14 September 2013 - personally grateful

14 September 2013 - personally grateful

“No one has gone up to heaven

This is a fairly significant statement.  Heaven is sealed.  The human race cannot enter while this is true.  What alternatives do we have?  None that we want to consider.  At this point we are probably thinking about how most people aren't so bad and how we really deserve heaven.  Isn't it fair?  We didn't choose to come into this broken world ourselves.  Shouldn't someone compensate us for all of our suffering?  We already begin to devalue God's gifts with this attitude.  Rather than being grateful for life and being we become resentful and demanding.

We're like the people of God in the dessert who complain, "We are disgusted with this wretched food!"  We find ourselves on pilgrimage through the dessert of life and rather than trust in God to lead us to the promised land we find ourselves criticizing his provisions.  We think that we're entitled, not only to the promised land, but to a nice limousine to drive us there, preferably with cable and champagne.

If we can't even recognize God's providential care in our lives he sometimes takes steps to open our eyes.  He must reveal the illusion of our apparent self-sufficiency.

In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.

The people now see that without God's care they will never make it to the promised land.  They will die on the way.  Without God's providence even to exist for another moment is impossible.  Fortunately, he is rich in mercy and heals all who acknowledge their sin and turn to him.

Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent 
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. 

And, although we really do our best to merit condemnation

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.

But to give us life he takes a step that reveals the magnitude of the depravity that all of us not-so-bad people share.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.”

This is what sin does.  This is what our sin does.  We must look upon him whom we have pierced (cf. Joh 19.37).  We must be personally grateful for the mercy whereby

he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death,
even death on a cross.

We must not "forget the works of the Lord!"  We must remember that he is our rock and redeemer.  He wants to give us life!  But to receive it we have to come to grips with the reality of our situation and turn to him with deeper and deeper trust in his mercy and providence.