Day 251

Day 251

Pray (ACts)

Read - 1 John 3:1

Message - Alan Burke
It is hard to believe that tomorrow it will be December, maybe you plan to just to pretend that the next month is just like any other month and lock yourself away only leaving the house some time in January when it’s all over. Or maybe you’re the one of those people who have been counting the days and you have had the tree up for the past month and it’s going to be magical. Many of us though grew up living in fear when December came, hoping we wouldn’t get coal, constantly reminded of the lyrics he’s… “Gonna find out who's naughty or nice” and “He knows if you've been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake!”. Now children have a spy who sits on the shelf watching their every move, or the treat that Mummy or Daddy can ring and tell on them.

Yet there is nothing that you can do and there is nothing in you that in any way is deserving of God’s love. I’d say we have been ‘bad and naughty’, not ‘good and nice’ but that doesn’t really give the full picture of who we are in our natural state. The bible makes clear though that because of the fall, we lost communion with God,(Gen. 3:8,10,24) we face his displeasure and curse; so as we are by nature children of wrath, (Eph. 2:2–3) and justly liable to all punishments in this world, and that which is to come (Gen. 2:17, Lam. 3:39, Rom. 6:23, Matt. 25:41,46, Jude 7). It may not be nice reading but the fact of the matter is no matter how good or nice we may try to be, we are sinful, we are altogether sinful and are by our very natures the enemies of God. This truth makes the love that God has lavished on us all the more remarkable, for all we deserve is condemnation yet he choose to love us because He is love. This is the Love that God has lavished upon us that we may be his children, for Jesus came and for all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (Jn 1:12). We must always remember that God was under no obligation to save us from our sin. Even less was He obligated to grant us the privilege of sonship that we might receive an inheritance in His Son (Eph. 1:11).

God loves us in spite of how we are fallen sinful people, it is a love he has lavished upon us, a love that we will not experience in any other relationship.  Yet the love God shows towards us is lavish, for he God chooses to love us because he is love. For the believer, we can be confident that the title that we have been given the status that we have is secure, it will not be revoked, we cannot loose our salvation for we are the children of God and nothing can change that, this is the assurance of the believer, the confidence we have in all that we face, we are God’s children.

God loves you Christian! Not because you deserve, not because you’ve been ‘good and nice’ it because of Christ. Remember this great wonder, that God has lavished upon us, at the love God he has showed to us in making us His children. This is what has happened us through faith, we have become his children, we are such, it is a reality, this is our assurance in what we face, that we possess in the here and now and nothing can change it. That is what we are John exclaims!

Pray (acTS)

Sing

WSC

Q 27 Wherein did Christ’ s humiliation consist?
Christ’ s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, (Luke 2:7) made under the law, (Gal. 4:4) undergoing the miseries of this life, (Heb. 12:2–3, Isa. 53:2–3) the wrath of God, (Luke 22:44, Matt. 27:46) and the cursed death of the cross:; (Phil. 2:8) in being buried, (1 Cor. 15:3–4) and continuing under the power of death for a time. (Acts 2:24–27,31)
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