learning to see and savor the glory of Christ.

I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.

-Charles Spurgeon

Jonathan apart from God’s grace: selfish, self-righteous, sin and world loving, an enemy of God, dead in sin. By my own will, I would never have chosen to live for God and submit to Him. On my own, I would never understand that my greatest need was for a savior, and not a healthy, happy, successful life. I would rather live in darkness, loving the things that He hated, living with superficial righteousness, but filthy inside.

By the grace of God (His giving me what I could never earn and would never deserve): a slave to righteousness, a servant and child of the Living God. I did not choose God in my wisdom, because I have none, but He drew me to Him. As Jesus put it in John 6:65 “And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” By His unmerited favor, God broke down my own construction and understanding of His Son, and allowed me to know him for whom he is, and love him because he loved me first.

I now know that I am twice owned by God: As my Maker, God has every right over every fiber of my being, and as my Redeemer, He’s bought me with the priceless blood of Christ. I am a servant, brought into joyful submission to the maker of all things, the everlasting and only God. In Christ, I’ve been adopted, having no right to be called a child of God in myself, but because he (Christ) has paid my debt in full and I’ve been given a perfect righteousness that isn’t my own (Christ’s), I and we have received the Spirit of adoption (the Holy Spirit) as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”, and the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Understanding what I deserve in light of God’s infinite Holiness, His unwavering justice, and my exponentially increasing sin that demands His justice, I am understanding and learning more and more what John 1:16-17 speaks of about Christ, that we’ve received from him grace upon grace:

“From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known”.

Having been reconciled to God as Christ bore the full weight of the justice demanded by my sin and covered me with his perfect righteousness, I am justified (made right) in the sight of God, striving and struggling to live up to the righteousness that I have in Christ. I am so imperfect, but I live by His spirit with all of my might to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength. How good is it to know that God in His sovereignty would take someone so undeserving and full of sin, someone like me, and break down my opposition to Him.  He’s left me with no opportunity to boast, and nothing to take pride in, because I’ve done nothing but sin against Him, and throughout my life I’ve chosen nothing but to oppose God and the things that are of Him, and left me with only gratitude and love for Him.  Praise God that He is sovereign, and that He is good.

1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:1-10