Who Could Imagine?

                                     

                                      Who Could Imagine?   

      Jeremiah 31:34 tells us that God says, "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." And in Hebrews 10:17 He says, "Their lawless acts I will remember no more."

      In both of these passages 'remember no more' is equated with 'forgiveness.' 

      Psalm 130:4 states this truth another way: "If You, O LORD,  kept a record of sins, O LORD, who could stand?  But with You there is forgiveness."

      So God deliberately chooses to not only forget our sins but also to not even keep a record  -- a list somewhere that He could go back to and check if He wanted to refresh His memory...like if He got tired of fooling with us and wanted to really punish us! 

     Since God is all-knowing, this act of forgetfulness is a conscious deliberate act of His divine will. And  'no more' means it is permanent! 

      Who could even imagine a God like this?

      Thanks to Him and praise Him forever that we don't have to imagine -- He has explained it to  us - and showed us at the Cross!    

Creation or Re-Creation - Which is the most Difficult?

       Creation or Re-Creation -  which is the hardest?


One of my favorite saints, Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote this 900 years ago:*

     'Creation was not so vast a work as redemption; for it
     is written of man and of all things made...'He spoke the
     word and they were made' (Psalm 148:5)

     But to redeem the creation which sprang at His word, what               hardships He endured, what shames and pain He suffered!

     In the first creation He gave me myself, but in His new
     creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me
     the self I had lost.'

I love that idea....At creation He gave me myself, but at my
redemption He gave me Himself!

It's the history of the world - from creation to re-creation...all that matters is what He did in the first place and then later in the second place, and then what He will do in the future!

It's all about Him - history is simply his-story!


*From On Loving God, by Bernard of Clairvaux

Not all that sure? C S Lewis

Just as the Christian has his moments when the clamor of this visible and audible world is so persistent and the whisper of the spiritual world so faint that faith and reason can hardly stick to their guns, so well as I remember, the atheist too has his moments of shuddering misgiving, of an all but irresistible suspicion that old tales may after all be true, that something or someone from outside may at any moment break into his neat, explicable, mechanical universe.

Believe in God and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality; disbelieve in Him and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all.

No conviction, religious or irreligious, will, of itself, end once and for all this conflict in the soul.

Only the practice of Faith resulting in the habit of Faith will gradually do that.

          --From 'Religion: Reality or Substitute?'
                  in Christian Reflections, by C S Lewis

Another Prayer from Daniel

 

                               Another Prayer from Daniel

Another notable prayer in the Book of Daniel is in chapter 9.

He begins, as in the prayer in chapter 2, with a song of praise and adoration: "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of love with all those who love Him and obey His commands..."

And then he confesses the great sins of his countrymen..."We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and rebelled,, We have turned away from your commandments and laws. We have not listened to our servants, the prophets."

He doesn't make excuses or blame their circumstances for their faithlessness to their ever-faithful God.

He just admits their sin.

And his conclusion to his prayer?

Maybe the most audacious request in Scripture: "We do not make our request of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy.  Lord, listen; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, do not delay."

Remember the gospel song -- 'Grace that is Greater than all our Sin' --? 

And the contemporary song, 'His Mercy is More' -- "Our sins they are many, but His mercy is more"!

That's what Daniel is counting on! And so am I!

Without His mercy there would be no forgiveness. Without His Grace there would be no hope.