These past few days, or really since the beginning of this semester, have proven to be the setting for God to place in my heart the most delightful of changes in faith and attitudes.  I (not saying I won't still struggle, or that the lesson is completely learned) can now turn to and seek after my Great God and Savior Jesus Christ through the Spirit, not out a feeling of fear or guilt or crying in doubt, but as to quench a thirst for His Presence and in the security and assurance to say as David:

The LORD is my Shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lied down in green pastures.  He leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul.  He leads me in paths of righteousness for HIS Name's sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," Why? "For YOU are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I SHALL dwell in the House of the LORD FOREVER!

Psalm 23

Brothers and Sisters, let me tell you, to realize that my desire for Him is not fed by legalistic compulsion, but as a thirsting for the water for which the deer pants to quench its thirst and to restore its strength; there is no greater feeling!  To know that it all, everything (i.e. guilt, sin, distance, fear, doubt, compulsion, failure) has been swallowed up by Christ when He drank the Cup, that is the Power of this AMAZING Gospel.  To say as Paul that he is NOT ashamed of the Gospel, that is purely God's grace, and it is not to be found in my strength, but in the Spirit.


My flesh is full of doubt, but for Him to allow us to look past the flesh and to scoff at its weakness and frailties in the Grace of God, not pridefully, to the worthiness and ability of Christ to fulfill all righteousness, this is the gift of the Body of Christ.  As a man puts the ring around the finger of his wife-to-be as a seal of his love, so has Christ sealed us up, not only around our fingers, but yea, around our whole selves.  Around our very souls and spirits and bodies and words and actions and lives!  We have not received a ring that will pass away, but we have received the very Spirit of God, God HIMSELF!  God Himself is the guarantee and the guarantor of our salvation:

 Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with EVERY spiritual blessing in the Heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.  In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved....   

Ephesians 1:3-6

Referring back to my previous paragraph:

 

In Him you also, when you heard the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory! (Exclamation mark my own)

Ephesians 1:13-14

As being such, we can be like our father, Abraham: 

 

He (Abraham) did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead... No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he great STRONG in His faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.

Romans 4:19, 20-21

We stand not in fear and doubt as we reflect on the weakness and the animosity towards God of this flesh, but we stand secure that the promise lies not in the ability and power of our bodies and wills, but in the very Word and Covenant of God!  Our flesh is just as dead as Abraham's, not necessarily in the physical sense but in the spiritual inability to choose, obey, and chase after God.  But even that flesh shall be redeemed and sanctified, and is being so even as you read this.

I say this not to make it about mere man, but about the glorious faithfulness and grace of God!  Who are we that He should consider us, as the psalmist says?  Who are we that He should pour such grace over us?  Grace so that we are not only saved (and I don't mean only saved, as if it were some small thing) but that we can have faith and assurance that we are such?  Grace to give us saving faith and a faith and knowledge that He is faithful!