The God Who Is
May
17
Written by:
5/17/2011 8:40 AM
"Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ... Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world ..."
Paul’s greeting to the Galatians is the theme of Scripture and Biblical religion: moved by love, God the Father puts His amazing plan for unmerited favor (grace) into action by sending His beloved incarnate Son Jesus to give His life for our sins so that our guilt could be cancelled and we could be reconciled to peaceful, intimate relations with the holy God. He sends His Spirit to us so that our rebellious hearts could be changed to trusting, peace-filled hearts, and so that we could glorify Him with our lives and experience His joy.
This grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is available to anyone who would receive them by putting their trust in Jesus. It is that simple. It is that profound. We do not have to get better in order to come to Christ. As a matter of fact, we can’t. "Jesus gave His life for our sins" — He gave everything that was necessary (His life) for the purchase of our salvation. We gave nothing — we had nothing to offer that would satisfy God. By faith, we received what He offered — grace and peace. Moreover, "if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace" (5:4).
My daughter Donnica and her husband Michael recently adopted Buford, a half-Chihuahua half Jack Russell mix. When Buford goes outside to do his business, he quickly comes back to the door when he’s finished. When Donnica and Michael walk, Buford stays within a couple of feet of them. Buford is a good dog. But I think there may be more to it than that. I think Buford somehow knows he’s fallen into a good thing, maybe a whole lot better thing that he ever could have imagined, and certainly more than he deserved. So the last thing he wants is to be far away from Donnica and Michael. He wants to stay close. He ain't no fool. We are like Buford. We’ve realized how unworthy we are before the holy God, and now that He has adopted us, we want to stay close! We aren't fools anymore either.
Does God exist? You need not look much further than the end of your little finger to see the complexity of your physical body; you need not look further than the family member sitting next to you to feel love; you need not think much further than of your own mortality to know that we were made for more than to simply reproduce our gene pool. It is obvious that God exists. The more pressing question is, "What is He like?" Is He capricious? Is He angry and punishing? Is He a Santa Claus in the sky? Is He distant or indifferent? Does He require you to sacrifice your children or yourself, or recommend that you strap on a bomb and walk into a hotel, or demand that you memorize and repeat long liturgies, or command you to travel great distances to special holy places, or insist that you offer your body to be used by others, or expect you to hand over your money to religious professionals? Or does this God express deep, personal love for you, such that He sacrifices Himself in order to restore you to Himself and save your life for eternity? When we discover what God is really like, when we experience Who He really is and receive His offer of salvation in Jesus by faith, we won’t ever go back to cheap imitations.
"All glory to God forever and ever, Amen!"
The natural response to comprehending and receiving the wonderful love of the Father revealed in the giving of His Son for our salvation is "wonder, love and praise" (Love Divine, all Loves Excelling). It is from this spontaneous praise and desire to glorify God that Christlike lifestyles emerge.
As hard as it is sometimes to believe, salvation in Jesus Christ is absolutely free. No strings, no catches. Actually, if we are ever going to be reconciled to the holy God, the reconciliation must be free, for we sinners have absolutely nothing to offer. Since the Father planned for Jesus to give His life for your sins and to rescue you from this evil world, glorify Him with your life!
1 comment(s) so far...
Re: The God Who Is
<3 Love this! Very well said and so true. :)
By dturner31187 on
5/28/2011 8:31 PM
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