God Loves And Accepts You Now

Today I saw something in God’s Word that really excited me, so I wanted to quickly share it with you. Deuteronomy 5:2 says, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.”

Now at first that doesn’t look like much. But the dictionary I use says that “Horeb” means desert, solitude, or destruction. Yes God had brought them out of Egypt, but they were in a desert place. They had made it into the wilderness, and they were struggling. This is also the place where God met with Moses in the Burning Bush (Exodus chapter 3). We all know Moses was struggling at that point too. He had left Egypt and had been tending the flocks of his father-in-law for years. He was away from his family, away from his people, and away from his destiny.

They were all in a difficult place, but God was looking to take them to a better place. Are you in a difficult place today? God won’t reject you. God wants to meet you wherever you are. God knows where you’ve been and where you’re going. God wants an encounter with you today. God will make a covenant with you right now, it doesn’t matter what you’ve been going through.

Any Christian who has spent any time in church knows that God will take you wherever you are. Pastor Dollar used to say during the alter call, “bring your liquor bottle, bring your reefer, bring it right up to the altar and leave it here” (paraphrased). I know that’s the attitude of God. Wherever you are in life, even if it’s a place of desert, solitude, and destruction, God wants to meet you and make a covenant with you.

I believe God showed me this verse as encouragement for some situations we currently have. And it truly stirs me up. I know that God made a covenant with me when I was in a bad place. I know God kept that covenant with me when I was in a worse place. How much more shall God keep this covenant with me, now that I’m in His place and walking in His will? I have nothing to fear, as God honored that covenant in the desert, God will honor it in this oasis I call home now. Glory to God.

So it doesn’t matter where you are, if you are a Christian then you have a covenant with God. He didn’t make that covenant when you were perfect or walking in His perfect will. While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. He made that covenant when you were at your lowest, in bondage to sin and incapable of pleasing Him. That’s the God we serve, who makes all things new and brings us out of darkness and into the marvelous light. Never despise the day of small beginnings. Look where you were (spiritually, mentally, and physically) when you began with God. If God honored His covenant with you there, you can be assured God will honor His covenant with you now.

God also reminded me of something from my past yesterday. He showed me something in a new light, something I hadn’t thought of in years. Something I see clearly now with wonder and praise for God.

Back in college I was definitely not walking in God’s plan for my life. I made many mistakes. But even during that time, in that sin, God began giving me dreams, and during my senior year my future wife and I began attending church. But even before that I can see many examples of God protecting me.

One night early in my junior year my roommate had some female friends visit. I didn’t know them, but one of them and I quickly became friends. We had many things in common and made plans to go out the next night. But the next day she apparently got in a big fight with her roommate. It became so heated she moved out, left school, and moved to another city, all in one day. My roommate told me this. I never saw or heard from her again.

You say skeptically, “Byron, you think God had that girl move to another city just to stay away from you.” Frankly I don’t know all the details, all I know is that God has protected me from many evils throughout my life, and as God reminded me of this, I now believe this was another example of God’s Divine protection.

How about that? God saw a situation that would be evil to me, or be a future hindrance to me, and God picked that situation up and moved it out of my city. HALLELUJAH! God’s going to take care of troubles you don’t even see yet. God will protect you from problems you don’t even know you have. Even if you are still in Horeb, God’s going to protect you and provide for you. God’s going to move your problems out of your city. We are more than conquerors. Yes we have to go through battles sometimes, but other times God fights the battles for us and delivers us before we even see the problem.

I can easily say that college was a Horeb-like place for me. It was a desert without an active relationship with God’s Spirit. It was a place of destruction where I was actively working to destroy my life. And it was a lonely place, where most of the time I had no God or Godly people in my life. But God made a covenant with me even before college began. And God held up his part of that covenant the entire time I was there, even while I did nothing to please Him.

I know now that God will always honor His covenants, with me and with you. If God was so good to me when I was lost in sin, what should I fear, what should concern me? While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And if God be for us nothing can stand against us. Glory to God. I pray this encourages you today.