Gospel

Dear YOU,

In the midst of a crazy busy week where I’m tired and unprepared for the work ahead of me and off my guard, susceptible to ordinary temptation - as I am poured out this week to be filled spiritually before I head to Thailand with a team that humbles me - as I survey the massive list of to-dos and get-dones, I need to spell out the Gospel for myself.

I need to be brought into the throne room.

Who among us is without sin.  No one except Christ.

Oh Lord how far-reaching, how radical, how relentless is your loving grace!  I am counted as righteous for your sake, your glory.  I am shamefully sinful and woefully wicked but you desired me more than I desired you.  You desire me SO THAT I would desire you.  How marvelous is that kind of love!

A love so great that while I was still dead in my sin, you gave me life at the cost of your Son’s.  He was without sin but punished more severely than we will ever know - he spared us from the cup of wrath.

Jesus came to earth to know me, so I could know him, so I could know you!  Jesus consumed death and conquered hell so I would not be bound by either, so I could eternally know you.  A generous, full measure of life has been gifted to me by Christ, for your eternal praise.

But I still fail.  I am often overwhelmed, afflicted, foolish, selfish, and ignorant, and I sin.  This temple you have created of me, I tend to ruin.  It’s never perfect, but it is being perfected.  Your love endures forever.  Your love endures forever.  Your love endures forever.  Forever God is faithful.

After the exile, when the Temple is being rebuilt, people begin to shout for joy.  They are so excited for the work being done, looking forward to a holy future.  At the same time people are shouting for joy, others are weeping loudly - so loudly in fact that Scripture says the sounds of rejoicing and the sounds of weeping were indistinguishable (Ezra 3:10-13).  Amidst the joy over what is to come there was also serious lamenting of what had been lost.  Maybe that’s how God feels about us - with the same mouth that issues Him praise we also defame Him.  His joy over us remains in the righteousness He has given us, but His grief and pain over us comes from our struggle to remain in His love, abiding by obedience to what is True and Life-giving.  

We’ve already been given the Good News, the Gospel.  I find an incredible amount of comfort in the fact that God knows our struggles - He expects it - He paid the price for it.  That struggle is not eternal though - I find rest in the age to come.  “Ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun.  I’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when I first begun.”

And I’m still singing.