Tuesday, September 2, 2014

saved

God saves sinners. He takes those He foreknew, predestined, elected, and pursues them with a relentless tenacity, and with steadfast assurance that He will find those of His people who are lost. Upon finding them, He carries them back to  His table, seats them at the feast, places royal robes upon them, and welcomes them back into the family.  Those who have been brought to the table, who have felt the pursuit play out in our lives, are the products of unfathomable grace. We did not choose to be pursued, we did not seek the table earnestly, we did nothing to set ourselves apart from those who God has not yet called to Himself. There is no mark on us that distinguished us from them. We did not choose the time or the place of our conversion. We can't be so arrogant as to think that if it weren't for the divine election of our soul in eternity past that we wouldn't be riding the same wide path that leads to eternal, conscious torment in Hell. Instead, for some reason, God has chosen to manifest His glory in us. He has chosen to display the mighty power He has, the power to take utterly destroyed, broken flesh, and restore the wrecked vessels of our lives so that we might behold the beauty of His mercy, and others might see the reflection of His glory in us. Being regenerated through justification and transformed through sanctification, we are testaments of the will of a living God. God then uses His rebuilt people to speak through and shine through that more of His children will return to Him. We become part of the pursuing reach of God. He compels us to speak love, life, truth. We become the mouthpiece through which the Good News of Jesus is proclaimed. We enter into the same lineage of those who came before us....

We become like Jonah, or like Peter... failures if the highest degree, redeemed by amazing grace, and called to proclaim a message. We speak that message, trusting that (as it always has) the Holy Spirit will empower the words of our heart, and will penetrate the hearts of those who have been granted ears to hear and minds to understand. The Spirit will stir an uneasy understanding in the core of those who truly hear the words spoken to them, and the soul will recognize the calling of its Creator. God the pursuer will call them up out of death and darkness. He will pursue them in their rebellious, wicked, evil ways. He will reclaim His lost treasure. Even when our words fail, and sound like garbled trash, the spirit speaks to the soul of those who can hear it... And we know, and trust, that all those God pursues, He will find, and those He finds, He will call, and all those He calls will come, and all who come will call on His name, and all who call on His name will be saved.