Ultimate Inspiration-God's Plan of Love

Ultimate

Inspiration

God’s Plan Of Love

Effie Darlene Barba

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© 2012 by Effie Darlene Barba. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 05/25/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0591-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-0592-1 (e)

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Contents

Dedication

God’s Plan Of Love

Introduction

Chapter 1

What is Man’s Purpose?

Chapter 2

The Lies That Confuse You

Chapter 3

Sin’s Destruction and

the Cost of Love

Chapter 4

Why did Christ have to Die?

Chapter 5

Study to show

Thyself Approved

Chapter 6

The Power of Prayer

Chapter 7

Worship with Song and Praise

Chapter 8

Desires of the Heart

Chapter 9

Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 10

Abiding In Christ

Chapter 11

Ultimate Inspiration

Chapter 12

God’s Plan of Love

Ultimate Inspiration-God’s Plan of Love

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Ultimate Inspiration—God’s Plan of Love

By Ronald Bertrand Barba

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Dedication

I dedicate this book to my mother. She is the one who first introduced me to Christ. For that I must always be eternally grateful. Despite her battles with bipolar disorder, I have always known that she loves God. So often I have wondered why her life has been tormented with this horrible disease. The effects of her disease have many times caused a strain within our relationship more because of my desperate inability to understand her struggles. Yet, I do know that my knowledge of God began with her love of God. Currently, she battles on with the disease and also with severe arthritis which limits her ability to enjoy that salvation. I have been at times unfair in my desire for her to fight harder for Joy and Freedom in Christ; but, I realize that I cannot fight that battle for her. Additionally, I do not understand always how God’s Plan of Love plays out in her life; but I do know that it does. I do love her so much and owe her my entire life because of the gift she gave me of knowing Christ. She has lived with me for the last 9 years; but it seems that now she is falling again into the darkness of her disease and I am not certain that I am able to keep her safe or content at home. So I must take her to a Nursing Home Rehab. I will miss her terribly after all we have walked together; but, I do trust the plan of God and I do know that His love of her is greater than mine. No matter how dark the world may seem at times, His Love is the shining Light that illuminates my way. I hope that this book opens your heart to His Love, His Peace, and His Joy.

God’s Plan Of Love

Oh, Love Divine, what greater thought

That you should suffer, bleed and die

To pay my sin, my freedom bought

Though I screamed Crucify

With every action of my life

I cast aside your pleading cries

I caused you pain, I gave you strife

And chose to follow after lies

I could not see your beauty then

As now I see your face

Your light shone forth, e’er so dim

That I might see Your Grace

You drew me out, you pulled me in

That I might then seek you

You covered then my ugly sin

Your righteousness to view

Such love Divine, pursuing me

Your Joy and Hope to share

How could I run, How could I flee

Naught else could e’er compare

Unto the hope I find in You

As now I turn to seek your Face

Your Glory shines and lights my view

You guide me on at gentle pace

Transforming thus my wretched heart

Unto the one You knew I’d be

Your joyous love ne’er to depart

For all eternity.

Introduction

Inspiration sometimes is defined as the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative: flashes of inspiration. Many writers have written about such a subject. In fact many have defined multiples steps toward mankind finding his greatest potential. There has been extensive research trying to find the key to help man live harmoniously with his fellowman and the world which surrounds him. Still, despite the thousands of years of our searching for meaning; our world, as it stands, is filled with fear, anger, hostility, war, destruction, crime, hunger, hopelessness, turmoil, stress, depression, and anxiety. Is there possibly an answer so simple that we refuse to accept it? Could it be that there is one book which has answered all the questions that man has; yet it lays dusty beneath the shelves of all the other books of philosophy, psychology, and self-help.

Mankind remains constantly in search of something, anything that could bring peace, joy and hope to the heart of man. We seek to be inspired. We long to be more than just a lump of clay or just this circling mass of thoughts. What is it that draws us to aspire to great heights? What is it that makes man so different from the animal kingdom? What is it that causes us to yearn ever for more than just what we are today? We strive to become known even if that be only within a small circle of friends and coworkers. We seek for justice and rightness in this world. Sometimes as we look at our seemed failures, we seek to make excuses for ourselves. Carl Sagan said, Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. We are such a small speck in the center of a vast universe and; yet, the central core of our existence cries out to be more than a grain of sand. We search for love, joy, and happiness as though it is an illusion sometimes just beyond our reach. We search for some means to be immortal and to make some eternal difference. Even the atheistic existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre said, Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. Within man there is a drive toward finding something of greater importance and this drive has pushed men to develop many religions and philosophies; in hopes of finding that path toward inspiration and greatness. Ignoring the simplistic plan that God provided, they search for a plan that would rather bring Glory to one’s self instead of God. Even in those who would say there is no God, they see an inner search toward something higher although they vainly call it by many other names. Humanist Psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote, All the evidence that we have indicates that it is reasonable to assume in practically every human being, and certainly in almost every newborn baby, that there is an active will toward health, an impulse towards growth, or towards the actualization. So for the humanist, that inner drive that causes one to aspire to be greater is named Self-Actualization. For the Existentialist, it is merely called Being which is somehow to be developed out of nothingness like a self creation. This Sartre indicates by writing; If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be. Thus there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after this thrust toward existence. Life begins on the other side of despair. Although Sartre denied God’s existence, in doing so, he pointed out the utter despair and lack of human nature resulting from such a denial. He, despite his staunch denial of God was quoted to say, That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget. So, despite his extreme effort to deny God’s existence, he still admitted that in his innermost self, there was a part of him that cried out for God. Why does man seem to always fall short of reaching his fullest potential or his ultimate inspiration while searching for it with all his might? Could it be that we, mankind; are constantly with our spirits searching to find God and at the same time in our mind attempting to deny His very existence. Deep within our hearts we know there is something higher and greater than just this existence and restlessly we long to be joined with it. In referring to heaven, C. S. Lewis said, All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever.—C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain. We gaze into the stars at night and realize how small we are and how marvelously placed are all the vast galaxies that cry back to us our insignificance and at the same time fill us with a sense of greatness. We may see the intricate beauty found within a flower such as the Colorado Columbine with such perfectly painted hues of color or see the delicate flittering butterfly; and, for a moment we become overwhelmed with joy as we sense that there must have been a marvelous creator to design such beauty and order. We see the miracle of new born baby and marvel at life itself. There, deep within our spirits we search and long for God even before we are enlightened to understand our own desire. C.S. Lewis once wrote: A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell. C.S. Lewis had once stood strong as an atheist; yet, he points out the difference in vision after he found Christ in the following quote, I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. The stars, the heavens, and the beautiful things of this world cry out His Magnificent Glory, that of a creator. Abraham Lincoln said, I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist but I cannot conceive how he could look up in the heavens and say there is no God. Also, King David wrote in Psalms 8: "³When I consider thy heavens, the work