The Joy of Glory

Discovering endless joy in the boundless glory of God…

Tag: grace

February 22, 2015

Lent Devotional: Jonah 1:1-17

Jonah 1:1-17 (click here)
Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. (Jonah 1:1-3)

Reflection
This is not a book about a big fish. It’s not even ultimately a book about Jonah. This is a book about God. It is a book about God’s grace. It is a book about God’s heart.

The very first words which come from the mouth of the Lord reveal his heart, “Arise, go to Nineveh…” Jonah knows what this means. Nineveh was an evil Assyrian city known for flying captives and draping their skins on their walls. They were cruel, bloodthirsty, and built their entire kingdom on violence.

This violence had affected Jonah’s own people and would eventually consume the entire Northern kingdom of Israel. Jonah knew that the Lord sending one of his prophets to this city could only mean one thing…God must be giving them an opportunity to repent. “Go to Nineveh” reveals the gracious heart of God and Jonah knows it (just read Jonah 4:2).

Yet these words reveal not only the heart of God… but they reveal Jonah’s heart as well. Jonah does not desire grace for Nineveh, but judgment. He wants to watch Nineveh burn. We all have our own Nineveh…don’t we. We have a place, a person, a people whom we would love to see as the recipients of divine judgment.

Jonah is meant to be a funny character. We smile at him as we see him try to oppose the will of God almighty and run from him. We laugh at this man…until he becomes a mirror. We are Jonah.

The whole point of this book is to reveal the gracious heart of God and to question the hardness of our heart. The whole point is to show us whether or not we have merely understood grace with our heads or whether we have been transformed by it in the depths of our hearts.

How can you know if grace is merely a head concept or if it has changed your heart?… You can know if you’ve been changed by grace not by how you react when it is extended to you, but by how you react when it is extended to others…when it is extended to Nineveh.

You’ve been changed by grace if you’re willing to extend it to Nineveh…because you know that you were Nineveh first.

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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February 21, 2015

Lent Devotional: Numbers 14:11-25

Numbers 14:11-25 (click here)
“And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.” (Numbers 14:17-19)

Reflection
Israel sinned in the desert. They rejected God… again and again. God’s wrath toward their sin was completely just.

Yet… God raised up a man, Moses, to stand in the gap for this sinful people.

Moses cried out for grace because he knew that God was gracious. He called upon the very character of the Lord to be displayed toward his people. He asked the Lord to pardon iniquity, show his steadfast love, and graciously forgive. And, Moses asked all this for a people who even rejected and mocked him again and again.

We know this story… don’t we?

We sinned. We rejected the Lord…again and again. His wrath toward our sin was completely just.

Yet… God raised up a man, Jesus, to stand in the gap for sinners like us.

But Jesus didn’t have to cry out for grace, as God in the flesh he could give it himself! Jesus, the very embodiment of steadfast love took on our sin that we might be pardoned, graciously forgiven. And, Christ did all this even in the midst of us rejecting and mocking him. What wondrous steadfast loving grace is this?

“…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

We have been shown great grace through Jesus. Now, like Moses, may we desire great grace be shown to others. May we stand in the gap for sinners like us and proclaim what they still need to hear… that there is a God who is steadfast love, who pardons iniquity, and who graciously forgives… his name is Jesus.

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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February 20, 2015

Lent Devotional: Leviticus 16:6-22

Leviticus 16:6-22 (click here)
Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house.

Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.

And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:6, 15, and 21-22)

Reflection
Grace does not mean that sin is simply swept under the rug. God is holy, righteous, good, and just…by his very nature he must deal with sin…and dealing with sin is always bloody because it deserves death.

So God, in his grace, provides a substitute to take our death for us. This is what the Old Testament Day of Atonement was all about. Aaron, the high priest, had a substitute bull for himself. The people had two substitute goats to stand in their place. One goat was sacrificed, pointing to the reality of what their sin deserved. The other goat was sent away into the desert, showing the reality that their sin had truly been taken away, removed.

God was not obligated to provide these substitutes…the people did not deserve them…they were freely given. This is grace…costly, bloody, beautiful grace.

Yet, can a bull or goat really be a substitute, a representative for a human being? Hebrews 10:4, “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” This is why the high priest had to perform this ritual again and again. It was never FINISHED. It was a symbol of what God was promising to do…of what God did do…through Jesus.

Jesus was our perfect high priest who didn’t even need to make a sacrifice for himself… yet he became our sacrifice! As fully human, he could perfectly represent us and be our substitute. As fully God, he could actually save us. And, Christ died in our place, taking what our sin deserved and removing it forever! Of his work he was able to say what the Old Testament high priest never could…it is FINISHED!

Hebrews 10:11-12, “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God…”

This is grace…costly, bloody, beautiful grace.

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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