G R A C E ' S J O U R N A L

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Joy

ANDREW WRITES:

Looking back at my old journal entries over the past couple weeks (not all are published online) I've noticed how much of a blessing this has been.

For one thing, we're discovering more of God's goodness, and His mercy, and compassion. The comfort that I have when Grace gives me a hug, or when my kids grab my leg and smile at me pale in comparison with the comfort that the Lord has brought our family through the knowledge of Himself. Praise God for coming to this earth and suffering for my sake, being nailed to the cross, for the sins of the world! Jesus know's what it's like to suffer. He knows what pain feels like, being scourged and crucified. He knows everything I'm feeling, and experiencing - and most of all, He has forgiven my sins. This is good news. This is true joy!

Cancer has brought me greater joy because it has given me a deeper appreciation for God through the gospel. It is because of the work of the cross that I can be forgiven of my sins, and know God, commune with Him, and experience His comfort during these difficult times. Just think, the Creator of the entire universe has me in the palm of His hand. God would not be so precarious so as to leave the fate of my life in the hands of a mere man (although He has provided an extremely skilled surgeon to treat me). Ultimately my life is in God's hands, and that is where I've found true joy.

No comments:

Our Heavenly Dwelling

¹Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ²Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, ³because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

⁶Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. ⁷We live by faith, not by sight. ⁸We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. ¹⁰For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

The Ministry of Reconciliation

¹¹Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. ¹²We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. ¹³If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

G R A C E ' S J O U R N A L :

Welcome!

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Joy

No comments:

Post a Comment