All we like sheep have gone astray… and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
--Isaiah 53:6
When Jesus died on the cross, he paid the penalty, the price, and the debt for your sin. He took your judgment, your hell, and your death on himself!
This means that Jesus PAID IN FULL the penalty and the price that you could not pay. That is the love of God. That is the remarkable salvation that God has given you and me! God is so good. He is so gracious. God is a good God!
Some have grown up thinking that God is an ogre… that God’s an angry God. But friend, listen to me! It is the goodness of God that leads us to a place of repentance. That word repent means to change. We cannot change ourselves. God changes us from the inside out.
And to repent of our sin means to say, “Oh, God, I’m sorry for my sin! I don’t want to live this way any longer! Lord Jesus, I believe that you can take away my sin and give me a brand new life.” And because of the goodness of God, we are led to repent.
Have you repented of your sins and asked God to change you from the inside out?
IT IS THE GOODNESS OF GOD THAT LEADS US TO A PLACE OF REPENTANCE.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.”
Genesis 25:31–34
In 1799 a twelve-year-old boy named Conrad Reed noticed a strange rock in the river where he was fishing near his family’s home in North Carolina. He took the heavy rock home and showed it to his father. John Reed did not recognize what it was, and for the next three years, that rock was used as a doorstop in the family home. Finally it was showed to a jeweler who immediately identified it as a massive gold nugget—weighing 17 pounds. The jeweler melted down the ore the gold into a large bar, and then bought it from John Reed for $3.50, which was only 1/1000th of its true value. Reed soon learned how much gold was really worth, and established a profitable gold mine on the family farm.
God has given us so many blessings, yet far too often we do not value them as we should. Instead, we trade the valuable for fleeting trinkets and give up the eternal for the immediate. Like Esau, we magnify our needs and desires out of all proportion. Esau was in no real danger of dying from hunger after a day in the field, but he allowed his hunger to lead him to his foolish choice which had bitter lifelong consequences. “For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Hebrews 12:17).
Today's Growth Principle:
Gratitude for all that God has given us is a powerful protection against temptation.
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