Grace For The Journey

The Bible says in Luke 2:18, “All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.”  I encounter far too many believers who have, for a variety of reasons, lost a sense of wonder in their walk with Christ.  The shepherds preached the simple message of the Gospel, and “all who heard it wondered.”

We should keep that sense of wonder

Every step of the way into the Celestial City.

It is my prayer that these few words in today’s blog will encourage you today to do just that.

The prophet Micah’s name means “Who is like Yehwah?”  Isaiah reminds us of the many names of our God; one of them is “Wonderful Counselor.” (Isaiah 9:6)

Our God is like no other,

He is Wonderful,

And the witness of wonder

Must be our daily experience,

Because holy wonder

Leads to heartfelt worship.

When we think about Who God and what He has done, we should be in a  continual state wonder!  God came after rebels on the run – our first parents, who willfully disobeyed His one prohibition in the Garden – to restore them them and not to destroy them.  Instead of casting them into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and starting all over with a new “first couple,” God cared for them.  And if that isn’t enough to keep us in a state of wonder . . .

God the Father sent His beloved Son

To pay the penalty for our sins,

So that you and I would be brought back

Into right relationship with Him.

Surely this is

The wonder of wonders!

I am convinced that wonder wanes when we shift our focus away from Christ and put it on our circumstances.

Our thoughts become trapped

In the temporal and the earthly,

And we miss out on the wonder

Of the eternal and the heavenly.

When this happens, we must journey back to Golgotha, where our Lord hung on a cross and died in our place.  The Lord Jesus Christ chose to be forsaken by His Father so that you and I would never experience utter and eternal damnation.  And now God is able to say in Hebrews 13:5, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”  What unimaginable wonder is this, that our God has pledged His fidelity to us for all eternity?

A holy wonder

That leads to heartfelt worship

Will ultimately lend itself

To hopeful watching.

This will keep us looking up, rather than out and in.  When we are looking up at Jesus, we will sense His presence so greatly wherever we go that we may well wonder why we have not taken off our shoes, since we are standing on holy ground.  We will cry out with the psalmist, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders You have done, the things You planned for us” (Psalm 40:5).

The witness of our wonder

Should never wane

When we look back

At all God has done for us

And look ahead

To all God has promised yet to do.

So . . . how would you rate the witness of your holy wonder?  If you find it to be a bit less than what it should be, you need only shift your focus away from your circumstances and center it on Christ; get into God’s Word and discover what great things He has done for us.  If you pause long enough right now, you may even feel the scars on those hands that hold you tightly and will never let you go.

Oh, the wonder of it all!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”