Glories in Christ for October 5th 2007

So I sit here in Starbucks and I just started to write. This is the product. It is not polished and rehearsed...it is spontaneous and honest. Enjoy

There is something, nay, everything! Everything is precious and amazing about our life. I do not mean our material existence or the ability to move and breathe and function. I mean spiritually. The fact that we are both again, regenerated and brought from death and damnation, enemies and haters of God who are taken into his arms and embraced by God while we fight Him, and by his amazing love and sovereign grace, he breathed into us life, love and righteousness. With his effectual calling he brings his enemies and makes them his lovers. This is an incredible power, but it should not surprise those of us who know of Jesus Christ. This power that regenerates us and causes us to love God in the midst of our vehement rebellion, this is the same power that raised Lazarus from the dead, and even more it is the same power that rose our Lord and Savior, the reason we live and breathe, Jesus Christ from the dead on the 3rd day. This grace is amazing indeed. Not only is it immeasurable in power, but also it is unmerited in application! We know that mankind is at war with God by nature, no one is good and no one does any good. God would be completely justified in sending every single human to hell as soon as they’re conceived. This is understood. But what a scandalous proposition that God should make the unrighteous righteous! How can a just and holy God just forgive sin, which is by its very nature an affront to him? Can God just forget our wrongdoing and be just? May it never be! For God to be just, he must extract punishment worthy of the violations that every human commits against him. This is the state of humanity, and this is our only plea when we stand before God: “Guilty and worthy of hell”. That is what we would have to declare and just as all hope was forever dashed, Christ our King stands up and says, “I will bear the punishment for his sin”! The Son of God stands before us and his righteousness becomes ours and at the moment of regeneration, we gasp for air and say “I believe!” and at that moment all of our sin is washed away because Christ was our wrath-bearer. What did I do to deserve this favor with the Son of God? Why am I not being damned to hell with the rest of humanity as I rightly deserve? How can one who did not desire or love God be transformed and have faith and actually start to love God? The death of the King of Kings on the cross, secured for me heaven, eternal life, faith itself, and all good things! What blessed grace. Regeneration secured my salvation and created the faith to accept the gospel of grace, the gospel of my salvation! Regeneration, blood bought and blood secured, the source of infinite, eternal blessing and favor with the God of the universe. I was once at war with God, but I am now reconciled by the blood of Christ. I was a slave to sin and marked by wrath, but I am now held in the embrace of the God I trespassed. This is my salvation, and today I praise God for the gift of regeneration that made this possible.