Verse of the Day 8/25

Through the Bible - Psalms128-130, I Corinthians 9

 

Good morning,

Yesterday we considered Barnhouse's statement that "love that stoops is grace."  The old hymn "At Calvary" came to mind.  Read the stanzas below, think of the 'mighty gulf" that God spanned to stoop down to us, at Calvary.

1. Years I spent in vanity and pride,
   Caring not my Lord was crucified,
   Knowing not it was for me He died
   On Calvary.       
   Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
   Pardon there was multiplied to me;
   There my burdened soul found liberty
   At Calvary.
2. Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan!
   Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
   Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span
   At Calvary!

For today's verse we'll go to Ephesians chapter 2 where we see that while we were caught up in our vanity and pride, Christ reaches down, only He can make us alive in Christ.

 

Eph 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
NKJV

Yesterday we considered a simple definition of grace - "the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man" in Titus 3:4  The life that we have in Christ as described in today's verses is available to us only through faith. 

You've probably read and I've shared some definitions of faith, but in its simplest terms it is "believing God's word and acting upon it."

 

Barnhouse writes, "Faith, to be worth anything, must have proper foundations under it.  That is why true faith can be in none other than the living God.  The counterfeits, which the enemy of souls loves to pass, claim the allegiance of some, but they are a debased currency and faith in them is valueless."

 

Our faith has its foundation in the cross and a risen Saviour.

 

Thank you Lord for spanning that gulf to show us  Your mercy, your forgiveness, Your grace, Your deliverance, and Your love.

 

In Christ,
Mike
mikevw@bellsouth.net
http://mikesvotd.blogspot.com
Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV
Eph 2:1-10

 

He Tore Down the Wall

 

2 It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

 

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
(from THE MESSAGE)