This month let us meditate on the one true God who has called us by name to be His children for His glory and our good.
Before the foundation of the world God desired to create and have fellowship with man. God foresaw and foreknew all that could and all that would happen, to include the rebellion of both angels and Adam and Eve, and ordained that His only begotten Son would redeem the elect and “purify for Himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2: 14).
From the very beginning of creation God worked faithfully and steadfastly to deliver mankind from the wages of their sin and the power of the evil one. In the fullness of time God the Son was born of a virgin, under the Law (Galatians 4: 4), paid for all mankind’s sin by His bitter suffering and death on the cross, was gloriously raised on the third day that mankind would be reconciled with God through Him (Romans 5: 10), and ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty, uniting all things in heaven and earth to Himself (Ephesians 1: 10).
Jesus speaks clearly and concisely that “all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1: 12 – 13). What is impossible for man is not impossible for God (Mark 10: 27) who through Holy Baptism joins you, me, and all His children to Jesus in His death and resurrection that we would be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6: 11). The risen Lord commanded Mary “go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20: 17)
Jesus tells us – His brothers and sisters currently in the Kingdoms of Power and Grace – we must work with Him in advancing the Kingdom of God against the kingdom of the evil one. God advances His kingdom not with the physical weapons of war (Ephesians 6: 12) but the full armor of God (Ephesians 6: 13 – 20). He assures us the Holy Spirit has called us by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, and gives us both the will and means by which we daily refuse to gratify the flesh and walk in the Spirit (Romans 8: 4). The Lord and Giver of Life gives us ears that hear the whole counsel of God (John10: 25 – 30), mouths that eat and drink Christ’s Holy body and blood that we have true and abundant life in us (John 6: 53 – 58), hearts that believe and voices that confess Jesus alone is the Lamb of God (Romans 10: 10), and clean hearts and right spirits that we humbly and obediently do the will of our Father (Psalm 51: 7 – 10). The Spirit of Truth daily conforms us more and more into the image of God’ only begotten Son through fiery trials and testing afflictions while keeping us steadfast in the one, true faith within the one, true Church. He keeps our eyes focused on Christ, the exact radiance of God that our hearts would cease being seats of judgment and become mercy seats upon which our risen Lord reigns in grace and truth. God gives us the gifts of His Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; [Galatians 5: 22 – 23]) that we do His good work alongside our brothers and sisters in a dark and dying world that desperately needs to hear and receive the Gospel, become His disciples, be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and be taught everything He commanded. In all this God sustains, strengthens, safeguards and comforts us as Jesus leads us upward upon the path of righteousness into the Kingdom of Glory.
Rejoice! Jesus abides with us this very minute, hour, day and to the last day (Matthew 28: 20b).
Amen and Amen.
