The Love of Christ

Well, I haven't been on here for over 6 months it looks like. My brother helped remind me of that.
I'm sick at the moment, so what better time to update my blog. Actually, its more that I've really been challenged by the Lord throughout the past few months while being away at school.

Through all the ins and outs of life, God has really been revealing my heart to me and His grace more and more. I think that God sometimes wants to break us down in order to show His love still more.

At FBC(my home church) the other week, my pastor finished Ephesians. Now you have to know that FBC has been going through Ephesians for the past 5 years. I started coming when we were in Ephesians 2 I think, where the Gospel is laid out. That is a time of my life that I will never forget, realizing for the first time in my entire life, that I was a sinner and that God's grace had been given through Christ in order to save me. That although by the world's standards I was a good kid, before God even my best deeds were not enough to get me into Heaven. More then that, that my best deeds, because I thought they were of worth were actually helping me on my road to eternal destruction. But Ephesians 2:4-9 says, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- and raised up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may boast."

This was the point in my life where God drew me towards Himself, showing me His grace and mercy that He gives to those who believe because of what He did to Christ. That He literally, killed His Son, who is God, in order to bring me to Himself. In order to save me from His wrath. WOW! Even as I write this I am amazed to even think about this.

So, we got to the end of Ephesians 6 and the final verse is "Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible." This verse challenged me more then I would have accepted.
I was looking into my life and wondering why I don't love Jesus this much. Battling with this. And through some great encouragement I was told to look at the gospel once again.

Now this is probably one of my favorite quotes ever. Tim Keller writes of the gospel.
Through the Gospel we see that we are:
More sinful and wicked then we ever dared belief,
and more loved and accepted then we ever dared hope.
To think that I am loved and accepted by God is crazy. 2nd Corinthians says that "He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God.
I am only accepted before God because Jesus was forsaken by His Father. I'm only love by God because Jesus was hated as He bore my sin and my wrath.

When this is put into context, and I see who I am before God, because of Christ, this gives me reason to love Him, reason to trust Him, and reason to follow Him. He did what I could not. He could make me right before God and He did because of His great love for me.

This is my only hope, because Christ was the only one who was perfect and the only one who can save me.
2 Corinthians 5:14
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.
And this is where I'm at. See Christ as best and the one who is deserving of all praise.