The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“Accepted In the Beloved”
“Then Job answered and said, I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God? If he will contend with Him, he cannot answer Him one of a thousand” (Job 9:1-3).
The answer: Man cannot be just with God by contending with Him. We cannot barter, bargain, or barge our way into relationship and fellowship with One whose standard of being and behavior transcends our own by an infinite measure. He is who He is. We are who we are. Never the twain should meet, and never would they by any human means. “Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”asks Solomon in a companion inquiry to Job, also suggesting our futility (Proverbs 20:9).
Righteousness with God results from our Heavenly Father’s contending with His Son on the cross where the Lord Jesus was subjected to God’s wrath against our sin (II Corinthians 5:20). Calvary made possible the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus being imputed to us as a free gift, based in direct proportion to His having been “made to be sin for us” (II Corinthians 5:20). By God's grace received through faith, we become “accepted in the Beloved” because the Beloved was rejected in the fiery wrath of His Father's judgment. “My,God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). How should man be just with God? Look to Calvary, where a just man beloved from everlasting became a man condemned by both human and divine rejection. “They crucified Him… We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (Matthew 27:35; Isaiah 53:4).
Every approach to the aptly termed “throne of grace” occurs because and only because our Lord’s approach to His Father was barred when He suffered and died for our sins on the cross (Hebrews 4:16). No possibility exists of our ever knowing the nature, extent, and gravity of such contention that occurred in the very godhead itself. We only know that “through Him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:18). Indeed, by all rights, contention should still exist between God and every human being. By the atoning work of the Lord Jesus, however, alienation ends for all “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). This moment would be a good time to make our approach to the throne, rejoicing in our access through Christ. And remembering, while never being able to fully comprehend, His sacrifice that made it possible.
A trail of Blood marks the path
leading to the throne,
where God receives the trusting heart
approaching by His Son.
Without the cross, there could not be
this access freely known.
Without such sorrow, pain, and loss,
we'd have nowhere to go.
Yes, every prayer flows to the Throne
on flood tides of Christ's blood.
We come with grateful, trusting hope,
in wonder of such love…
A trail of Blood marks the path leading to the Throne.
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
(Romans 5:1-2)
Weekly Memory Verse
Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”(Philippians 1:6).
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