Before we knew we were lost, we were sought.  Oblivious to our rebellion we were known and longed for.  Our Saviour’s coming was in the works before we were born…God’s great grace is phenomenal.  His love is beyond our comprehension and yet, by His Spirit He unveils Himself to us.

I am reading in Jeremiah this morning God’s pleading words to His children, His bride:

“Have I been like a desert to Israel?  Have I been to them a land of darkness?  Why then do my people say, ‘At last we are free from God! We won’t have anything to do with him any more!'” 

In exchanging their glorious God for worthless idols,  and forsaking the Fountain of Life for hand-dug worthless cisterns they had  chosen for themselves a desperate bondage worse than the first.

But God…

…being rich in mercy reveals Christ, a baby come into the world to seek and save the lost, the clueless, the blind…sent to serve as a ransom, to buy back the rebel who will turn like a child and believe, marvelling at the Son who has been given for his redemption.

There was no other hope.

“Who can create purity in one born impure? No one!” (Job)

“No amount of soap or lye can make you clean.  You are stained with guilt that cannot be washed away.  I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken!”

But God made a way. We glimpse it this advent season in the baby lying in a manger in the dark of night unknown as yet to all but a few…but the match has been struck, the light shines…and the Good News will spread. The undeserving will find themselves chosen for joy.  The lost will be found.  The far from God will be brought near through His Son.

“Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come fearlessly into God’s presence, assured of His glad welcome.”

This is a glad welcome I want to live in, a love I want to know more deeply than I now dare to believe.  This is my prayer for you and me both this advent season:

“May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvellous love.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is…then you will be filled with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

–LS

Thoughts based on: Luke 19:10; Mk.10:45; Jeremiah 2, Job 14:4, Matthew 18:3; Eph. 3:12,17-19NLT