Oh What a Savior!

Oh how precious is our Savior! Great is His love for His sheep. Those of us who are the redeemed of Christ should ever be praising His holy Name! He is beautiful to behold. He is most Wonderful, the One True God! All ye saints of Christ come, let us adore Him. He is worthy of all adoration and praise from those of us who belong to Him. We are the bride of Christ! Who is this King of Glory? (Psalm 24) Let's take some time today to recognize our LORD, the Everlasting God! I love reading Charles Spurgeon because he was faithful to always remind us saints of our complete wretchedness! Only when we begin to see our complete and utter sinful nature and our desperate need for a Savior can we truly start to understand the precious Gift of salvation. Spurgeon, in talking about Jesus said, "Contemplate the infinite condescension of the Son of God in thus exalting your wretchedness into blessed union with His glory". Amazing thought. He often called himself and the rest of us saints "worms". Isn't that right? Do we deserve to think any higher of ourselves than that? And yet even in our sinful condition, the Lord of glory chose to die for our sins so that we could be in right relationship with the Father! That, dear ones, is Love! And once we are saved we are called children of God! Spurgeon says that, "Electing love has selected some of the worst to be made the best". That's ME! I raise my hand and shout it from the mountaintops! It is me, I am a wretched sinner, the worst of the worst! My sins are horrible and there was nothing about me that He would choose me. There was nothing but a life covered in sin. And now that I am redeemed, the only goodness in me is His goodness! Christ was brutalized and died a horrible death to suffer the punishment and pay the debt for all of my filthy sins! What about yours? The more we realize and are willing to proclaim our complete and utter filthiness before salvation, the more our testimony of the saving mercy and grace of God gives Him the glory that He rightly deserves. If we are willing to proclaim all that God did in saving our wretched souls, the more He will be glorified throughout all the earth. Jesus loved you so much that He was willing to come to this earth for no other reason than to suffer and die for your sins. He temporarily gave up His heavenly glory to come here to be the sinless, spotless Sacrifice for your sins and mine. That is why He prayed to the Father in John 17:5"Glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I ever had with Thee before the world was." John MacArthur puts it this way, "Christ gave up the glory of a face-to-face relationship with God for the muck of this earth. He gave up the adoring presence of angels for the spittle of men." Wow, and He did this knowingly and willingly. He knew in advance exactly what our sins would cost Him and He loved us so much that He said "Yes, I will go". This is Jehovah God who has had angels around the throne crying out His praises with complete adoration and worship, yet He gave it all up to come down here and die a violent death so that we might be forgiven! So much of His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane was not the thought of the humiliation of hanging naked on a cross, or the physical pain of the scourging where they beat him beyond that of any recognition of a man.(Isaiah 52:14. Also read 50:6 and all of chapter 53) It was the agony of being separated from His Father for the first time in all eternity. God had to apply His full holy wrath for our wicked sins on His sinless, spotless Son, the Lamb of God. He had to turn His back on His only begotten Son and let him bear the full penalty for your sins and mine. His wrath had to be satisfied, sin had to be paid for in full, once for all! And Jesus was the only Way. Angels, not even ten thousand upon ten thousand could take His place to be the Sacrifice for sin. He could have called down legions of angels to rescue Him but they could never take His place. Millions of animals were sacrificed to God for forgiveness of sin before Jesus came to die on the cross. No amount of animal sacrifice could ever completely, once for all, atone for the sins of the redeemed. Jesus alone could do that, and He did, willingly, lovingly, because He loves you just that much! Jesus owns the whole world. He created the whole world! A cattle on a thousand hills. (Psalm 50:10) Yet He became poor for our sake. He owned the whole world before coming down here to die for us. Yet while he was here he had to borrow everything because He owned little to nothing. The God who created the world came down here and lived poor. MacArthur says it very poignantly: "As God, Christ owns everything. But when He came into this world, He borrowed everything: a place to be born, to lay His head, a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee, an animal to ride into the city for His triumphant entry, and a tomb to be buried in. The only Person ever to live on this earth who had the right to all its pleasures instead wound up with nothing and became a servant. He had no advantages or privileges in this world. He owned little but served everyone." Beloved, that is Love. It is the greatest Love ever offered. Nobody will ever love you that much. If you belong to Him then you are the bride of Christ. You are His special possession.(Deut.14:2) Can you fathom that? You belong to Him and He belongs to you! His heart is always tender towards you, even in His chastisement. He takes our apathy, He puts up with our cold prayers and our lack of time for Him. If you are at times guilty of this type of behavior towards your Savior, He still loves you. Even when you hurt His heart, He never leaves you, never forsakes you. (Heb. 13:5) Is that not a staggering thought? No matter how we mistreat our Beloved Husband, He never stops loving us! Ever! Nothing we can do could ever change His love for us! We who belong to Christ are a gift that the Father gave to His Son. We are His bride...His beautiful bride, whom He will, one glorious day, present spotless before the Father. Oh those of you who are the redeemed...praise your Master today, even this very minute! Tell Him of your undying devotion to Him. Sing of your adoration to the King of kings and Lord of lords. And then go a step further and bless His heart by telling someone who doesn't know Him all about the love, grace, and mercy of your precious Savior!