"You must now be silenced before Me, able to ask only one question: 'How can I, a lost and guilty sinner, stand before a just and holy God? (1:18-3:20)
When you sincerely ask that question, when you realize how poorly you love and how badly you long to be loved with a love you don't deserve and can never earn, you will hear the answer: I have found one way, the only way, to love you as if you have always loved Me and to empower you to realize your destiny - to actually love Me and all those around you, even those who fail and hurt and disappoint you terribly..." 66 LL
God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son...In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. (8:3)
This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" (8:15)
"Be clear on the one way that makes it all possible. It is the gospel...[My Son's] death frees Me now - without compromising My holiness or weakening My hatred of sin - to welcome you into My family, to bring you to the divine party, ready, eagerly willing, and miraculously able to join the Trinitarian dance..." 66 LL
If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? (8:31)
"But...you must recognize your lingering inclination to think you've arrived, to believe that you have lived in such a way that obligates Me to bless you. Brokenness and dependence must define your journey. There is a battle raging inside you." 66 LL
Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And they stumbled into him and went sprawling. (9:32)
"You stand with confidence before Me now and will one day dance at My party because of My Son - because of nothing and no one else." 66 LL
Thy don't seem to realize that this comprehensive setting-things-right that is salvation is God's business. (10:3)
Say the welcoming word to God - "Jesus is my Master" - embracing, body and soul, God's work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That's it. You're not "doing" anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. (10:9)
"Everyone who calls, 'Help, God!' gets help." (10:13)Thank You, Father, for seeing my desperate condition and initiating the only way to salvation. Thank You, Jesus, for submitting to the Father's will, living the perfect life, and loving me so much that You endured the cross. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for confirming who I am in the Lord and guiding me every moment of every day.
Lord, thank You for giving me the faith to trust You and for this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right (5:17) with which You have blessed me. I am speechless, overwhelmed with gratitude.
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