I Thessalonians 5: 9-10
For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out His anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when He returns, we can live with Him forever.
O my Father, You chose to pour out Your wrath on Your own Son, so that I could be saved. The wrath I deserve, You put on Christ on the Cross, so He died in my place; now I can live. And my life that I live now is powered by Your own Holy Spirit, the same Power that raised Jesus from the dead. And the Resurrection life that He lives now is at work in me, so that I can be and am being and will be continually changed into the very image, the character, of my Lord Jesus Christ. And when He returns I will be like Him, for I will see Him as He is, and will remain with Him and reign with Him on His Throne. Thank You, Father, so much!
And every one who realizes that God has called them into this same faith to believe that, will also receive this new life, as, "God is not wanting anyone to perish, but for everyone to come to repentance" (II Peter 3:9)
Because the paycheck we earn by sin is death (Romans 6:23); and we have all sinned, not even one of us is righteous (Romans 3:10-12, 18, 23). As a matter of fact, we are all born as creatures deserving God's wrath, having inherited from Adam that "original sin" that pollutes our DNA, making us defective in a moral sense (Ephesians 2:3).
That's why we all, without exception, have made poor choices in our reasoning, deciding on what turns out to be hurtful or harmful to ourselves or others. This is the "falling short" of God's perfect goodness, the archery term we know as "sin." We have also transgressed His rules for living in not loving one another with real Love, thinking that our natural affections will suffice. And we have neglected to do what is required to bring the good God has planned into His Creation and enjoy life here.
So we are broken, our families and neighborhoods are broken, our World is broken, our societies and our civilization are all broken, as we see every day in the News.
Jesus is our Lamb of God, the perfect Sacrifice that fulfills all the animal sacrifices; He shed God's own blood on that altar, the Cross, with enough value and worth to pay the sin-debt of every person who ever lived; and has purchased all of Creation, making Him the rightful Judge of all.
So God has shown Himself Just in pouring out all the wrath we are due on Christ; and Merciful, saving us out of this perilous World, protecting us from the enemy who hates us and his slaves he has deceived. Everyone who sincerely wants to know the Truth, who honestly desires the Light, regardless of whether its what they would "want" to hear or not: they will find real Life. Those who refuse to accept what they don't "want" to hear, but allow themselves to be deceived, will never find the Light because they love the darkness.
"You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord," (Jeremiah 29:12-13). All your heart means regardless of the consequences. When God began to draw me, He put into my heart the desire to know the Truth. It did not matter to me whether this Truth would be what I had always been previously taught to believe, or if it would be something completely different and contrary to those teachings, or something in between. It didn't matter to me. So I began to search.
Tomorrow I will tell you all about my search, if you care to read it. I love to hear other's stories of how God drew them into Saving Faith, so I will share my story with you.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
