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God's Grace Towards Us (January 6th)
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TOPIC: God's Grace Towards Us (January 6th)
God's Grace Towards Us (January 6th) 2 years, 1 month ago #879
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Some thoughts on portions of the One Year Bible readings for January 6th:
 Sun and Rain, It's All The Same! God's Grace Towards Us Matthew 5: 43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” Our God is awesome, isn't He? God loves His creation, but is angry with sin. It is sad that we have in times past taken God's general grace of sun and & rain at the right times in our life for granted. When we reject God, it isn't because He hasn't revealed Himself in our lives or in His Creation, it is because we have chosen to ignore Him. Even though we were enemies of God, He has shown His faithful undeserved love through His Son. Thankfully enemies of God can be justified and be among the just because of Jesus Christ the Righteous, who in His perfection, lived a sinless life, and was the sacrificial lamb, taking the wrath of God for our sins. By God's special grace through faith in Jesus, we are regenerated, justified and are saved and being sanctified. New creations in Christ, the Church will be presented without blemish as a beautiful bride to our Lord  Salva mea! Notice how these same things are alluded to in today's Psalms & Proverbs readings: from Psalm 6: 1 O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage. 2 Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. 3 I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me? 4 Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love. 5 For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave? As unregenerate human beings, the sin of Adam is upon collective humanity, and our own sins are upon us. God righteously condemns sin as rebellion against Him. Here in this penitential Psalm, David is asking God for mercy. What is the basis of this mercy? Not David's own righteousness, but God's steadfast, unfailing love! David asks God to intercede with unmerited Divine favor into his life. He is pleads for God to not place His wrath upon him for his misdeeds and to deliver him from his current crisis. Did God not make this same way for all of humanity, even though we do not deserve it, through His Son Jesus?! David says he is weak. We, too, are weak in our natural state, unable to do anything to change it. Then David asks questions of great import: How long until You restore me? Who can praise You from the grave? This once more underscores our need, our spiritual deadness and our final end if we do not have the merciful intervention of the LORD! Lift Me Up! David cannot praise God from Sheol, the abode of the dead. If David or any of us do not have God's forgiveness and quickening to make us alive, we will be separated from Him forever. Sheol can mean the grave, in general, or the place where the wicked dead go, specifically. Through the work of Jesus and the free gift of salvation for those that believe in Christ, we have been born again and our problem of deadness (both spiritual & physical) have been and are progressively being defeated! Luke 20: 37 “But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—even Moses proved this when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’38So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.” The city that Abraham sought and had hope for in his faith in the LORD is built upon Jesus Christ! Grant Me Peace! The reading from Proverbs 1, in which God's wisdom and advise to those that would hear is speaking in a personified manner is a call to accept His unmerited favor while turning from our own wicked ways: 29 For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the Lord. 30 They rejected my advice and paid no attention when I corrected them. 31 Therefore, they must eat the bitter fruit of living their own way, choking on their own schemes. 32 For simpletons turn away from me—to death. Fools are destroyed by their own complacency. 33 But all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear of harm.” Repenting from our own ways as enemies of God in reverence and obedience to the ways of the LORD, we can receive Justification, which is: Peace with God. May the Lord be worshiped and magnified by the living, whom He has redeemed from the grave! Amen Jeff |
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