April 11 – LD
15, Day 3: God’s Everlasting Favor
by Rev
Psalm 32:1 “Blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
Are you aware of the sins you committed yesterday? How about this
morning and today? It is easy for us to minimize and think lightly of sin. But
then, we are brought to
At other times some of those sins cause us a lot of grief. We start to
think that God is punishing us. It can be hard at times to forgive ourselves of
things that we’ve done, often because of the devastating consequences of our
actions. Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice have the result, according to the
catechism, of “redeeming our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and
obtain for us the favor of God, righteousness and eternal life.”
God’s favor is His opening of our eyes to see how precious Jesus is, and
that He is our Savior. Righteousness is being right in God’s eyes. We are freed
from all the guilt and punishment of sin. Eternal life is the crown on the work
of Jesus. We are given entrance into the gates of heaven! “Enter into His gates
with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.” God makes us rejoice in Him
Who wept for us. God makes it such that we are able to live our lives with joy
and thanksgiving.
We have many earthly problems, but we are free from sin and eternal
punishment. May we, as God’s redeemed, never be overly anxious about the
suffering of this present time seeing we have been redeemed from such great
distress and death!