What a Savior

Again, God hit me with a pretty awesome lesson today from a few verses I know I have read at least 100 times before, and that's no exaggeration because they are from one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible.
Paul is frustrated. He wants to do so much good for the Lord, but instead he is doing so much evil for himself. He knows God's commands. And he wants to keep them. But his sinful nature looks at the commands and makes him want to do just the opposite. God's commands are good; but they can't save Paul because he can't keep up with them.
And then Romans 8 floods in with the answer to this frustration problem so many of us face.
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."
Let's not rush over this too quickly. There is therefore no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! Wow! That is Good News! And we know that the "therefore" is because, as Paul was frustrated about in Romans 7, we just couldn't keep the commands. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But do we take the time to look at the how of our "no condemnation"?
We have no more condemnation because we have someone who could keep God's commands and law, the only man that ever did. Jesus Christ lived a perfect, sinless life. He was the only one who ever deserved a relationship with God, who deserved heaven, who deserved no condemnation. The Law was in place to bring us to God, but we just couldn't make it. But Jesus could. He came to earth in the image of sinful man, the image of the people living in sin apart from the law. But He broke all the rules. Though in a sinful body, though tempted, He never committed sin.
Now get this.
He sacrificed Himself so that His righteousness could be transferred to us. The only man that could stand up and proclaim Himself as "holy, blameless, and perfect" laid all of those down and took up the titles of "blasphemer, demonic, and forsaken" instead. He laid down His righteousness for us, and took up our iniquities. He fulfilled the Law, something no one else could ever do, and yet He gave His perfectness up by taking on all of our sins. We have no condemnation, but it sure came at a price for Jesus.
What a Savior...
So I rejoice in God's grace towards me. I rejoice that He forgave me all my debts and holds not one of them against me. I rejoice that all of my future mistakes already have mercy waiting to be poured out on them. I am now free. But I'm going to try to live a better life, a life for Jesus, because He lived His life to save me. A story of such powerful love compels me to give my life to God.

Wide-Eyed Belief

I have picked up, once more, the plan to wake up a little earlier in the morning, get out of bed, and go find a place to pray to and praise God and read His word. And it's been my plan to not have any set material for right now, but to instead just open my heart and listen for whatever God hits me with. Yesterday morning, He hit me with a passage in John 12. I read before it and after it, but it was just one verse that really caught my attention in a special way.
"Jesus said... 'I have come into the world as light, that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness.'"
It has always been an ordinary verse to me normally, but isn't it amazing how some days God uses the simplest, most over-read portions of His word to teach us lessons like brand new?
Jesus is light! He has come! And where there is light, there is no darkness, because light cannot help but to scatter the darkness. If you take a light into a place, there will not be darkness there anymore. And yet Jesus says that there are some who may apparently be remaining in darkness. How can that be?
The only way to remain in darkness when there is light around is to close your eyes and turn away from the light. I think the same is true for Jesus. The fact that He is the light means that He, in and of Himself, can free us from darkness and sin. Only He can scatter the darkness in our lives. But we have to believe in Him, He says, for it to happen. We have to open our eyes and turn to the source so that we can live in the light of life.
And so after meditating on that verse, the song that came to mind was this:
"Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see You. I want to see You. To see You high and lifted up, shining in the light of Your glory. Pour out Your power and love, as I sing, 'Holy, Holy, Holy...'"