Reflections for October 10, 2011

John 1:1 (AMP): “In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.”

God’s Word became flesh to live among us. Christ knew the temptations we would suffer through, and He experienced earthly life with us in order that He might restore us. Why do we need restoration? We need restoration because Adam’s fall into sin in the Garden of Eden destroyed our ability to live the “higher” life in direct fellowship with a holy God. Thus, Christ has come to restore to us a purity that we can only receive through Him. It is through Christ that we become a “new creation.” Through Christ’s salvation He accomplishes the renovation of man and his restoration from a state of sin. This new creation is a restored state as it was with the “first creation.” The Greek word Logos, identified as the Word of God, was the source of life during the first creation in the beginning. In a similar but higher sense, Christ is the source of “life” to the soul dead in trespasses and sins.

Here is what R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) said about God’s Love:

 “What does the Bible tell us as to how God shows His love? 1) That God shows

 His love, by pardoning Sin. Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the

 unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have

 love, pity, and mercy for him, and to our God, for He will multiply to him His

 abundant pardon. God tells us plainly in His Word that He is willing to forgive

 any sinner that lives, no matter how deep down he has gone, if he will only turn from

 sin and turn to Him; and He will forgive him the very moment he does so. Of course,

 God cannot forgive a man while he holds on to his sin, and retain His own moral

 character. I have a boy. I love that boy, and I would give a great deal to see him now.

 I believe there is nothing that boy could do but, if he repented and turned from it, I

 would forgive him. But I could not forgive him if he held on to his evil way. I could

 continue to love him and seek to save him, but I could not forgive him. And God

 cannot forgive us, and remain what He is, a Holy God, until we are ready to quit our

 sin.”