11/13/2025
If we live according to the commandments, are we owed righteousness and everlasting life? How can we be so bold as to feel this way after Jesus walked into the vile pit of worldly sin and human debasement, suffered for us there, took on our sin, died, and was raised again... all for us in our undeserving and fallen state. He loved us first; he chose us in love before the creation of the world and knew us while we were yet in our mother’s womb. So, how is it then that by simply being moral or working at following God’s commandments that we feel entitled to redemption and eternity?
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20 KJV
I was praying at the altar one Sunday morning, and I overheard a man praying for someone who was sick; he was speaking loudly and in a demanding voice as he said, “I claim this healing, I demand it by your word and promise!” My heart nearly ruptured when I heard those words and felt the spiteful authority in his voice! I couldn’t imagine making demands of the God I loved, and certainly not in such a tone, or in such a manner. Yes, I trusted in God’s promises but I would never speak to Him with such insolence.
God sent His Son to the cross for us out of love, a love we did not deserve to receive, and once we experience the grace and goodness of our Father’s love, how could we ever speak to him in such a manner? When we have received His sacrifice, the life and death of Jesus, how could we ever demand His compliance to our wishes as if we somehow deserved or commanded His attention?
As a boy, I only spoke to my earthly father in such a tone once that I can recall, and it shamed me. This man, my earthly father, loved me with every breath he took, and his gentleness of spirit flowed from him. I didn’t honor him out of an obligation to his having sired me or his claim to the head of the family, but in loving reciprocity for the love he showed me.
In our opening scripture Paul said “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” As Christians we cease to be the source of life within ourselves, and Jesus becomes the source of our life. As believers we realize that we love our Heavenly Father because He first loved us… How could we not. because He “IS” love and created us in His image. If our own life force, and attempt at loving, is all we have then death is our destiny, but with God’s love and the blood of Jesus Christ eternity awaits.
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 6:23 KJV
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
1 John 4:8 KJV
Jesus isn’t the fulfillment of a legal contract man had with God... He is God’s gift to us, our endowment! He is the greatest gift of love given by God and we receive Him without occasion. He is the Lamb of God sent as a symbol of God’s deep and abiding love for us. He is restitution, redemption, and salvation all rolled into one. He is the very life of eternity that courses through those who accept Him, follow Him into righteousness, and are sanctified.
“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:30-31 ESV
So, the life of Jesus isn’t so much what we seek to imitate, but rather what we long to live because we are in Him, and He in us. Pastor Oswald Chambers wrote of our undeserving and inadequate position relative to salvation, and of our inability to earn Christ’s redemption by any sacrifice we might make in these words...
“Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims - that He can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterably pure, absolutely rectified and profoundly justified. Stand in implicit adoring faith in Him, He is made unto us “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” How can we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of a God! Our salvation is from hell and perdition, and then we talk about making sacrifices!” - Oswald Chambers
In the presence of Jesus, we become humble, and if we are not... then we are not really in His presence after all. So, it is our place to humbly accept His gift; the gift of grace that we didn’t deserve and yet our Holy Father has sent by Him.
I used to roam my grandfather’s farm, and one day I heard a sound coming from underneath one of the old log houses that were being used for storage. It was a familiar sound and I was thrilled... it was the sound of a little kitten. So, I used my best kitten voice and began to coerce and cajole until at last I could see the face of a sad looking little guy, and continued until he was within reach where I grabbed hold of him. He was reluctant but I drug him out and inspected him. He was malnourished, dirty, and sickly, but that made me love him all the more.
So, I tucked him in my shirt, brought him to my grandmother’s house, fed him a bowl of milk, and then, to his reluctant compliance, I cleaned him up. When he had dried from his bath we laid down together and I petted him. He purred, and I spoke lovingly to him until we were both napping. Afterwards he followed me everywhere I went, and as the days passed he began to recover and became beautiful.
This is what God has done for us, He has found us dirty, sickly, and without nourishment, yet despite this He has loved us and called us to Himself. Despite our having done nothing to deserve it, He sacrificed and fed us with the food of His own Son, and cleaned us up by immersing us in the cleansing blood of Jesus until our faith became a thing of beauty. But unlike the kitten in my story, many of us choose to run off and go right back underneath the old house where we had been found, or to bite and scratch at the hand that longed to pet us.
So, which orphaned kitten are we? Are we the loving and grateful one, or the rebellious kitten that bites, and then runs back to his old life in the filth beneath the storehouse? Are we the ones that love the boy because he first loved us, or those that come out from the dark only if there is a bowl of milk placed there to lure us?
Which do we Choose?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your Son Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and the Gift Bearer of your grace for mankind. I thank you for allowing me to live in Him, and He in me. Your love for me was established and reached its fullness from the foundation of the world, and you have known me before I was born. How can I ever think that I deserve or can earn your love; a love that has existed from before I was. Holy Father your grace is sufficient for me and instills in me the life of Jesus Christ that lives throughout eternity. In Him I am in you, and all of creation is laid out before me. Although I am an unworthy man you have seen something in me that has caused you to hold me lovingly in your arms and allowed me to love you in return. Praised be your name Father and may the glory of your grace and mercy forever shine upon you in honor of your greatness and love! Holy, Holy, Holy are you who has called to me and desires to make me your own. Holy are you who sacrificed your only begotten Son Jesus Christ that I might become your adopted child and an heir and joint heir with Him.
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
Romans 8:16-17 KJV
Amen!
Rich Forbes