Reflections is a Christian meditation
sent by Action Uganda Ministries and is meant to encourage and
edify.
"Just as redemption is impossible without Christ's blood neither can the church
exist without it: "The church of God, which He purchased with His own blood"
(Acts 20:28). The church is taken out of the dying Jesus' side, as Eve was
brought from Adam's body. Christ did not redeem and save man by sitting in
majesty on His heavenly throne but by hanging on the shameful cross, under the
tormenting hand of man's fury and God's wrath. Therefore the person who wants
his sins pardoned is directed to place his faith not only on Christ, but on the
bleeding Christ: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in
His blood" (Romans 3:25).
Faith, then, becomes active when it rests on Christ crucified for pardon ad
life. There are many acts of the soul which must precede this, for a person can
never truly exercise this faith unless he first has knowledge of Christ and
relies on His authority. Only then can he say, "I know whom I have believed" (2
Timothy 1:12). Most people are reluctant to trust a complete stranger. Abraham
did not know where he was going, but he knew with whom he was going! God worked
with Abraham to teach him the knowledge of His own glorious self-who He was-so
that His child could rely on His word, assenting to the truth of it no matter
how harsh and improbable and impossible it seemed, "I am the Almighty God; walk
before me, and be thou perfect" (Genesis
17:1).
God also wanted Abraham to recognize his own emptiness and inadequacy. He means
us to see what we deserve-hell and damnation. But He also intends us to
recognize our own impotence and how little-indeed, nothing-we can contribute to
our own reconciliation. I join them together, because one arises out of the
other. Our sense of emptiness comes from the deep apprehension we feel as we see
God's fullness and our own
insufficiency."
-From
The Christian in Complete Armour Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare
Published by Moody Press Chicago 1994 First Published in 1655
