The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The Advocate"
"To the degree the Lord Jesus was forsaken on the cross of Calvary, we will never be forsaken."
"If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (I John 2:1).
All will require the advocacy of Christ on our behalf. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us" (I John 1:8). The Apostle John references born again believers in his assurance that the Lord Jesus not only died for us, but now lives for us at the right hand of God as our intercessor.
"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:10).
While the atoning work of justification was completely finished by our Lord's earthly sacrifice, His Heavenly mediation for us continues during our present lifetime when we remain subject to temptation and sin. The Lord Jesus intercedes for us by His presence at the right hand of God, where the Father sees the wounds suffered when He imputed our sins to His Son so that He might never impute them to His trusting sons and daughters in Christ.
"The LORD hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).
"Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Romans 4:8).
The Lord Jesus bore our sins that they might never be placed on our account. God does not impute sin to any believer because our Savior so suffered the totality of divine wrath against them. Certainly, He deals with us as a loving Father if we disregard the seriousness of sin. "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6). Never, however, is it possible that He sees our sins as jeopardizing our relationship with Him, a truth based on the breach of relationship that occurred on the cross of Calvary when He smote His Son "made to be sin for us." "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me" (II Corinthians 5:21; Matthew 27:46). To the degree the Lord Jesus was forsaken on the cross of Calvary, we will never be forsaken. Moreover, to the degree He bore our sins, we will never bear them. "The Lord will not impute sin" to us because in so doing, He would minimize the untold sorrow and suffering of His beloved Son on the cross of Calvary. Indeed, the Lord Jesus purchased for us the gift of "I will never leave thee nor forsaken thee" by the agony of "My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?" (Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 27:46).
God sees believers through the lens of Christ. He sees our sins in the light of Christ's advocacy for us. This maximizes the seriousness of how we must view those times when we distrust and disobey our Father. A wounded Advocate intercedes for us at the right hand of God. In the light of such grace, made available by such a cost, we rejoice in unassailable acceptance by our Father, and we sorrow in the price required and paid in full to make it possible and eternally secure…
So much given, so great the cost,
so terrible the sorrow, so vast the loss.
When on that day at Calvary,
the Father smote His Son,
when for us He forsook Him
to bleed and die alone…
So much given, so great the cost.
So much given, so much forgiven.
So great the mercy shining in His face
when on that day we first believed,
and in this day as we receive
the grace to live in faithfulness,
the beauty of His holiness…
So much given, so great the cost.
So much given, of new and holy life,
grace that cost Him all, His holy, precious life.
For on that day when we believed,
His Spirit entered in.
And in this day when we believe,
He lives in us, we live through Him…
So much given, so great the cost.
"There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
(I Timothy 2:5)
Weekly Memory Verse
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.
(James 1:13)
7110
No comments:
Post a Comment