“…I am gentle and lowly in heart…” —Matthew 11:29
(Jesus) is the image of the invisible God… —Colossians 1:15
Isaiah 55
6 Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. —Psalm 103:11
God rushes toward me in all my filth and moral ugliness, and He makes me beautiful by loving me.
In Christ’s death, God is confronting our dark thoughts of Him and our chronic insistence that divine love must have an endpoint, a limit, a point at which it finally runs dry. Christ died to confound our intuitive assumptions that divine love has an expiration date. – Dane Ortlund
Prayer
Strengthen me with might. Illumine me with light. Show me great and mighty things. Ephesians 3:16-19; 1:17; Jeremiah 33:3
Romans 5
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die,
8 but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.
11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
I am God’s beloved, and nothing I do or don’t do today will change the fact that I am dearly and deeply loved.
God is love… —1 John 4:16
Recommended Book
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund
Discussion Questions
1. When was the last time God abundantly pardoned you? How does that affect you?
2. Why do you think we fall back into thinking that our relationship with God depends on our performance? How can we find the balance between a flippant attitude toward sin and a works-based salvation?