The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“Only One”
Only one father would have acted as did God the Father, sending His beloved and divine Son from Heaven into a world wherein He became human, experienced the challenges of humanity, and ultimately died in the wrath of God against sin, and the wrath of man against righteousness. Why did He do so? How could He have done so?
“For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).
The answer lies in the wonder of God’s desire to be a father to us. Indeed, the One who created us, and then saw us rebel against Him so early in our existence, nevertheless loves human hearts to the degree He desires family relationship with us. “To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12). Shining brightly in the glory of such grace lies the truth that no matter how much we may love being our Father’s sons and daughters, He loves being our “everlasting Father" far more (Isaiah 9:6).
The cost - the cross - that made possible our spiritual birth into God’s family confirms the premise and the promise of such grace. Every believer must embrace the gift of sonship and daughterhood in order to walk with God in the light and power of its truth. Such fellowship, based on the sacrifice of the eternally beloved Son, bequeathed to us a salvation even eternity will not fully reveal of its grace, mercy, and wonder. Let us make it personal: God so loved you and me, and so desired to be our Father that He poured out His wrath on the Lord Jesus at Calvary. There, the Beloved cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). Thereby, God became our eternally abiding Father in the moment of our new birth: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).
God will be our Father forever, and gladly so, although presently our attitudes, words, and actions do not always please Him. Such a sublime promise of enduring favor should elicit in us the Apostle Peter’s “joy unspeakable and full of joy,” even as we rightly mourn that which our Lord had to experience to make possible the gift (II Peter 1:8). Yes, let us marvel that as much joy as it may bring us that God is our Father, it brings Him more. Only such a Father would do what He did to birth sinners into eternal family relationship with Himself. Only One.
“The Lord taketh pleasure in His people.”
(Psalm 149:4).
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”
(I John 3:2)
Weekly Memory Verse
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
(Hebrews 11:1)
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