“The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
9 He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
12 As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
13 Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
14 For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust…
17 But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.” (Psalm 103:8-14,17 NASB1995)

Who are those who fear the Lord? We are those who honor him for who he is, who obey him, in practice, though not necessarily in absolute sinless perfection. We are those who give him respect, esteem, reverence, and devotion by how we live our lives in honor of him. We worship the Lord via giving our lives over to him, by God-gifted faith in him, by dying with him to sin, and by walking in obedience to his commands, in the power of God. We see our lives as no longer our own, but now under the ownership of God.

For Jesus Christ, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – left his throne in heaven, came to earth, and allowed himself to be born as a human baby to a virgin woman, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Since he was not born of man, but of God, he was not born with a sin nature as we are, in the image of Adam. But he was in the likeness of God, which is who he was and always will be. So while he lived on the earth he was fully God and fully human (God incarnate), and he never once sinned.

Jesus Christ came to the earth for the purpose to teach the people of the earth the message of the gospel of our salvation, to heal the sick and afflicted, to raise the dead, to deliver people from demons, and to honor God the Father in all that he was and did and said, all for the glory of God. And he was born a human and lived on the earth so that one day he would be our sacrificial lamb hung on a cross to die to free us from our slavery to sin so we would, by faith in him, die to sin and obey our Lord’s commands.

This was and is the lovingkindness of God, that he would send his only begotten Son Jesus to the earth to take on human flesh, and to give his life up for us on that cross in order to put our sins to death with him, so that by faith in him we will now die to sin and live for God in obedience to his commands in holy living. This is his grace to us which trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we await our Lord’s soon return (see Titus 2:11-14).

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

So, although we are still human, and we still live in flesh bodies, and we still have the propensity to sin, and we still might sin sometimes (1 John 2:1-2), Jesus died on that cross to free us from our addiction to sin so we will now serve him with our lives. Even though God is slow to anger and abounding in love and compassion toward us who fear (obey) him, whose lives are surrendered to doing his will, he does set limits for us. For if sin remains our practice, and not obedience to God, we don’t have eternal life with God.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

I’m The One

By Ray Overholt

I was not in the garden when He knelt to God and prayed
I did not kiss Him on the cheek when Jesus was betrayed;
I was not at the trial when the crowd jeered at His name
I did not make Him bear a cross or walk a road of shame;

I was not on the hillside when He gave His life that day
I did not nail His precious hands or take His robe away;
I could not do a single thing to hurt God’s only Son
But every time I sin on earth I feel that I’m the one

I’m the one who shouted “crucify,”
I’m the one who made His cross so high
I’m the one who stood and watched Him die;
What have I done? I’m the one

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The Lord is Compassionate and Gracious
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