Friday, March 14, 2008

Worship for Today: God can use even our worst impulses for his purposes!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Acts 13:27-31,

The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

Amazing to me how it is that God can use even the sinful impulses of mankind to carry out his purposes. God sent his Son into the world to provide a sacrifice to pay for the sins of all mankind. Paul tells us in Romans 3:25, God presented him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. John tells us in 1 John 4:10, This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:16-17, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Also, in Luke 19:10 Jesus simply says, The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. For those unfamiliar with their Bibles, Jesus saves us from Gods wrath, his judgment of our sins, (and every soul that has lived has sinned.) He died in our place, to take the punishment due us onto himself.

As Paul speaks to the people of Pisidian Antioch, he notes that it was the failure of the people and rulers of Jerusalem to recognize Gods Son, so far removed from God they were, that in their jealousy and hostility to the One sent from God, they asked Pilate to put him to death. Without grounds for a death sentence they demanded that Jesus be put to death, so great was their murderous hostility. In this God used these sinful impulses of man to bring about his own agenda, something far beyond the small-minded purposes of sinful man: in Gods great love he brought about redemption for them!

The transcendence of God is something to behold! Nothing any of us can come up with is beyond our Creators ability to manipulate and/or use for his own purposes! As Paul articulates in his wonderful doxology of Romans 11:33-36, Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!

Trevor V. Fisk

(314) 814-8486

trevorf@gracehill.org

 

 


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