My latest post on the Women-Together leadership blog is available!
He propped those screws right up against the tire. Three times, they punctured. Three times, we limped our way to the mechanic for a patch. Three times, he saw the damage, the inconvenience, the interruption to our day, but never connected his action to the events until the mechanic handed over the screw.
The brother encourages him to tell, because “it is always better to tell,” instinctively knowing that confession is good for the soul.
He scrounged up all the courage his little frame could muster and spoke the hard-honest truth. It was his fault.
My heart swelled at his courage, his decision to speak Slide1and believe what we have been repeating for years.
Our family…
…says what we’re sorry for…
…never stays angry…
forgives.
With trembling lips, he waited to see if our mantra was true. Fearful eyes understood what we didn’t need to say. This was big—bigger than anything he could fix on his own. Worse still, he had no excuse or reason. Equal measures of boredom and curiosity set the plan into motion. Forgiveness, should he receive it, was undeserved, unmerited, and unearned.
Undeserved. He punctured those tires as much as my sin punctured the hands and feet of my Lord. We are both stained with sin.
Unmerited. Grace is the unmerited favour of God toward me. Grace is the best response to his hard-honest confession. He might not deserve it, but one thing I know for sure is that I certainly don’t, yet here I am, drenched in God’s grace.
Unearned. Even with all the coins in his piggy bank, he couldn’t pay for those three patches. It had to be done for him. And even with all of humanity’s good works stacked from bottom to top, the price of sin is still more. It has to be paid for us, for me.
Together we stand as recipients of undeserved, unmerited and unearned forgiveness. Praise the Lord!
*from the archives
This is for the one buckling under bad news. This is for the one who tugs her sleeves over the track marks of her past. This is for all of us limping barefoot down the broken and narrow road. This is for me. This is for you.
The Lord is everlasting to everlasting, the first and the last, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, who calls, adopts, brings to repentance, and clothes the filthy and unclean in robes of righteousness.
You invite the wretched to come. You take all that is true in the enemy’s taunts and place it upon Jesus. In the greatest exchange known to mankind, You take my sin and You give me Christ. I can’t earn it, I don’t deserve it, but you do it anyway. You are for me. Your plans are good for me, even when this busted world makes the opposite seem true. Your Word promises that beauty will rise from the ashes of disappointment and heartache.
The gospel truth is life-changing not only in that first moment of salvation, but in every moment that follows. The gospel truth matters today because I need You today just as much as I needed You yesterday and just as much as I will need You tomorrow. The gospel is good news for the guilty, good news in the mundane, and good news for the shamed. It is good news for every day.
The gospel truth declares me clean, holy, righteous, and able to stand before You, Lord, because Jesus makes it possible. I approach Your throne with confidence knowing You hear my prayers, have gone before me and walk beside me even now.
You are good even when life is not. And when the shame of my sin, the weight of my guilt, the hugeness of my needs overwhelm me, You remind me that you are enough. You are more than able to cover my sin, remove my shame and meet every need perfectly. I praise You, Lord. In all the earth there is none like You.
When I don’t know how this trial ends I will remember how this story ends. You are victorious. Nothing can steal victory from You and from all who believe in You. And I belong to You. I am cupped in the palm of Your hand and no one can steal me from You. Thank you, Lord!
I lift dirty hands and yield a wretched heart. My righteousness shrivels into filthy rags. My heart is full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and maliciousness. I am a gossip, a slanderer, a hater of God, insolent, haughty, and an inventor of evil. I am disobedient, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. I am a truth suppressor without excuse and with a darkened heart[i]. I am dust, nothing, apart from God. This is who I am.
The creator and sustainer of life comes to me. The redeemer, the one who parts the waters and turns water into wine, the one who causes the blind to see opens my eyes. The rock of my salvation turns my heart of stone into a heart of flesh. He walks on water. He heals diseases. He has authority over darkness and evil and raises the dead to life. He is unlimited in power and unequaled in majesty. He is my refuge, my hope, and my deliverer. He is the one who multiples fish and loaves, who the wind and waves obey, and who knows hunger, weariness, and temptation yet remains without sin. He is my Saviour.
Fully knowing who I am, He imputes the righteousness of Christ upon me. The GREAT I AM no longer sees my sin. It is gathered in the wind and blown away. God sees his beloved Son standing in my place.
Praise the Lord!
[i] https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2010/08/27/what-are-we-apart-fro-christ/
I’m spending today before my Lord in quiet, in worship, and in His Word. As my mom prepares to go into surgery the Lord takes me to Revelation 21 and I am in awe of His unending mercy toward all who call upon His name.
I dwelt on the new heaven and the new earth, the holy city prepared as a bride, where God dwells with man, and God wipes every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain—for they have passed away.
A voice from the throne declares, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Here, there is no need for the moon or the sun for the glory of God gives light and its lamp is the Lamb.
All this awaits if your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life.
As the heavy decay of fallen life increases with each rotation of the earth, the blessed truth of Revelation 21 breathes fresh hope in Jesus. There will be no more tears in hospital waiting rooms or funeral homes. Loved ones will no loner pass away because death itself will pass away. All things will be new for those whose name is written in the Lamb’s book of life because God says they will.
No matter how today ends, this truth remains: God is making all things new. With a heart full of thankfulness, I praise the Lord!
*adapted from the archives
News Year Day is my day to pop in the earbuds and crank the worship tunes. I tuck the holiday glitter and noise into their pre-Christmas storage bins for approximately 345 days of slumber. It’s a calming exhalation of clear surfaces and bare walls. And I don’t stop there. Each room gets a January clean sweep and bags and bags and bags of goods head off to the second hand store.
It’s such a contrast to that pre-Christmas feeling. You know, the feeling of vibrating energy and anticipation reflected in the non-stop action of the house. Everywhere we look something or someone is proclaiming it is almost here – the birth of our Saviour! The notes of this concerto increase in intensity as we celebrate years of prophecy proven true. He is here! He has come for us! I love EVERY. SINGLE. MINUTE.
Then, one day, commercialism tells us it is over. Commercialism tells us to start preparing for the next holiday. But as I look around my unstuffed house, the lilting notes of Christmas linger. This song is less intense than the holiday jingles. This score of unknown length continues to play in the days after. It plays after we celebrate the birth, after we remember the death, and after we praise God for the resurrection. This gospel-living refrain is the soundtrack behind every normal and gloriously plain post-holiday moment.
This gentle tune slowly builds toward the moment when Christ returns for his own. Could today be the day? Now would be a most wonderful time to be gathered into the clouds with the Lord. I can almost hear the angels singing…
Yes, Christmas is over. But one day, perhaps on an ordinary day much like today, we will have the most wonderful day EVER. Christ is coming back for those waiting and living for Him, saturating each ordinary moment with gospel truth.
Until then, let our song of praise rise to heaven. O come, Lord Jesus, come.