Perfect Answer

Colossians 1:9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

For the last few days I have been at a loss for something new to write. That happens to me often when I sense that I have come full cycle, approaching the same old material with a new way of looking at it. Today is one of those days.

This is the perfect answer for what the Lord has put on my heart.

All this is about you, not me, perhaps not even the Lord but the object of my innermost prayers.

Sometimes when you are very close to a subject you lose your objectivity. I have been asking myself why again. Why me Lord? Why have you chosen me? Why am I any different? Why Lord why?

It isn’t about me. It is all for you. I am not special, I am just like everyone else. I have a past, I have a present and I have a future. Everything that happens in this world will happen to me just as it will for you. 

Psalm 121 English Standard Version

My Help Comes from the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

His love for me makes me feel special, but I am not. We are all loved equally.

He has us, coming and going. It makes no difference.

Justification

Romans 4:23-25 English Standard Version

23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

What is the mechanism for our justification?

  • Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
  • Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

Saving grace is at the heart of our justification. It is the why, not the how. Note in verse 24 above that Jesus was raised from the dead. Why did He have to die?

2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 5:19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Hebrews 9:17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive.

Galatians 3:21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

Romans 6:10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

John 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Jesus did not allow Mary to touch Him because at this point He was carrying the weight of the sins of the world. He had not yet gone to the Father to lay His sacrifice on the everlasting altar.

When He returned later He returned in His eternal incorruptible state.

Daily Christian Devotionals