Devotional Guide For the week of March 16, 2008
GOD SO LOVED
About self-glorification
To read the Bible in one year, today read Job 1-3
To Know:
³This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son
into
the world that we might live through him.² (1 John 4:9)
³God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever
believes in him shall not perish² (John 3:16) Really? Did God do wrong to
send his Son to die in order that we might not perish? Is it really true
that people will perish unless they believe in Christ? Jesus declared that
we absolutely would. In John 3:16, Christ warned the teacher of Israel
concerning the great danger in which he stood. Jesus interpreted his
impending death by pointing to the dying Israelites in the days of Moses.
Poisonous s****s threatened to kill off sinful Israelites in the
wilderness.
The s****s were Godıs wrath against their wickedness. Surprisingly, the
image of a s**** became a way of escape. ³The Lord said to Moses, Make a
s**** and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and
live.ı² (Nu. 21:8) Jesus likened his death to the s**** in this Old
Testament episode. The Lord said, ³Just as Moses lifted up the s**** in
the
desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in
him may have eternal life.² (Jn. 3:14,15)
Modern American Christians often trivialize sin. We need to heed the Old
Testament prophets. Why does Isaiah ask, ³how then can we be saved?²
(64:5)
The prophet answers himself in the next verse. ³All of us have become like
one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags²
(64:6)
Isaiah says, not our evil deeds, but our righteous acts are sinful in
Godıs
sight. God searches the heart to see if our every motive is to please God
and display his glory. We sin when we do a thing for its own sake or for
our
own glory. Self-glorification is not the reason we were created. The
remedy
for our sin was the lifting up of our Savior on the cross. It was to
strike
us dead in Christ. Therefore those who look to him in faith will live and
not perish.
03188$-03188
<{{{}><
|
