Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Almost too good

The secret of the Lord is a life-freeing revelation of His lovingkindness toward us at the point of our failures. It is the Holy Spirit enduing us with a powerful revelation that nothing can separate us from the covenant love of God. He is not mad at you, so get your eyes off your sin and gladly receive the free access you still have to the Father, through the cross of Christ.— It Is Finished, page 171

<idle musing>
The Hebrew Bible has a word for that: ḥesed
<rabbit trail>
Note the dot under the h; it sounds like the ch in loch, so you'll sometimes see it as chesed. A nice exposition of it is in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT), both BibleWorks and Accordance have TWOT by default, not sure about Logos because I don't use it; Strong's number 698 (but don't use Strong's dictionary!) for those of you who don't do Hebrew.
</rabbit trail>

This does not mean he is easy on sin! Quite the opposite! God hates sin because it is contrary to his nature and destroys the ones he made imago dei (in the image of God—his image). He hates sin so much that his intent is to destroy it in you. He will stop at nothing less! That's why we are a new creation in Christ; that's why the old is gone. That's why we need to fix our eyes on Jesus, not on ourselves. It is only as we we fix our eyes on Jesus that we begin to realize the riches we have in Christ. That is the gospel—good news! I'm not a better me. I'm a new me, clothed with righteousness and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit!

Can you tell this stuff gets me excited? : )
</idle musing>

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