Devotions that Resonate Truth

 
Ephesians 2:1-7 
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 
Last time, in Part 1 of this devotion, we delved into the idea of being dead in our trespasses and how trespassing is not a minor offense when it is an important place and person you are trespassing against (like the White House). We were dead in our trespasses, deserving eternal punishment.   
These verses tell us that’s what we justly deserve and then say, “But God, being rich in mercy...” 
God is rich in mercy.  
What is this “stuff” called mercy and how does one become rich in it? As a kid I remember hearing that you can think of “grace” as getting what you don’t deserve and “mercy” as not getting what you do deserve. I think that’s a helpful way to differentiate the two and I was happy to leave it at that for many years – mercy is me being spared from what I deserve. Then a few years ago I heard a preacher define mercy in a new way. He explained that to show mercy is to cut short suffering, to reduce someone else’s pain when you have the power to do so. This enriches my appreciation for mercy. I picture William Wallace at the end of Braveheart, being tortured for what he believed in, as the crowd of onlookers begin crying out, “Mercy!” Enough suffering, cut it short! Mercy! 
How does God’s mercy apply to me? Why should I care that he is rich in mercy?  
We trespassed, remember? Repeatedly, far down the path of sin, going against all that God is and loves. So we need the suffering that is coming our way to be cut short. 
To become rich in money or land or fame, one must accumulate and stockpile it. That’s what it means to be rich. But mercy doesn’t work that way, does it? You can’t become rich in mercy by holding it back – someone who shows no mercy becomes bankrupt in mercy. The only way to become rich in mercy…is to give it away and the more generous you are in your giving, the richer you become. So, tying this into the definitions above, a person who is rich in mercy generously cuts short the suffering of others by not giving them what they deserve. God is rich in mercy. 
So, how rich is God in mercy? He is the richest being in mercy, without question or challenger. If Forbes had a Mercy 500 ranking, God would be #1 and they couldn’t put a number to his mercy. #2 on the list would be hopelessly embarrassed to even be compared. Because God has offered every human soul the immeasurable mercy of full forgiveness and then has piled on top of that “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”  
Finally, and most importantly, remember that there is no net loss of suffering in this deal. Meaning, for God to remain a good and holy judge, there must be punishment and suffering for every trespass of his law. But praise be to God that he did not show mercy to his Son, Jesus, as he bore our sorrows on the cross - by His grace we are saved! 

Ephesians 2:1-7 
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 
There are two pictures in these verses that I am excited to share with you and I just can’t fit it into one devotion, so I’m splitting it into two parts and you’ll have to come back for Part 2. 
Here are the truth statements: First, we were dead in our trespasses. Second, God is rich in mercy. How do these two truths work together in these verses? How does God’s mercy apply to me? Why should I care that he is rich in mercy?  
The verse says I trespassed.  
There was a clear boundary line set by God and a big “No Trespassing” sign posted throughout his perfect instructions and I repeatedly crossed that line. And I didn’t just put a toe over the line, I trespassed far down the path of sin, following the course of this world, with Satan himself leading the parade. We tend to think of trespassing as a minor offense, with a minor punishment. But that completely depends on where you’re trespassing, doesn’t it!? Climbing over the fence onto Mr. Blackwell’s ranch, not such a big deal. Trespassing onto an army base, different story! Sneaking into the White House would likely mean being shot on sight and few would be surprised or think the action too strong. Why? You were only trespassing. These verses tell us that trespassing into sin, living in the passions of our flesh, is always punishable by death, eternal spiritual death. Sin is a big deal to God, it goes against all that he is and loves. This is what I deserved. 
I deserve eternity apart from God, in Hell even, for my trespassing – so do you. Try to quantify that amount of justly earned suffering. You can’t. It is infinite suffering. So, if God was to cut short my suffering and yours to 10,000 years in Hell, how much mercy would he be showing us? An infinite amount of mercy! So much less suffering!  
But he showed us even more. God has not reserved one year, one day, even one second for us in Hell. He has completely removed all punishment for our sins! As the hymn “It is Well With My Soul” says, “My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more.”  
As author Tim Challies notes, “Can you imagine singing, ‘My sin, not the whole but in part’? … To be partly forgiven is to be wholly damned. Partial forgiveness is complete condemnation. The Christian and the Christian alone knows the pure delight of God’s full and final forgiveness.”
I’m so thankful to personally know the delight of God’s full and final forgiveness.  
Now that we’ve explored the meaning of being dead in our trespasses, we are ready to delve into Part 2 next time - What is this “stuff” called mercy and how does one become rich in it? 

 
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 
 If you look up the word “reconcile” in a Greek lexicon, to see what the word in Greek meant to the original audience when the Bible was written, you’ll see that reconcile means “to change, exchange, as coins for others of equivalent value”, and also “to reconcile (those who are at variance), to return to favor with, to receive one into favor.” 
We needed to be reconciled to God. We were at odds with God.  
We have sinned against God, so we lost our holiness. There was a variance on the scales of holiness – on the one side, none. On the other side, the full weight of God’s holiness. There is only one thing of equal value to the full weight of God’s holiness, that will reconcile the account and cause it to balance and that is…the full weight of God’s holiness.  
 It’s needed on both sides. 
And believer, for our sake God the Father made Jesus to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might stare down at our side of the balance in shocked and wonderful amazement, and see that we have become the righteousness of God! 
Jesus’s spiritual coin of equivalent value sits on your side, with God’s on the other, and you are returned into favor with, are received into favor with God. And nothing can change that! And no one can ever remove it. Let’s bask in that reality. 
Even as we bask, let’s do the jobs to which we were appointed – as ambassadors it’s our job and should be our joy to tell everyone what God has done for us. Let’s encourage others to look down at their balances. They too have fallen short of the glory of God and have no hope to manufacture the righteousness of God that needs to be put on their side of the scale.  
John 1:12 
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. 

 
Romans 5:20-21 
Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
We humans are suckers for the one, most dangerous lie. It has haunted us from the last day in the Garden of Eden, to the minute you are reading this right now. The lie was devised by the Devil, the Father of Lies (John 8:44), so no wonder it is so “good” and we keep falling for it. Like all “great” lies, it is half-true. This also is key to its power over us. 
The lie accuses us first, then tells us how to feel, then tells us what to do. 
The lie tells us that you have done many, countless bad things. Just look back over your life, do you dare deny it? 
Having proven this point, don’t you feel ashamed? You should! 
Finally, what are you going to do about this mess you are in and this mess you have made? You must work harder to fix yourself and make things right again. 
We’re predisposed to believe all three parts of the lie. We’ve done many bad things (sin), we can’t deny it. We easily feel ashamed for it, if we dare look at ourselves. We would love to make these things right, but we’re also trapped in hopelessness by it – because it’s a cycle that is impossible for us to break on our own. Satan is so pleased with this lie and has found it so effective, that he has placed it at the root of all belief systems – they all spring out like different flavors of the same poison. Even those who have been freed from the cycle by the good news of Jesus, often climb back onto the spinning wheel of the lie and spend much of their time and energy on it – living like they are lost again. 
That is the lie, it’s not the reality. We need the truth! We need reality. Romans 5 gives it to us. 
The standard of perfection (the law) came in to show us how far from perfect we are and to force us to admit it. Hard, but it’s reality. “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”. Here, reality violently peels away from the lie. As your sin increased, grace increased even more. This is everything. This is the difference between sin reigning in death and having eternal life through Jesus. 
If you added more dirt, God added that much more detergent and bleach – you’re still clean! If you’re 100% clean, you can’t look down and see dirt anymore! And you can’t try to clean yourself, there’s nothing left to scrub!  
If you went further into debt, God added twice as much money to your account – you’re still rich! If you have an infinite bank account, why stew over that poor purchase? Why go out to try and make minimum wage on your own? Your debts have been paid in full, there’s nobody left to pay!
If you abused and killed another person, Jesus went to death row for you – AND DIED. It’s over, it’s been made right, there’s no point in you going back into prison, sitting down in your cell, and trying to pay for your crime. 
You should be skipping and dancing right now, but I’m afraid that the lie still has a grip on you. “Yes, God’s grace can cover my sins, but I should still feel shame,” you say. It feels like God will be more approving of us if we debase ourselves and live in the shadow. But look back at the three examples above. God did an earthly example of these things for Israel and God’s heart pours out through the prophet in Isaiah 61:7, “Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy.” 
The LAST thing God wants you to do, after rescuing you from the treadmill of slavery to sin and the effort to fix yourself, is for you to climb back on! That doesn’t make him happy, it breaks his heart. Instead, soak in the reality and reject the lie! Stand firm in His everlasting joy and cast off the cruel and pointless habit of shame and of pushing God away until you are “good enough” or “better”. In Christ, he’s already made you perfect. 
Remember Galatians 5:1 
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 

 
1 John 4:14 
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 
 
This is one of the simplest verses in the Bible. It has no big words and can be understood by a child on its first reading. There are two people mentioned in this simple verse - a father and his son. The father gave his son a task to complete. He sent him somewhere, to do something. He sent him on a mission. 
As a son, I remember being sent on many tasks for my father.  I grew up in Mexico and sometimes after dinner, I remember being sent by my father to go out the door of our house on a corner, and cross a small street to a “tienda” - a little store. My mission? To buy “Pinguinos” - a pack of two, small, delicious cream-filled, chocolate cupcakes. 
I would buy these and run them back to my dad. I’m proud to say that I was successful in completing my mission every single time I was sent. But that’s because it was an easy task, an easy mission. It didn’t cost my dad anything more than some pocket change, and it didn’t cost me more than a couple minutes I was happy to spend. 
Maybe you remember some tasks that your father sent you on, too. But let’s look at this verse about the Father and his Son and the task in question. The apostle John tells us that he and others, “have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son … to be the Savior of the world.” 
And you thought your chores were bad. What a mission to be sent on! To be “the Savior of the world”! 
Here is what this simple sentence tells us: First, the Father was willing to send his only Son into the world, to die, so that we might live through him (that’s what verse 9 of this chapter says).  
And second, the Son was willing to be sent into the world. From the very beginning, his task - his mission - his Father’s directive - was for him to become the Savior of the world by being the propitiation for our sins (as verse 10 says). The sins of humanity - my sins and your sins - bring divine wrath. Jesus completed his Father’s mission on the cross, where he bore that wrath for our sins. For the sin you committed last night, the one I committed this morning. 
It was the Father’s perfect holiness that required such a mission, and the Son’s perfect holiness that made him capable to complete it. But the problem the Father was solving by sending the Son on his mission was that He was separated from the people that he loved.  He wanted closer relationship with us, and it was this love that compelled the Father to send the Son, and for the Son to complete his miraculous chore. John just keeps repeating it and repeating it in chapter 4; he has to keep trying to say it different ways! You are loved! I am loved! By God of all people! For love is from God, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. God is love! And he offers his love to the whole world! To us! No discrimination! 
 
As the New Living Translation says it,  
1 John 4:9-10 
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.  

 
Ephesians 3:18-19 
That you, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 
How do you capture the infinite dimensions of the love of Christ with words? In these verses in Ephesians Paul tries to turn three dimensions into four – here’s how that verse reads in the Nate’s Artistic License Version, “may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to experience the love of Christ that blows your mind.” 
 
The picture here could be of a vast ocean of love being poured into an array of small cups – utterly unable to contain all the knowledge or fullness of God’s love, yet full and overflowing. Or of a parched and dying man arriving at a huge waterfall of pure, cold water.  He doesn’t stress about his inability to drink the whole waterfall, but he enjoys every deep gulp and knows he can drink and drink and the water will not run out! 
 
Sometimes we get used to having an ocean of love and our minds cease to be blown – so stay with me as we look at one dimension of Christ’s love that we don’t always look at. Imagine we are sitting in a small group right now of ten to fifteen people and I ask you to share your most embarrassing moment. What are you going to share with us? As each person shares and it comes around to your turn, you’d weigh the light and trivial stories shared so far and in similar fashion you’d reach for your fifth most embarrassing moment. 
 
But your most embarrassing moment isn’t even what just came to mind, those are funny little stories. To be embarrassed is to be ashamed. So, your most embarrassing moments are actually the things you are most ashamed took place. This is deeper and darker; we don’t share these stories around the campfire and laugh. These are things we would give anything to undo, to erase, to take back. But you can’t. 
 
What if I held out big red button to you and told you that if you pushed it, every single moment of shame from your life would disappear from your life and would transfer to mine? Those bad things would never have happened and you would be completely free of them. Some of you would see this as the chance of a lifetime and would tackle each other on the way up to push it. Others would feel that would be a horrible and unfair thing to do to me! Both feelings would be valid. 
 
We see Jesus in the bible, holding out his nail-pierced hands, with a scar in his side, and he says to you – “’you don’t even have to push it, I already did.” 
 
It is finished. 
 
The founder and perfecter of our faith, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He despised the shame, just as you despise your shame – but he did it for the joy of taking it away from you, bearing it for you. 
 
At the cross, Christ loved me. I experience that love, I know that love, and when I die, I will really know, really experience the exchange of all my sin, my shame, my guilt, my brokenness completely removed – that is a love that blows my mind. 

 
Galatians 3:10, 13 
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”  
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” 
The words “law” and “curse” conjure up strong pictures in your mind and mine. Law makes me think of government and police officers, and curse makes me think of witches and magic, since those are the places in my life where the words come up most often. But I know innately that these verses in Galatians can’t be talking about either one of these pictures. What spiritual pictures does Paul actually want you and me to see? And deeper than that, as God speaks to our minds today – what hope and power of God are provided in these words, for our strengthening, that God wants us to picture and understand? God wants us to see everything differently in the next 24 hours because we’ve read these words and thought about them. 
Let’s start with “curse” because it sounds the most interesting. You and I were born under a curse – that sounds fantastic – in the sense of “from a fantasy,” but it also sounds dark and a little creepy. Is this voodoo? What is the curse and who cursed us, some witch looking over the railing to our crib? A curse is a pronouncement that if we do something (like poke our finger on a spindle), then something terrible will happen (like dying). Well, the verses say everyone who doesn’t do everything perfectly that is written in the Book of the Law is cursed. Since the Book of the Law was written by God, the one who has cursed us is...God. And what is our curse? Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:22 that just getting angry or calling someone an “idiot” breaks the law and the judgment, or curse, is “the hell of fire.” Who is able to go a full week without anger or the occasional put down? What a standard and what a consequence! Jesus himself is God’s law enforcer and those cursed to hell will be there in torment for eternity. So, the picture God wants to convey is that the law is everything God has told us to do and the curse we live under is not just a little creepy. If we get the real picture in our minds, it’s terrifying. 
With that fixed in our minds, we’re now ready to add the words of Galatians 3:13. God tells us that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” – and that his physical act of hanging on the cross is where our curse was lifted and placed on him. The song How Deep the Father’s Love says that we see “our sin upon his shoulders”. This is sounding really good, but it’s even better than you think because there are two parts to us no longer being under a curse!  
The first part of being cursed is that no matter how hard we try – including the people who lock themselves in convents and monasteries and deprive and beat themselves, which I think is harder than you’re trying – no matter how hard we try, most of what comes out of us is the list of things listed below in Galatians 5:19-21. 
Galatians 5:18-24 
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 
How tragic to want to stop doing all of these horrible things, but be unable to, because you’re cursed. That is the first part of our curse. 
The second part of the curse is waiting in prison for our punishment for being this way. Whether it’s waiting for a parent to come back and punish us, waiting in a courtroom for the judgment against our wrong, or the extreme case of those waiting on death row for their final day of life, waiting for a punishment is awful. The anticipation of pain and the look in our parent’s or the judge’s face puts a knot in our throat and a pit in our stomach. But according to Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us – so the second part of the curse is lifted in its entirety. There is no punishment left for us to wait for, our sins are draped around his neck and the only hard part is watching him receive the lashes, blows, and wrath of God. But we feel joy because we couldn’t stand the crushing weight and it would never have been lifted. We are free from this curse forever! 
More than that, he also freed us from the first part of the curse. Galatians 5:22-24 shows us that when Jesus died, he not only removed the curse of our punishment, he crucified our flesh and gave us the Spirit of God. We’re no longer cursed as slaves to the acts of the flesh: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” This curse is also lifted, and look at what is able to flow from us now and define our relationships: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control”. 
The curse is broken. The curse is lifted...and placed on him. There is no dread of the curse. There is no hopelessness from the curse. There is power in the Spirit, there is freedom and joy and life – so let us rejoice and live this reality that is ours!  

 
Psalm 40:1-2 
I waited patiently for the Lord; 
    he inclined to me and heard my cry. 
He drew me up from the pit of destruction, 
    out of the miry bog, 
and set my feet upon a rock, 
    making my steps secure. 
I opened my eyes to utter darkness. It was incredibly quiet. I was unable to tell where I was, except for the cold damp walls pressing in on me from all sides. I could also feel the thick, sticky mud gluing me from my waist down. Each breath was full of the acrid smell of death.  
Looking up I saw a small disc of blue at least 50 feet above. But this escape route didn’t give me any hope, it was not the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. In a vertical tunnel, it only solidifies that fact that it is impossible to get out. Ignoring the facts, I dug my fingernails into the slime-covered walls and tried to pull myself up. Maybe if I could get clear of this mud, then I’d be able to climb the rest of the way. I lifted a knee and tried to push out in all directions, but it was no use. After trying for half an hour all I had accomplished was to exhaust myself and cover my whole body with the slop. 
This is when, being a logical person, I began yelling uncontrollably in panic. “Help! Somebody help me! I’m stuck down here!” Thirty minutes of this left me hoarse but no closer to getting out alive. I was miles from town and nobody even knew where I was. My spirit sank lower in the muck as I remembered how I got here, it was my own fault, there was no scapegoat to blame. I…had dug…this…pit. And I’d enjoyed the digging! At least at first, and when the pleasure of the hole waned, I dug it deeper, trying to restore the satisfaction and pleasure I desperately craved. I’d underestimated how slick the walls would be…it was so easy to slide down, it was effortless. But no amount of effort could get me closer to the top again. 
I waited. I looked up to the only place salvation could come from. The blue orb suddenly went black. Then it came back. There must be someone up there. “Help!” I croaked again and I heard a reply. “Don’t worry son, I’m going to pull you out of this pit.” Lowering a rope down to me would be useless, I knew I didn’t have the strength left to hold on, even if he could lift me. 
The sound of muffled talking managed to reach me at the bottom and I could hear two distinct voices. They must be discussing the plan or maybe they were talking about the fact that I was a lost cause. Suddenly the light went out again and I could hear something being lowered down to me from above. I waited and then I felt something – no, someone! Then he spoke to me. “My dad tied this rope around me and lowered me down to you. I’m going to tie it around you now, if you’ll let me, and my dad will do all the work to lift you up out of this hole of death. I’ll stay here in your place until you are drawn up to safety and then he’ll pull me up, too.” 
I hung like a rag doll as the father hoisted me up with powerful pulls on the rope, never hesitating or stopping to catch his breath. I knew I was saved when the dark, slippery world I had grown used to suddenly exploded into light and color and immensity. The father set me on the clean, dry ground. 
Here are words and ideas that the bible has when it describes the spiritual pit: injury, death, graves, perishing, flung alive, sinking in mire, destruction, falling, dark and deep, swallowed alive with the pit closing its mouth over you, a narrow well, Sheol, no hope, terror, the slain.  
Does that help? Are you there?  
I’m not just asking rhetorically…not just in your imagination. Are you still there?  
We all dig a pit and we all fall into it…the bible tells us that, too. I was there, too. But I’m not in my pit anymore! How did I escape you ask!? Just as Psalm 40:2-3 continues, 
He drew me up from the pit of destruction, 
out of the miry bog, 
and set my feet upon a rock, 
making my steps secure. 
He put a new song in my mouth, 
a song of praise to our God. 
Many will see and fear, 
and put their trust in the LORD. 
When you realize that you are in a spiritual pit and cannot get out, and you fear and put your trust in the LORD, you have a song of praise to God! 
Psalm 103:1-5 
Bless the Lord, O my soul, 
    and all that is within me, 
    bless his holy name! 
Bless the Lord, O my soul, 
    and forget not all his benefits, 
who forgives all your iniquity, 
    who heals all your diseases, 
who redeems your life from the pit, 
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 
who satisfies you with good 
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.