"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." John 3:16
"For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him." Romans 8:15-17

I was thinking about these verses today and John 3:16 and I've heard them and read them but the magnitude of them really hasn't sunken into my heart. It's easy to shrug off these verses, but God giving His only Son for me because He is that loving is a deep mystery that I hope never ceases to amaze me. I stray so often from pure and simple devotion to Jesus even within spiritual disciplines. In all of my striving, I lose sight of grace sometimes. I come face to face with the fact that my strength is meager and my works are tainted but God is rich in mercy and loves me and has redeemed me not because I am at all good but because He is so gracious.

In some of my less self-absorbed moments, I realize that God is showing His abundant love for me right within my present circumstances. My pastor is like a father to me, he has taken me into his home, given me all the rights and privileges of a son and exemplified what it means to be a godly husband. The interesting thing about the word adoption in Romans 8 is that it means to be adopted into a family with all the rights of a full grown son. There is no distinction in treatment in this kind of adoption, the adopted child is now a son. I stand back in awe that God would not only give His Son for me but adopt me as His own. I told my pastor once, "you and your wife treat me as a son" and his response was "that's how we see you." What did I do to deserve to be invited into this man's home and treated with such love from him and his family? Absolutely nothing and I am a better man for the experience.

I have learned so much from my time living in his house. I have learned that discipline that isn't motivated by loving adoration is mere self-service. I have been learning to do because I am not try to perform to live up to some standards to prove who I am. I have learned that my works amount to nothing, that the only works that have value are the preappointed ones ordained by God for me in Christ. I have been learning that God loves me and delights in me because His Son lives in me. I echo what David said in Psalm 18: "Your gentleness makes me great." God loves me and I love Him, His love is deep, unfailing and cleanses me from every false way. God's love changes me, it motivates me, it creates love in me for others, it purges me from everything that would hinder me from knowing Him. His thoughts and love for me is intense, jealous because the Father loves me like He loves the Son. The Son delights in representing the Father and the Spirit guides us into all truth. God gives Himself entirely, He has given and gives of Himself entirely. He has given, gives every day and has blessings that He promises for the future.

All I can ask is: Lord, help me to love you in return. I don't want to neglect so great a salvation, purge me from every false way until Your character is perfected in me and all that You have won on the cross is worked into me. Forgive me for being ungrateful so often, thank You for Your mercy and patience. I pray that anyone who I know has never received the love of Christ in their hearts, for those who have not been adopted, that their hearts would be softened. I pray that we wouldn't choose friendship with the world and buy into a lie, that we wouldn't sell what Christ has payed for by His blood. I pray Lord that You would save us from the deception and wickedness that leads us away from Your pure love. Renew our minds and may we be found in You, unspotted and joyful. May we not despise Your gentle chastening, knowing that You are saving us from being condemned with this world. I thank You and I pray that by the grace of God that Jesus would be exalted among us and in us and we know the glory He desires to share with us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Some time ago, I had the pleasure of being involved with discipling a teen in my church. He wasn't really walking with God when I first met him. There was one day when I just asked him if he wanted to practice martial arts because I had experience in it and I knew that he studied. It's amazing what God can show you when you invest in other people's lives. I will call him "Chip" for privacy purposes. Chip had a real affinity for martial arts, he had pretty good technique and he could throw good kicks. The thing is, he could learn things fast and emulate them but he lacked the patience and diligence to perfect his basics. He could throw a kick hard, high and fast but he couldn't throw kicks slowly with control. The stabilizer muscles in his legs weren't that strong, so he would easily lose his balance. I made him throw kicks slowly and stress developing his core muscles and technique. People who blow themselves out by just trying to get to the end often end up with injuries or just get tired and give up when they don't see the results that they thought would bring satisfaction. This young man gave his life to the Lord at a conference and became one of the most hungry teens for God that I had ever seen.

I checked up on him now and then and one Sunday in particular he seemed kind of off. I asked him how youth group was going and he looked down and confessed he hadn't been going. He said he had playing football with some kids and how he wanted to preach to them but he hadn't. He looked ashamed and tired. He would always tell me how he would witness to his friends and sometimes he would get frustrated when people didn't repent and receive Jesus right then and there. I emphasized knowing God and having a quiet time to be alone with the Lord and hear from Him. He wanted to throw his techniques flashy, fast and hard but he lacked stability. Too often we get away from the basics and it takes a life time of diligence by grace to master them.

Trials are necessary in this process, the book of James says to let "patience have its perfect work" in the midst of a trial. Trials are when we realize it's not about us, we're not as spiritual as we think we are and it's where God does His best work in us. Trials are an opportunity to die, to embrace the cross and know intimately all that Christ has earned for us in His suffering. Jesus said that if we are to follow Him that we are to deny ourselves and take up our crosses and follow after Him. I think there is a distinction between denying ourselves and taking up our cross. Denying oneself simply takes discipline but taking up our cross takes faith in God. When we deny ourselves, we deny the sinful desires of our fallen nature but in the midst of trials is when we die to self - the good and the bad and is replaced with the life of Christ. When God does a work in us it isn't merely "putting things behind us" but a replacement of what we see as good with God's best. Even our best fleshly efforts are incomplete but Romans 8 says that when we follow the Holy Spirit we walk in the fulfillment of God's law. To walk as Christ did takes dying to the flesh and full reliance on the Spirit and cooperation with Him.

Some can deny themselves alright for a brief period of time and put on a nice, exterior religious guise but their pride still hasn't been dealt with. David prayed that God would cleanse him of his "secret sins" and not to let pride have dominion over him. The pharisees knew self-denial and could put on a nice facade but they didn't abhor the wickedness of their own hearts and embrace God's remedy. The deep inner work of the cross results in the lifestyle on the sermon on the mount; finding joy in being reviled and praying for those who curse us, forgiving people, finding the Lord in the secret place, giving sacrificially - all because we desire to love God first and people second. This comes and grows and patience has its work as we are faced with trials that are too much for us to handle in our own strength and we come to the end of ourselves. New life springs up in us and we have deeper revelation of God's complete and perfect love for us. But there has to be the process of dying to self so that we aren't reliant on ourselves or how devoted we perceive ourselves to be but we have faith in Jesus and His work. Instead to trying to do things so that we can feel like we're somebody, we realize more of who God is and who we are in Him and from there come good works that are acceptable to God. Our good works should come from the place of already being accepted in Him.

Too often we lose sight of the basics but God's commands aren't burdensome - His commands are to trust Him and love people. Jesus said that the work of God is to believe in the One whom He sent (John 6:28-30). Too often we tell ourselves merely to do. To those who don't live lives of obedience, the book of James says their faith is dead not that they need to do more. Faith in Jesus will produce obedience, by the grace of almighty God it will because faith by its very nature is only expressed in action. Faith isn't merely mental acknowledge but it is an inward compulsion that grows as we know more about the object of our faith. Knowing Jesus through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is crucial because we must know Him whom we believe in order to work the works of God. And a big part of this is the spiritual process of the cross in our lives that God works in us through various trials and temptations so that we aren't just outward, flashy Christians but people who have the real presence of God in their lives.