I was just considering what a great and wonderful God we serve (we who believe in Christ that is). Words cannot sum up how wonderful He is. First of all, He secured our eternal destinies by His blood out of pure love, from no other motivation other than to glorify Himself and show His immmense love toward us. By making a sacrifice at great expense to Himself, He secured our salvation so that we could spend eternity with Him, forever enjoying His presense, the way it was designed to be before the fall. I am so amazingly grateful not so much for material blessings (though I am greatly thankful for that), but more, I am so grateful that Christ purchased me on the cross with His blood. I would be totally lost, a ship without a rudder had it not been for His eternal sacrifice paid for by Christ bearing the wrath of God in Himself. He is so wonderful, majestic, creative, beautiful, glorious, powerful, sovereign, loving, kind, just, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnivorous (jk), patient, kind; He is everything I am not. Jesus Christ is what makes me whole. I praise God that He chose to save sinful, loathsome me from an eternity without Him. He is my all in all, my great Comforter. He is pure and holy, beyond expression. Praise God that Jesus Christ didn’t simply die but that He also rose from the grave by the power of God! With this wonderful hope in Christ, we will be raised to kingship to reign with Him for all eternity, forever glorifying the God of grace. And not only do we receive all of these eternal blessings (many not yet experienced to their fullest), but we get to experience them now (to a degree)! That is just wonderful and drives me to the cross to constantly experience His forgiveness and pardon based upon His finished work. Thank You, Father, that You did not abandon me to my sin, allowing me to pursue the desires of my heart to their fullest, thus hardening me to a life of sin and eternal damnation. Praise You God that You sought me and changed me when I was not seeking You. Praise You that You are the almighty King that for whatever reason (pure love) You decided to rescue me from my sin, myself, and the result of that life, hell. Jesus You are everything to me, and I pray You would pour out Your Holy Spirit in me that I may show you to all I come into contact with, that all may see and know that You are Lord, the Sovereign King, through which the whole world came into being. I love You. God is so amazingly gracious …
Tag: jesus
I’ve been reading through the book of Isaiah the past couple of weeks, and it is endlessly fascinating to see all of the imagery of Christ in it. From chapters 42, 43, 47, 50, 52, 53, and many other places particularly in this book, the sufferings of the Messiah are clearly shown. And once Jesus came into this world to carry out the will of the Father, namely the justification and glorification of His name as well as the redemption of His people, everything written of Christ beforehand came to life and was filled full of meaning (this being the definition of fulfillment).
Psalm 22 is another place where the sufferings of the Savior are shown. In Isaiah 50, there is some very striking imagery of Christ bearing His back to those who would strike Him. It says in verses 5 through 6, “The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting” (ESV).