Utmost For His Highest November 20
Perhaps we need to be to be reminded in our lethargy just how perverse our culture’s lackadaisical view of the fatherhood of God has become: That God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. Perhaps this notion is similar to the erroneous concept developed in a recent post, The Legend of the Social Justice Jesus.
The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other grounds is unconscious blasphemy. The only foundation on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. Although we must take the forgiveness of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit by simple faith, we must never forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive. He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross, possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is actually, quite small, being simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the transcending realization that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being, is that God has forgiven all our Sin. Apostle Paul never escaped from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise as was Paul, both constrained and empowered, by the love of God!
No doubt by now since I have rapidly highlighted three Utmost devotionals centering on aspects of forgiveness, some of my readers may well be questioning my theology. I simply did so because my decades of misunderstanding and under appreciating both the simplicity and complexities of forgiveness have cost me and my family dearly. I have faith that if I at least point you in the right direction, that God in his love, grace & mercy, will provide you the needed wisdom from his vast storehouses to spare you the years of wandering in wildernesses as did I. Have you ever used a vise on a work bench to secure an object? How about a simple Vise-Grip? If so, you can better comprehend Paul’s “being gripped.”
Paul said that he was so gripped by the love of God that people could perceive him as mad or sane – he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for – to persuade people of the coming judgement of God and to tell them of “the love of Christ.” This total surrender will always leave the mark of God’s holiness and His power on the messages’ recipients, drawing minimal attention to the messenger’s personal holiness. “…. And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” II Cor. 5:15
Perhaps it was no accident that my business card highlights the verse from I Peter 2:9 “That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” I am simply telling my story as we Christ Follower’s are encouraged to do. Blessings as you GO FORTH Today in HIS LIGHT even though the world calls it Black Friday! Again, it is all a matter of His PERSPECTIVE! >>>>>merlin