always completely forgiven

 

He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Psalm 103:10

God's mercy and grace extend to sinners in His deep love for us. He provides a way for sins to be atoned and for our relationship with Him to prosper. In David's day, God would forgive through the act of obedience whereby a sinner in faith offered a sacrifice as an intervening priest took the life of an animal and offered its blood so that sin could be atoned. Today, God now sees us atoned by the blood of His Son.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

Psalm 103:11

What motivates God to be so merciful to us as to provide costly atonement for our sin? It is His faithful love. God saves us because He loves us. It is about His love and not our value. And it was that love that led Jesus to arrive in a stable in Bethlehem to die on a cross outside Jerusalem so that He could empty a grave and have us forever with Him.

as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103:12

We never have to doubt the extent of God's love and forgiveness. When He forgives a sin, He removes it from the record. Just as east and west never meet, so our transgressions once forgiven in Christ, are not to be held against us ever again. That is why God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess our sins to Jesus! That is so liberating. What joy is mine forgiven in Christ!

child in Bethlehem

 

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

There He lays, newborn with His family, come to save us from our sins.

But not just a child... He is a king.

We think Him tender and mild yet He is our Creator.

Infant hands sleeping curled, will raise the dead, calm stormy seas.

The voice that with words created the world is quieted as His mother sings.

A prophet of old called this child great things with titles so bold they could not fit earthly kings.

A Wonderful Counselor now held close in mothers arms would calm our souls secure in the Father's forgiving love.

The Mighty God, our Creator majesty would be considered odd by those He came to free.

Everlasting Father from eternity past teaches us what will matter for eternity yet ahead.

Prince of Peace sleeping peacefully would bring release from sin's tyranny.

store it up

 

I have stored up your word in my heart,

that I might not sin against you.

Psalm 119:11

The Word of God is my provision for life and my protection against sin. Knowing God's truth by reading His Word and committing it to my memory provides the best hope for me to make holy decisions in my life. I must be serious about daily exposure to God's Word and the intake of biblical truth and wisdom. It is my source of life as much as food and drink sustain my body.

I like the way the ESV translates this verse, because we store up things for two reasons: value and need. Treasuries exist to save money and resources to drive economies. Silos hold grain for future food. Banks keep money for when it is needed. In the same way I must "store up" God's Word because it is a precious commodity that will never spoil. And in the vault of my heart the Word of God can be ready to comfort and compel me in obedience. It can be the resource of strength when sin comes calling. It can be the armory from which I draw out the Sword of the Spirit to fight against my temptation. But I must treasure it. I must take action to "store it up" through things like journaling, extended reading, and serious meditation upon it through scripture memory.

Lord,

I thank You for Your Word. And I thank You that more than four decades ago You saw fit to save me, and though I was yet a young boy, You gave me parents who saw that I filled my life with scripture, who took me to church, who encouraged me to participate in scripture memory while my then young mind could soak a lot of it in. I have so much truth in my heart that I've drawn on for a lifetime! Thank You Lord for the treasure and sustaining goodness of Your Word!

Amen

the promise to the dreamer

 

Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Genesis 28:14

This Messianic promise came to a young Jacob as he lay dreaming, head upon a stone, in Bethel. There God gave Him the details of the Abrahamic covenant that had sustained the faith of his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham. He offered this conniving young man a unique role in God's unfolding drama of redemption. From Jacob's children would come blessing to all the earth as his descendents spread across the Promised Land.

Of course, this promise points to the ultimate blessing of all the people of the earth. That blessing arrived with Jesus. In Him all the world finds peace with God. In Him, all the wisdom and knowledge of God is found. In Jesus, God is known. Through Jesus and only through Him we have sins forgiven, peace with God, true blessing, and eternal life. As Jacob lay asleep with this fantastic dream of God's promise in his head, God was revealing His unfolding purpose of salvation.

And I sit here so many millennia later, hot coffee at my kitchen table, on a dark cold December morning, half a globe away from Bethel, looking back on how Jacob's wildest dream came true in Bethlehem. Preparing this Christmas to again celebrate Messiah's birth just a short 19 days from now, I pause to marvel at the revelation of Jesus in the faint stirrings of Messiah melody as I look up the rungs of Jacob's ladder with him.

Like the conniver Jacob, my own mess of a life is blessed by God in Jesus. He is my hope, my present joy, and my future blessing. I live my life with the dream of Jacob, longing for all the families of this earth to be blessed in and by Jesus.

manger to cross to tomb

 

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

1 Peter 1:17-19

Jesus is my perfect sacrificial lamb Whose blood ransomed me. I was bought away from sin and from sinfully futile "self-salvation" attempts by His great sacrifice. I can sing at Christmas because He died on the cross and rose again for the salvation of His people. It is true that Jesus is the reason for the season. Yet it is His redeeming sacrifice that is the reason for His incarnation in the first place. His precious blood paid the price for my sin. I must see the destiny of the cross and empty tomb as I gaze in wonder at the child in the manger.

At Christmas if I only see the shepherds bringing lambs to the manger, I miss the point. It is about the Lamb of God IN the manger... God sending His only Son in the flesh of humanity to live and die and live again, something God the Father pictured on Mount Moriah centuries before with Abraham and Isaac. That humble manger trough is filled with the precious little Lamb of God Who would take away the sin of the world. Jesus would fill not just a manger, but the world with truth. From the ridiculous, miraculous cradle at the manger He would be raised to make a tortuous, humiliating cross a brilliant symbol of God's love for humanity and then be raised from the dead so that an empty rock tomb became an arena of ultimate victory. 

By the precious blood of the spotless Lamb I am saved. And like the grateful worshippers around God's throne I sing, "Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain to receive glory and honor and dominion and power." The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world (yes... even my sin), and on Mount Calvary the Lord has provided my sacrifice. I believe and I am saved! Amen.

Sin's affects: not much has changed

 

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3:8

Sin destroys relationships. It damages our capacity for intimacy and companionship. It makes us aware of our differences and forces us into relational hiding. This is clearly shown in the sin of Adam and Eve at the Fall of humanity. Immediately upon giving in to the serpent's lying temptation and eating the forbidden fruit the consequences of sinful guilt come storming upon them. They were uncomfortable with themselves and hid their differences from one another with fig leaf underwear. It didn't help their sudden loss of intimacy but only made things worse as they hid from each other first.

And then guilt led them to try to hide from God behind the cover of garden trees and bushes. Of course, both efforts at relational hiding failed spectacularly. Sin is a cruel failure experience at all levels. It promises so much. It leaves us so crippled. It damages the human heart from the inside while taking extreme external measures of personal protection that briefly fool us into thinking we've got sin covered.

As sin did in Adam, so it also works in me. The Puritans used to teach their children: "In Adam's fall, we sinned all." And unconfessed sin is a guilt-inducing, soul-debilitating personal obsession that keeps me from knowing the joy of relationships with God and with people. When I "remake" myself, driven by guilt, and try to hide my sin from God or others, I hurt God and other people just as Adam and Eve did in the very first sin. They only had trees and fig leaves as hiding tools. I have a much more sophisticated toolbox of choices to utilize for hiding my sin, given thousands of years of help from sin's history as it has warped humanity! But in the end I'm just strapping on another fig leaf. The first step in dealing with sin is coming out from the bushes and letting God confront me in confession.

wise dominion over the earth

 

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26

Humanity was directly created by God to rule this planet. We have dominion over fish, birds, animals, insects, and the entire earth. This was the first command given to us about us. We were told to fill the earth and to rule over every living thing (Genesis 1:28). That is our mandate to creation from our Creator. 

Balancing dominion with wise stewardship honors our Creator. We rule the planet for the glory of God. Destroying the planet in the process is not part of wise rulership. But we also need not fear utilizing resources God has given to us. We must keep them in good form and balance. And we should not exploit people for the sake of the resources.

We were made to be holy stewards. But sin corrupts the way we command our planet. And to not acknowledge that is sin. I am no raging environmentalist, but I do firmly believe in managed conservation of forests, minerals, water, resources and wildlife. I this it is wise, even at the expense of big business. Without such management, humanity is just stupidly sinful enough to wipe out what God gave us to use.

Why do we have dominion over the earth? Because we are made in the image of our ruling Creator. God rules and wants us to rule as well. How do we exercise this rule best? Only through wise stewardship that can only be rightly understood and practiced in the redemptive work of Christ Who gives us the capacity to live in the image of our Creator once again.