I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Phil 3:8-9
Fellow Brothers and Sisters, There is no God like our God. None equal in power or wisdom or love. There is no plan like His plan. No god that is great like our God. The world's gods do not love or show mercy or have compassion. Contemplating the greatness of God, my thoughts turned to how uncanny, how mysteriously fantastic and personal He is. From my journal: "Jesus, you entered the human experience to the depth of hell, tasting my pain and carrying my sorrows. You became a torn and bloody sacrifice standing in my place owning my sin and guilt, yet You were innocent. You were tortured and shamed as you hung exposed and humiliated on the cross. As prophecy declared, You were so cruelly beaten you didn't appear human! 'his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness— Isaiah 52:14 niv' The greatest suffering was not the excruciating physical torture endured; but separation from your Father; as the sins of the world were placed on You. In His holiness He turned away, forsaking you at the point of Your greatest need. How does one divide omnipotence? Scripture states You actually became sin for me! God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. II Cor 5:21 How does the holy God become sin? The movie The Passion captured a measure of your physical suffering, but no screen play or finely written words can express the ghastly horror of being separated from Your Father or becoming sin. Never before had the Godhead known a division of their Oneness. This is beyond comprehension. You, Lord, lived the hell I deserved, tasting every heartache, sorrow, loss, fear and every degrading sin and my unfaithfulness, every lustful thought and unkind word- all my blatant sin and my hidden sin. You came, confining yourself to flesh and bone on this earthly journey; fulfiling Your destiny while purchasing mine. For this very reason You came, Lamb of God, shedding Your blood to cleanse sin. Holy, Holy, Holy" “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”John 12:27-28 He calls us to endure today. He calls us to trust Him. This is the only hell you will ever know. He who came to serve, not be served, has redeemed and delivered us for all eternity. We so easily have high minded opinions of ourselves and suffer the slightest humiliations with indignation. We say we want to forget the world, but in the depths of our hearts we do not want to be forgotten by it. We are searching to no avail when we try to find a halfway point between Jesus Christ and the world. As the apostle Paul said, it is not enough for the world to be dead to us. We must also be dead to the world. FF Our old sin nature is crucified with Christ. If i take a dollar bill and place it in a magazine and then burn the magazine. The bill is also destroyed. As the magazine goes, so goes the bill. Their history has become one. So we are placed in Christ and everything that happens to Jesus also happens to us. Crucified with Christ is our history, written before we were born. Our deliverance from sin is not based on what we can do or even on what God is going to do for us, but on what He has already done for us in Christ. We know all too little of this in experience. When we rest on this truth we have found the secret of a holy life. (gathering of thoughts by wn) May God give you singing hearts which overflow in praise of Jesus who was the perfect sacrifice. Now dear ones go out and be a living sacrifice, a singing sacrifice. Deliverer, Sin-bearer, Holy One, You are worthy to be praised and worshiped, blessed be your Name. I pray my precious brothers and sisters will see You in a deeper way as they count themselves dead to sin and alive to You. O God, You who became sin for us, may they be living sacrifices, living proof that You are God and You are good and You still love with a life-changing power. I pray we will stop playing at church, stop trying to live the Christian life in the strength of the flesh and begin to appropriate all You have provided. I ask that we would remember in our suffering that you Jesus change everything!! Let us refuse the natural human point of view where trials are concerned! Teach us to dwell in Hebrews 4:15-16. I pray in the Name above all names, Jesus, and for His glory. amen Singing off key praises to the Lamb of God! az |
