Grace

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life"...John 3:16

What blessed familiar words.

I was thinking today of how to explain God's gift of salvation to my children. Logan has started thanking Jesus for dying for our sins during prayer time...and that is such a beautiful blessing. But I wonder how much he understands the magnitude of that gift. I am...well, let's just say "older" than Logan...and I still have a hard time comprehending the magnitude of what God did for me when He sent His Son....His one and only Son...to this earth to die a horrible and wretched death on the cross, just so that I could have a home in Heaven.

So here is what I thought of...imagine you are taken hostage by a foreign power, and your captors go to the President of the United States of America, arguably the most powerful person on the planet, and say "We will release this person (you) if you (the President) will sacrifice your life for them." I don't think anyone reading this has any question that it would be an unlikely trade.

But Jesus....exponentially more great and powerful than any man, laid down His life for me. And if I was the ONLY person in all time on all the earth to believe and accept His gift of grace, He would still die for me. How amazing!

I think sometimes we forget, or underplay, or have a hard time comprehending that Jesus didn't die for the group of people labeled "Christians", He did not sacrifice himself on the cross for "the Church"; He died for me. Just me. And you. Just you. And all that He asks in return is your faith in Him. A personal, individual, daily walk with Christ. Not on Sunday, not in church, not at Wednesday night Bible study, but in the car on the way to work, in the board meeting, in the kitchen cooking lunch for the kids, every minute of every day.

I recently read about a lake in Minnesota that is only warm for about 8 weeks in the summer. It is a glacier-fed lake and even at its warmest, only about the top 10 inches are really comfortably warm for swimming. I don't want to be like that lake, I want to be warm to the deepest depths of my being. I want to be enveloped in the heat of the Son, and warmed to the core, every day of my life.

My goal this week is to walk every day with God. Take a few minutes out of each day to spend some personal, close, individual time with Him.

Love and Prayers....