The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Ephesians 1:3-4,
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight."
One of the struggles we humans have with forgiveness is that we have memory. Sometimes it is just difficult to let it go when we have been wronged, even when we have been asked to forgive. Thankfully, as believers, God has empowered us to love one another and forgive whatever grievances we may have against one another. Often, however, we see someone who has been a culprit in the past and possibly family or friends are unable to accept him or her as fully forgiven. They have a black mark on them, so to speak. The "dark sheep of the family", that type of thing.
When God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, he forgave us all our wrong-doings when we embraced him in faith. He brought us into his family, we became new members of his kingdom. When God did this he could have marked us as a kind of second class citizen or family member. One who required the death of his Son, and so accepted - in a qualified way. Black sheep of the family.
Paul tells us here that nothing could be further from the truth. When God forgave our sins (paid for on the cross by his Son) he determined before the creation of the world that those who would be redeemed would be "holy and blameless in his sight." As if we had never sinned at all! While I'm quite certain we will never lose sight of the fact that it was only through God's love and grace we were rescued from his judgment, we will not retain the status of "the black sheep of the family" in the resurrection. We will be accepted as though we had never sinned in the sense that we will be "holy and blameless" in his sight.
To me this speaks of the wonderful heart of our God who has saved us for eternity with him. He doesn't want us to be hanging our heads for an eternity, fumbling and struggling with guilt or a perceived second-class status in his family. We will be fully accepted! Fully embraced! We will celebrate new life with him in a standing of holiness and blamelessness!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
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