lehman (1917)
Music Arranged by his daughter, Claudia L. May (1948)

"The love of God is greater far
Than tongue nor pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song."

1) GOD'S LOVE GIVES US HAPPINESS (contentment)
~It is abundant (and is the best)
~It is for always (Eternal)
~It is available to all (why we have evangelism and missions)
~It is avoided by many (even though everything else is 2nd best)

2) GOD'S LOVE GIVES US HELP
After the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center, Psalm 27 seemed to be a favorite:
"The Lord is my salvation and the strength of my life...of whom shall I be afraid?" (Vs.1)

3) GOD'S LOVE GIVES US HOPE
By forgiveness of past sins....and sufficient faith for the future.

4) GOD'S LOVE GIVES US HEAVEN
It cost God His only Son.
This makes it free for us, but not cheap for Him!!
We must NOT make it 'cheap' by the life we live!

5) GOD'S LOVE HELPS TO KEEP US 'BEING' AND 'GOING' IN OLD AGE
Others we love may precede us into Heaven, but God is Eternal and so is His love!
"He will never leave us nor forsake us".

He wants us to grow in quality (Christ-likeness) of life....as the quantity of years grow.

You can not beat God's Way, but so many try the world's ways...
and forget the One Who created the world.....and them!
YOU CAN NOT BEAT GOD'S WAY!

Christian remember:
~ the same things that saved you are NEEDED every day....
~ the God Who saved you is AVAILABLE every day!

God's Love can not be explained....it can only be experienced.
And oh! what an experience!!

Wait on the Lord...for all He wishes to give you.
Wait on the Lord...as a good servant waits on His Master's desires.

It is to make the Lord the 'clinging place of the soul' and the 'growing place of the life'.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be in any other place!

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