The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Colossians 1:21-23a,
"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel."
Holy in God's sight? Without blemish? Free from accusation? How is possible that someone like me could think such a thing? I know myself all too well. I know of the things I have thought, said and done. How is it that God could possibly find me holy and without blemish, free from accusation? Since God is the only one who determines my disposition following the grave, my destiny, since it is God himself who provides those who are his eternal life in paradise, since it is God himself who will place his people in a community of folks who are free from sinful tendencies and wholly given to that which is good, that which is enriching, that which is fulfilling and meaningful, since it is God who holds the key for me to enter into all that, then God's perspective of me is most important!
How is it possible God could ever view me in that kind of light? "Holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." How is that possible? It certainly is not based on my performance in this life, trust me! It is based on someone else's life, someone else's death. Paul tells us that God's view of perfection of us is due to Jesus Christ. Through his physical body in death, he has made this incomprehensible thing possible!
We read in Hebrews 10:9-10, "Then he [Christ] said, 'Here I am, I have come to do your will.'... And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." This is just an amazing thing! What do we have to do in order to have what Jesus did credited to our account with God, to be viewed by God as holy, without blemish and free from accusation? The answer is astonishing... "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast." This is good news! If it was based on my "good works" I'd never make it myself! Here is how Paul put it in Romans 3:28, "We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law."
This was no last minute thought after Jesus arrived here. We are told that this had been God's plan from before time began. "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." God decided before the creation of the world that we would be made "holy and blameless in his sight" through our faith in him! All the way back to Abraham, some 4 millenia ago, God tells us, "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness." Genesis 15:6.
There is good reason the gospel is "good news"! Who could ever have thought that our eternity begins and continues finding us holy in God's sight, without blemish and free from accusation?! No "black sheep" in God's family. If that were so, I'd certainly be one of them, were I to even make it into his family. But, because Jesus took my place on that cross, dying on my behalf, securing forgiveness in the court of God, I am now and will forever be holy and blameless in his sight!
How about you?
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!
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