365 Days with God - Day 65: In Spite of Us

I'm giving myself a challenge. Read the Bible each day for a whole year, following the ESV Study Guide 1-year plan. Each day, I will post whatever God has revealed to me in His Word, and how it is changing me. A friend of mine once said that nothing has changed her life as much as reading the bible each day - and I'm excited for how this will change me. Join me on an adventure into the heart of God - and day by day, we can learn more about who He is and what that means to us!

- Andy Catts

Day 65, February 23, 2014

Readings: Psalm 65 Exodus 9:13-35, Exodus 10:1-29, Ezra 1, Romans 3:21-31

Despite our wickedness, despite our depravity, Jesus came. Jesus loved. Jesus gave everything.

And for what?

You. Me. Everyone who would believe in him. Not for good people, who did the right thing. Not for the preachers and his "servants." No, Jesus came to love ordinary, messed up failures who would never get it right. Who couldn't get it right. Who knew they were hopeless. Who gave up on being perfect because they knew they couldn't do it. And he came and gave up everything for sinful, broken people like me. And it is the most glorious thing that has ever happened.

But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26)

We are saved by God, and God alone. And it is a gift. A glorious, wonderful gift. We can't earn it. Rejoice in the beauty of the most wonderful gift that has ever been given - or ever will be. Can you share that gift with someone else?