GOD’S WORD FOR MAY 21

GODS WORD FOR MAY 21 ~ ~ Jeremiah 31:34 ~ ~ “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Yesterday was the end of chapter one of John Piper’s book, from which I took excerpts. Today, I’ll sum up the process of thinking that he presented:

God takes pleasure in Himself only because He cannot honor anything that is less than perfect. He is the only perfect being.

We see this in Hebrews 6:13:

“For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,”

Since Jesus is the exact image of the Father, in all perfection, the Father takes pleasure in Jesus as His own image.

This is not vanity, as it would be for us, because God is perfect beyond our comprehension, and “worthy to be praised”. For us it would be vanity because calling us perfect would be a lie. We are NOT worthy to be praised.

So, the Father could not give honor to us without losing His perfection in the process, and then He would cease to be the highest of perfection. He would, in effect, cease to be God.

BUT when we are saved, we accept our position IN CHRIST and thereby our imperfection and sinfulness is hidden from the Father. He only sees Christ. He, of course, has chosen to hide us, for nothing can be hidden from God that He wills to see.

Colossians 3:3

“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

So He can and does take great pleasure in us—not because of anything we are or anything we could do—but because He sees His Son’s face in ours, so He only sees the perfection and glory that He shares completely with the Son.

We see that same concept with regard to our sins here:

Isaiah 43:25

“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.

Notice He says, “for My own sake”–In other words, He chooses not to remember them—-to hide them.

Micah 7:19 ~ ~ “…. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

Psalm 103:12 ~ ~ “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

All He sees is His image in Jesus!!! And doing that doesn’t clash with His Perfect Godhood.!!!

We were in Christ before we were born.

In fact, all this was planned, and accomplished, before He even created space and matter, and all creation that He brought forth in that!

The entire process was done before time existed, therefore, it was finished before time began!!!

Think about that!

Ephesians 1:4 ~ ~ “ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,”

Stop and think about all this! —REALLY THINK!

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