Jesus our Mediator

(Note: audio of this sermon can be found here)

1Ti 2:1-7

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle ( I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Sinclair Ferguson, has written "Preaching to the heart addresses the understanding first, in order to instruct it; but in doing so it reaches through the mind to inform, rebuke and cleanse the conscience. It then touches the will in order to reform and transform life and equip the saints for the work of ministry". That is my prayer for us this morning as we consider God's Word and as we reflect on another aspect of the person and work of Christ. As I have been praying for this morning, I have been asking our Father that He would grant that the Spirit would take us beyond mere head knowledge to a heart knowledge that affects how we worship, how we pray and how we serve.

As many of you know, Pastor Dan is in the middle of a series he's entitled "Name above all names". His goal is to look at the wide gamut of names, titles, offices and roles of Jesus. So far he's looked at:

• Jesus the King of kings 
• Jesus our Servant 
• Jesus the Son of Man 
• Jesus the Son of God

One thing that has struck me with each successive sermon in this series is that while each of these roles are unique and important, none of them are independent. Is Jesus our King? Absolutely, but what makes that even more spectacular is that he is the King who serves and became a man and took on our sin. Is Jesus our Savior? No doubt, but this is made more astounding by the fact that He is also the coming Judge and conquering King.

I mention this by way of reminder but also to point out reality that the facet of Jesus' ministry Dan asked me preach on today is really built on the two aspects of Jesus' identity that Dan has preached on the last two weeks. Two weeks ago he preached on Jesus as the Son of Man, how his full humanity was crucial to his role as shepherd and high priest. Last week he preached on Jesus as the Son of God, how his full deity is essential to his role as savior as well as the author and perfecter of our faith. In both sermons Dan asked the same question: "How do these two natures exist together?" His answer: "I have no idea." I have no idea either and I suspect that when we hit the million year mark in the new heavens and the new earth, we will still marvel at the Incarnation. But, for this week, it serves as a great demonstration and proclamation of Jesus as our Mediator.

You see, before the incarnation, before the cross, before the resurrection, the Triune God had a divine dilemma. He was perfectly holy and could not even look upon sin. Yet we were utterly sinful, both by nature and by choice. Our best, holiest works were really filthy rags. If God wanted to glorify himself by redeeming and restoring and recreating lost and fallen humanity, He needed a way to bridge the infinite gap between His holiness and our sinfulness. He needed a mediator.

Before we move on, consider the most heinous crime someone could commit against you. Or the most offensive word or deed. Or most disgusting and deplorable act. How can healing and forgiveness possibly begin? You know the hurt and offense. You know the barriers that rise up and the separation that results. And even though the hurts and offenses among ourselves, although real, are slight compared with our offense against God, we know that even our horizontal gaps and rifts can appear to be unbridgeable. So, if we need mediators in our human relationships, how much more is one needed to come from God's throne to connect with sinful, fallen humanity.

The first place I want to look at as we consider Jesus' role as mediator is the passage we read a few minutes ago. The main reason I want start here is that it is one of only a few places that states explicitly that Jesus is our mediator. But there is more to it than that. As there are with every ministry of Jesus there are implications that go along with Jesus as our mediator and this passage drives some of these home for us.

The first thing that is important for us to see is that Paul is emphasizing Jesus' role of standing between God and men. Interestingly, the word Paul used for mediator has the connotation of someone bringing parties together. So the goal, even here is resolution and restoration. This not like the officials at a football game, trying administer the rules independent of opposing teams. This is more like a negotiator, seeking the best interests of both parties, striving for resolution of the offense. Now this is not to say that Father stands remote and ready to smite us and Jesus graciously intervenes. In fact Paul says exactly the opposite. In verse 3 he says God is our savior and that He desires that all should come to repentance. Hold on to that thought, because we'll come back to it a little later.

Paul is declaring that Jesus is the one who is bridging the gap between a holy God and a sinful humanity. Do you see the connection to this role and Jesus' incarnation? If Jesus were fully God but only pretending to be a man, he couldn't fully bridge the gap. His holiness would still overwhelm us. Yet if Jesus were a god-like man, say David without the Uriah episode or Elijah without the bout of depression, he could still not cover the distance. Remember verses like Isa 64:6 and Ps 14:1 apply to all of us. His sin, a slight as it may be, would still render him unacceptable before God.

Consider with me the first few verses of Rev 5. God is holding the scroll of human history. And at first, who is worthy to open it? There is no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth who is worthy. So bleak are the prospects for opening this scroll that John begins to weep. Praise God there is a living/slain lion/lamb who has conquered. Ah, but that's a different sermon. The imagery, however is incredibly important. In one snapshot, we see the divine dilemma.

Now I want to look at this situation from our perspective. How serious is this situation for us? God had a divine dilemma, but what about us? How are we to assess our need for a mediator?

My contention is that the Bible is full of indicators that show us our real standing before God, apart from Christ. One of the reasons I highly recommend reading through the entire Bible and why I continue to do so each year is to simply soak in the general pathos of this book. One of the things we see over and over is that without God's gracious intervention, we are all (spiritually speaking) standing on the down escalator. What's the next major event after the flood? The tower of Babel. How long is Moses gone before the nation has crafted an idol to represent God? How many hours elapse between Peter's brave declaration before Christ and his fearful retreat from a servant girl?

Then there was this guy named Job. From a human perspective, he was a righteous guy, but God decides to show Job (and us) that our love and devotion need to be in God and not in his blessings. Along the way, Job has a dialog with his "friends" who demonstrate that a reasonable theology at one point can easily be extended into absurdity. In the midst of this dialog, Job begins to slowly realize that his own theology is off the mark and that he really can't put God in a box and that there is a great gulf between him and God.

Listen to his words and see if they fit the ache that is in your own heart.

Job 9:2, 25-35
Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God?
My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away; they see no good.
They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey.
If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’
I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent.
I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain?
If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.
For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.
There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.
Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me.
Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

It should be noted that the word arbiter in verse 33 could also easily be translated justifier, reconciler or decider.  Job is realizing that he is unable to approach God. So Job's plea is for some one to bring our human dilemma before the throne of God.

Let me be quick to remind us all that Job didn't get the full picture until the end of the book, but this is a snapshot into the reality of the human dilemma. If God has a divine dilemma of how to bridge the gap between his holiness and our sinfulness, we have the human dilemma of having nothing to offer this holy, just and righteous God from whom we've rebelled and to whom we owe an unpayable debt. What makes this worse from our perspective is that not only do we not have the means to pay, but any payment we would attempt to make would be in the wrong currency. It would be like trying to pay your credit card or taxes or mortgage with confederate money. While it may have served a purpose in the South during the Civil War, confederate money is no longer legal currency. A millionaire in confederate  dollars is still bankrupt in the real world.

So, I have to ask: Do you feel this gap? Not simply do you see the facts, but do you feel the separation? God is over here with the need to bridge the chasm to restore humanity. And mankind over here knowing there is an unbridgeable gulf and not having any resources or abilities to even begin the journey. I'm not simply talking about the facts. I want you to feel the weight. Do you grasp, here in the depth of your soul that this separation is real and that it is fixed and there is nothing we can do about it? Can we cry out, along with Job, "Oh if there were only someone who could lay a hand upon us both"?

Please turn with me to Eph 2. I want to make the turn by gazing at a passage whose beauty eluded me because I didn't fully grasp its backstory. So, I would like us to take the divine dilemma and the human dilemma and listen to Paul's words starting in verse 11.

Eph 2:11-12
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Separated. Alienated. Strangers. No hope. Without God. Paul sees what Job saw. In reality its what every biblical writer saw. Apart from Christ, God is hopelessly distant from us. I want to linger here just a few moments to make sure we grasp that this is not an accounting trick. This is not like writing a check that exceeds your balance but having money in savings to cover it. This is not like having a lot of friends, but simply having nobody call you on a Friday night. This is real. This is serious. And from our perspective, this is permanent.

But, here is the really good news. Yes, we were separated and alienated, strangers from God and each other, without hope and without God.

Eph 2:13-16
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility."

Paul is emphatically declaring that Jesus IS our mediator. Look at the spatial and physical terms that Paul uses. We were far off, but now we've been brought near in Christ. There was a dividing wall of hostility but this has been broken down in Jesus' flesh. There was horizontal hostility but Jesus has achieved peace for us with God and by this peace he has enabled the peace that we can have with one another.

All of this brings us back to 1 Tim 2 with a single question. Why does it matter that Jesus is our mediator?
Here is the primary reason from verse 4 of 1 Tim 2. It is God's desire that we be saved. And in order to be saved, we desperately need a mediator. As we sit here, we are lethally infected with sin and only Jesus can provide us the cure. We really are alienated, separated and without God. But through Jesus, God has bridged the infinite gulf to restore us.

I want speak directly to every one within the sound of my voice to consider this reality. Even if you have tuned me out for this entire sermon, I need your attention now. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus, you are separated and alienated from God. I don't care how good you think you are or how perfect your life may seem right now. I don't care if you are an A student, the CEO of your business, in the perfect marriage with perfect kids, enjoying a blissful retirement or whether you just feel really good about yourself. All of that is as transient as the leaves on our lawns. The God who created you is the one who is lovingly pleading with you to turn from your self salvation and turn to Jesus. The call of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is: turn from faith in your own abilities and turn to faith in the infinite sacrifice of Christ.

If I can press this just a little more, I would like to echo a common warning of Matt Chandler. There is no one in this room whose life cannot be unalterably changed with one phone call, text message or e-mail. This life we are currently living is incredibly fragile and the things we are trusting in for our ultimate satisfaction and security are very temporary and easily devalued. Jesus however, has achieved a salvation for us that is eternally secure and infinitely valuable. He has fought the decisive victory and is sitting with His Father as the conquering king of the universe. Jesus has bridged the gap for us as we place our faith in Him.

I would urge you to ask God to make Jesus clear to you. I would urge you to read His Word, not as literature, not as an owners manual and not as Christianity for Dummies. I urge you to read God's Word as a letter from a loving Father to his wayward children, saying in effect, I love you and I have made a way for you to come home. And most of all, I urge you to surrender your life to Christ and accept the free gift of his grace.

For those of us who have surrendered our lives to Christ, there is another aspect to why the reality of Jesus our mediator is important. It gives us an appreciation of the incredible value of what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. Sometimes, I don't think we really grasp the distance between us and God. I had previous pastor say that it was like standing on the beach in California and needing to swim to Japan. Hmmm, maybe. But that doesn't seem absolute enough. When we consider Jesus as our mediator, we need to try to grasp the unbridgeable gulf between us and God. We need the Holy Spirit to give us the perspective of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus from Lk 16 where Jesus teaches that there is a great chasm fixed between heaven and hell and no one can cross between them. Friends, that's what we've been saved from. And, we need the Holy Spirit to give us the perspective of the tax collector in Lk 18 who couldn't even look to heaven but beat his breast saying "God, be merciful to me, a sinner"

In addition to this, Jesus as our mediator helps us grasp both the magnitude and the reality of God as our Father. How could we possibly relate to a Father who is distant and aloof? How could we pray to a Father who is waiting to crush us at our first mistake? But, if the Triune God orchestrated this magnificent plan of redemption, if He rescued us and restored us, if He became a man so He could place His hands on us, both to heal us and to hold us, then this Father, this God, this Savior is one we can trust, and rely on and call out to and know that He will never leave us or forsake us.

Finally, there are two glorious implications that Paul leaves us with. The first reality of Jesus as mediator is that it is the engine that drives our prayers. Whether we are praying for our spouses or children or parents, our focus must be on whether they grasp the reality of the gospel and whether that reality is affecting how they live. Even as we pray for their health and safety, we should always be seeking those blessings as something that either drives them to their mediator or something that highlights the magnificence of their savior. On top of this, it affects how we pray for our leaders, both in the church and in the government. We should be seeking their welfare, not so much that they would make our lives easier, but they would enable the proclamation of the gospel to go to the ends of the earth.

This leads us to the second implication of Jesus being our mediator. It should affect how we serve God and each other. Paul knows that his calling has a single purpose: proclaiming the magnificence of Jesus the mediator and the salvation that is available to everyone. Shouldn't our attitude be the same? Shouldn't we serve Christ knowing that our service is not an end in itself, but is really something that God can use to bring us and others back to this one reality:

Jesus is our mediator.

To God Alone be the Glory

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

Fear God; Love Jesus

No audio is available for this sermon.

Fear God

The fear of God is paradoxical. Like many biblical truths (love your enemies, those who save their lives will lose it), the fear of the Lord seems to defy conventional wisdom, yet...

 • Without it, we can't even begin to fathom the magnitude of our sin and our separation from God.
 • Without it, we can't begin to grasp the unbelievable richness of God's grace in Christ.
 • Without it we can't fully worship or praise or honor the Triune God of the universe.

But, the fear of God also leads us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to life. Prv 19:23 says “The fear of the LORD leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied.” A healthy fear, a true appreciation of who God is and who we are doesn't drive us away from God, but to Him. We will come back to Isa. 6 in a minute, but that passage is a great picture and reminder for us that seeing God as He is is really the beginning of life.

And, as believers, our fear of this holy, awesome, majestic God blends with the grace and love and peace and joy that have no height nor breadth nor length nor depth. Why is grace amazing, if there is not some component of fear in what God could have done instead of saving us? What is so glorious about coming directly into God’s presence if He is not fearfully awesome and simply terrifying in who He is. In the end, we are quite simply compelled and constrained by the love of God that is poured out on us in Christ (2 Cor 5:14).

It has been said that this would be a lot easier if we could see God. In one sense, I agree. But in another sense, I would say we have seen Him. Jesus states it clearly in Jn 14:9 “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” And if we are looking for a New Testament equivalent to Isa 6, we need to look no further than the cross. How can we not fear God when we see first hand the full punishment our sins require? And yet how can we not rejoice and adore and surrender our lives to the one who took our place turned our fear into faith?

At this point, we need to consider some things.

• Do we take certain aspects of God and make them the whole?
• Do we tend to make God in our image?
• Do we so want a God whose job is to make our life easy and comfortable that we neglect the fact that He is the awesome and powerful Creator, Sustainer and Ruler of the universe?

Most of all, we need to ask: what is the purpose of a God who is rightly to be feared? Place the scene from Isa 6 in your mind. Isaiah saw the glory of God and it crushed him. He said “I am undone” What did this fear of the Lord accomplish in Isaiah's life? Isaiah's fear of God drove him to despair of his own ability to save himself. “Woe is me! For I am lost;" He was then able to receive the salvation God provided. "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” This, in turn allowed him to follow Jesus.

Do you see that pattern? Do you see that we cannot grasp the salvation Christ has procured for us until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the reality that our sin will bring us face to face with a fearsomely holy and righteous God? Do you see that this true, healthy fear drives us to a free salvation that exchanges fear for faith and then compels us to serve the one who gave up everything so that we could be free of the fear the immobilizes us and that we can embrace the fear that brings God all of the glory He so richly deserves.

Love Jesus

Again, the word to describe following Jesus is paradoxical. Pause and consider this: Jesus says without Him we can't do anything. Yet, He says my true followers are the ones who do the will of the Father. He says he will draw all people to himself. Yet he says go a make disciples. Throughout the New Testament there is this expectation of obedience. Yet Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and even James insist we are saved and sustained by grace. How do we bridge this gap?

Perhaps it will require us to relearn (or unlearn) things about the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Can we try to listen to Jesus as if we are hearing him for the first time? Let His words, more than that, the heart behind those words sink into your minds and hearts and souls.

Think about the pretensions Jesus was seeking to expose when he asked questions along these lines: "Why do call me Lord and not do what I say?" What if you or I were in the crowd when he said that? Remember when Jesus said this he had just finished taking every single aspect of Jewish moral obedience and driving it to the root issue: the human heart. So when He asks, "Why do call me Lord and not do what I say?" He is not simply asking why aren’t you obeying the 10 commandments. He is not simply asking why aren’t you obeying the current church culture’s version of what’s right and what’s wrong. He's asking something deeper.

External obedience has its place, but Jesus always, always goes for the jugular. He wants to know why my heart doesn’t look like his heart. I can’t follow externally until I am changed internally. So, if we call Jesus Lord, but deep in our heart we’re still Lord, we're not doing what He’s calling us to to do. That is the first step in obedience. But there is another side to the obedience coin.

Jesus also quoted Isaiah in reference to the legalistic Pharisees, "They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" Jesus knows we can claim to follow him and have our lives not look anything like his. That is a real concern. But Jesus also knows we can have super spiritual lives and we can fool everyone around us and yet have a heart that is far from God. In both cases, Jesus is pressing on our tendency to want to do the bare minimum. But Jesus' expectation is we will be "all in”. All in in our devotion to Him. All in in our obedience to the Father. All in in our love for His bride, the church.

Think about this: if Jesus loved the church, the people he is rescuing from every tongue and tribe and language. And he died for them to be able to present them as his holy, blood washed bride. And, he is calling us to respond to His love in such a way that our hearts and live begin to resemble his heart and life. Then what should this local church look like? Don’t answer. Just ponder… And pray.

Consider also the fact that Jesus was totally honest with those he called to follow him. What do we do with the idea of the narrow gate and the hard way which leads to life? (Did I mention this was paradoxical?) What do we do with the reality that Jesus describes in which those who try to save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives for the sake of Christ will save them. It really comes down to this, whatever we receive from Christ in this life, the narrow road we are called to walk on will require our minds and our hearts fixed on Him.

The good news is that this is all part of God's great design. This summed up powerfully in the book of Ephesians.

• We have incredible spiritual blessings in Christ, including our holiness and blamelessness and adoption and redemption and forgiveness
• We have an inheritance from God, secured by Christ and guaranteed by the giving of the Holy Spirit
• We have unbelievable power in Christ through prayer. It is access to the same power that raised Christ from the dead
• We have been rescued from the domain of darkness and our allegiance to Satan and from our spiritual death
• We’ve been given life and love and we are already considered to be in the closest fellowship with Christ, all by the mercy and grace of God.
• We are joined with fellow believers of every age through the unifying power of the blood of Christ
• Together we (the church) are considered by God to be his temple, the place where he will manifest His presence in the world.
• Together we (the church) are God's declaration and demonstration of wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
• We have a Father who has lavished on us a love that is too high, too wide, too long and too deep to comprehend, but in Christ He makes the incomprehensible love known to us.

With all of this in his mind Paul then says: "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Our following Jesus doesn't precede our faith in Him, it is fueled by it. And, our obedience to God doesn't earn or pay back his grace, it is a fruit of it.

So, why would we follow Jesus? That question is especially compelling given the upside down nature of God's economy and the promised hardness of the way. One answer is that it is simply a privilege. This goes back to our full appreciation of who God is (including our fear of Him) and who Jesus is. If we knew Jesus even as well as the demons do, we would be pleading to follow Him. In Luke 8 Jesus encounters a demon possessed man. Verse 28 shows the demons know who Jesus is and rightly fear him "When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” Jesus delivers the man from the demons and man's response is not simply gratitude. It is not simply praise and adoration. It is this overwhelming desire to follow Jesus and spend the rest of his life serving the One who delivered him.

But, there's another aspect to why we would follow Jesus. There is simply no other option. We can pretend there are alternatives and make up a faith system the requires a simple one time acknowledgment of Christ. But when our alternative reality meets God's ultimate reality, our house of cards will collapse.  A great example of this is in John 6. The chapter starts with Jesus feeding over 5000 people. Then Jesus and the disciples left for the other side of the lake. On the next day the crowds tracked Jesus down, looking to make him king. Jesus rightly diagnoses that they simply want more bread. So he tells them that the real bread, the bread that leads to life is Jesus himself. He says that He is the bread of life. He says that he is the true manna from heaven. He says in Jn 6:53-54,“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." The response of even some of his own disciples was “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” So Jesus grew his followers from over 5000 to 12. Then he's ready to go to square one and asks the 12 if they are ready to leave too. And whether they understood the bread of life stuff or what it meant to eat the flesh of the Son of Man, they understood one thing clearly. Peter speaks for the group in Jn 6:68“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,"

Does Peter's statement resonate with you? That thought should be where we are in our perspective and devotion and allegiance to Jesus. Quite simply we ought to have Jn 6:68 tattooed on our hearts. "Where else can we go? You have the words eternal life."

As we close here are some questions to consider:

• How would you assess your own fear of the Lord? Is He a harmless teddy bear? Is He like a grandpa or Santa Claus? Is He an evil ogre or a cosmic killjoy? Or, does your fear have at least the beginnings of a biblical framework to it? We need to allow God's own Word define for us all of His dimensions, including His awesome fearfulness.

• What do you do with the fear of God? Do you run and hide? Do you simply live as if it didn't exist? When you pray, do you consider the incredible privilege you've been granted and rightful fear that should captivate your heart and mind? When you look to the cross do see Jesus exchanging your fear of just judgement with peace and hope and mercy and grace? This rightly understood fear should inform all of our life.

• Do you consider yourself a follower of Jesus? Why? What is the basis of that claim? Does it match biblical reality? If so, praise God! But consider this: how close a follower are you? Would Acts 4:13 apply to you? "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus."

• What drives you? What is the engine of your life? Is it money? Power? Fame? Someone's opinion? Avoidance of pain? Or is it humiliated and bloodied and gloriously resurrected Savior?

• Does any of this leave you saying in effect, "Woe is me. I am undone."? Great! That was the prayer and the goal! We need to take this to God. We need to ask him to cover us in Christ, to restore us in Christ, to empower us in power of the Holy Spirit.

• And, if you are not yet a believer in Christ, today can be the day of salvation. Know that the fear of God is real and you will face Him one day. And without Jesus, you will be utterly alone. And at the point when you face Him, there will be no second chance. But the good news today is that Jesus will not simply stand with you, He will stand in your place. Your task is to simply accept what Christ purchased for you on that bloody cross and begin the not always so easy journey of following Him.

To God Alone be the Glory.