The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
"The Freest Gift. The Highest Cost"
Salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ provides the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted.
"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).
This truth elicits great joy in the realization that God secured a redemption for us without cost because we could never have paid for it ourselves. His righteousness is too pure and our sin too defiled for any remittance on our part to have been adequate in securing our pardon and acceptance. The divine standard shines in the glory of pristine perfection, thus barring any human effort to cleanse ourselves in order to approach God. We either come by the way He made, through the price He paid - or we do not come at all. "We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2). Thereby, believers "rejoice with joy unspeakable" in the wonder of such salvation and "the things that are freely given to us of God" (I Peter 1:8; I Corinthians 2:12).
Upon further reflection, we also mourn as we remember that the freest gift came to us by the highest cost - "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit" (I Peter 3:18). What aberration would have ravaged the righteous heart and soul of the King of glory as He bore our sins and was "made to be sin" for us? What would death mean for the Prince of life? What horrors arose within the spirit of the Lord Jesus as the Father's wrath fell upon Him? How can we ever comprehend - we cannot - the utter loneliness of abandonment expressed by our Savior's cry into the darkness, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). Little wonder that salvation blesses us so freely. How could it not when the price paid to secure its grace required a sacrifice infinitely more costly than we will ever know? "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (I Peter 1:18-19).
Salvation in the Lord Jesus, rightly received and appreciated, blesses us with the purest of joys in its free gift. It also elicits the most profound of sorrows as we recall the price paid by our Savior. Both sensibilities flow within the hearts of the redeemed in a completely proper synthesis of gladness and grief. It must be this way because the gift comes to us so freely. But it was purchased for us so sorrowfully. Yes, salvation in the Lord Jesus bestows the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted. Surely joy and mourning have their proper place in those forever blessed by the gift, and those forever mindful of its cost.
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."
(Isaiah 55:1)
"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed."
(Isaiah 53:4-5).
Weekly Memory Verse
He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment, a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.
(Deuteronomy 32:4)
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