New Morning Mercies #208

Why would you be afraid when in Christ you have been completely accepted, eternally forgiven, and richly supplied?

What are the three questions that everyone has asked and is in some way haunted by?

1. Will I be loved?

2. Will people tolerate me once they really get to know me?

3. Will I have what I need to live?

In some way, everyone fears rejection, judgment, and poverty. In some way, every person who has ever lived is on a hunt for love and scared to death that he won’t find it. That’s why a good love story is always so popular. In some way, everyone fears judgment. She fears the hammer will come down on her because she has failed to measure up and she will spend her life paying for her crimes. That’s why mercy and forgiveness stories quickly get our attention and hit us so deeply. In some way, everyone is afraid of being poor. We’re all afraid of not having the provisions we need to live. We’re afraid that success will escape our grasp and we’ll end up as beggars on the street. This is why we all love a “rags-to-riches story.”

Isn’t it amazing that each of these fundamental human fears is addressed and solved by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? First, the gospel is the world’s best love story. It is a story of a God of love who places his love on people who do not deserve his love. This God sends the Son of his love to make a sacrifice of love so that his children can be welcomed into his arms of love and become a community of love that takes his love to those in desperate need of that love.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the world’s most amazing forgiveness story. It is the story of One who was willing to die for crimes he did not commit so that the people who committed those crimes would be fully and completely forgiven of every wrong they had done or would ever do. It is the amazing story of a righteous God who made a way through the sacrifice of his Son to forgive rebels against his authority without compromising his holiness in any way.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest of all provision stories. It is a story of a God who created, controls, and owns everything opening his vast storehouse of provision to impoverished rebels who deserve nothing but who get everything in him. It is a story of no needed provision withheld and no necessary gift left ungiven. It is a story of a stream of supply that will never, ever run out.

If you are God’s child, you don’t have to be haunted by these deep questions of life. Each has been answered in the person and work of your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of him, you are loved; because of him, you are forgiven; and because of him, you have everything that you need. Who but our God could write a story like this?

For further study and encouragement: Philippians 4:10–20