The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Enough"
Part 2 - More Than Enough
How satisfactory was the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God?
"When said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified" (Hebrews 10:12-14).
In God's sight, His Son's work on His behalf and our behalf so fully completed atonement that He accounts all sanctified unto Him through faith in the Lord Jesus as "perfected" (completed) forever. By "sanctified" in this passage, the writer of Hebrews refers not to our works or spiritual performance during our earthly lifetime, but rather to our sealed, grace-given bond of relationship with God forevermore. The Apostle Paul affirms such grace in his epistle to the Colossians: "Ye are complete in Him" (Colossians 2:10; Ephesians 4:30).
"Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Romans 4:8).
God will not place sins on the account of His trusting children in Christ because we have availed ourselves of the reality that our sins, all of them, were imputed to the Savior on the cross of Calvary (I Peter 2:24). To place them on our account would be to ignore the marvelous work of atonement the Lord Jesus executed in His death for sins. This our Father will not do, not first because of His love for us, but rather because He sees His Son's work as so perfectly complete that abounding sin bows before far more abounding grace in Christ (Romans 5:20). How we must see this completely Christ-focused truth as the basis for an eternally assured relationship with God. As a songwriter friend once beautifully penned…
"It is surely sufficient for me, it is surely sufficient for me. If the blood of Christ is sufficient for God, it is surely sufficient for me."
Or, as the hymn writer echoed…
"Nothing in my hands I bring, only to Thy cross I cling!"
The Lord Jesus "sat down on the right hand of God" because He had completely finished His atoning work. He so satisfied His Father's righteousness that He imputes its Blood-bought merits to us as a "free gift" (Romans 5:15; 16; 18). Do we join Him? Are we satisfied in the Lord Jesus' redeeming work on our behalf? Do we see Him as God the Father sees Him, that is, as the One who bore our sins that we might bear His righteousness? Is the Lord Jesus enough for God, and is He enough for us? Of the former, we can be sure of the answer. Of the latter, we must "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 3:18).
The most godly among us barely begin to see how glorious a Savior God has given in His Son, or how great is the salvation bestowed upon all who will receive it by faith. Eternity will indeed not be long enough to discover how more than enough is the Lord Jesus to those who come to the throne, the throne of grace, with empty hands and hearts full of wonder in the Christ whose "one sacrifice for sins forever… hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."
"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
(Romans 5:19-21)
Weekly Memory Verse
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God."
(II Corinthians 3:5)
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