What God has done for His People

We hear it preached in our church services, we see it on the pages of scripture as we read. What God has done for His people. Do you ever just stop and actually think about this? The greatest act of love mankind could ever experience.

The God of all creation stepped down from heaven and died for us. Full of grace and mercy, full of love and compassion, full of glory and righteousness. What was it about each of us that God had seen that made Him cast His love and mercy on us? What did we do to deserve this grace that He freely gave? The answer is nothing at all.

In our finest hour we deserved nothing good from God. We have nothing worthy to offer, and our works come from selfeshness. We deserve nothing but eternal punishment for the sins, great and small, that we commit against Him. There was a great chasm between us and God, a chasm that would be an eternity wide and deep. We had no hope, we had no future, we had no life in us.

Thankfully God Condescended, meaning God willingly stooped down or lowered Himself. And we see this in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the God-man. The Son of God, second person in the Trinity, graciously left His throne to take on flesh. He entered this wicked world with purpose, to do the will of the Father. He was tempted as we are but did not sin. He felt the pains of hunger and thirst but did not complain. He was mocked, lied on, made fun of, beaten and murdered on a cross to bring salvation to His people, to reconcile sinful man back to a thrice Holy God.

I love this quote from Rev. Paul Levy concerning the Condescending God: “The Creator became a creature; the One who hung the stars lay helpless in a manger. The One who we teach our children is so big, so strong, and so mighty became so tiny, so weak, and so powerless. The King of the angels was made a little lower than the angels. The Creator of time entered time. The One whose everlasting arms are underneath His people lay vulnerable in His mother’s arms.”

Just stop and think about it. God became man through Christ and entered this world bodily, to my sin and placed them on Himself, and placed His righteousness on me. Took my shame and gave me grace. When He was stretched out on the cross He had stretched from ene to end of the chasm and the way was made for us. Not a partial way, He closed the gap. He didn’t pay a partial payment, the debt was canceled.

I speak for myself but it applies to everyone, I did nothing. Through Christ I passed from death to life in an instant and I did nothing to earn it. When I was dead in sin and loving those sins, God had already set His love upon me. When I was living as if there was no God, He was revealing Himself to me and showing me the sinfulness of my life. The way was made for me, the sins Christ nailed to the cross had my name on them, the blood He shed was because of me and was for me.

I could not imagine life without God. Life without the cross. Life without hope and assurance. All things are meaningless and empty vanity without Him. The dirt that covers the grave is of more worth than those who die outside of Christ.

God I thank you for what you have done. Thank you for sending your Son that we may have life in Him. Thank you for the times we are reminded and help us to always be reminded and to forever be thankful. Amen.