OzThoughts – Wednesday 25th November 2009

OzThoughts – Wednesday 25th November 2009

Today I begin the 12th year of life with a new heart valve. It seems it is a pretty routine operation. The heart is bypassed and stopped. The surgeon does his work and the heart is restarted. Later consciousness is slowly regained and the world comes back into reality. There is the reality of pain, the reality of relief with drugs, the reality of hearing the new valve tick with each heart beat and the reality of regaining new strength. The reality that life is new again is something beyond normal experience.

I think, too, that sometimes our salvation bought at such great cost with the death of God’s son, Jesus, seems so routine. It helps sometimes to consider the cost of our salvation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about cheap grace and costly grace and reminded us that discipleship and commitment to Christ was an essential part of our eternal salvation.
(See: http://www.crossroad.to/Persecution/Bonhoffer.html ).

A new valve gives a new lease of life, but that new life will only continue as I daily take medication and have regular blood checks to make sure the dose is correct. The medication also calls for a commitment to a slight change in diet as certain foods may affect the medication.

Living for Jesus means much more than calling ourselves “Christian because God loves us all”.

PRAYER:

Father, I thank you for my salvation bought at such a price. May I not take it lightly and live today a life pleasing to you. Help me to share the good news of your full salvation with others. Amen.

Ephesians 2: 1 -13 (The Message)
1-6It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
11-13But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
[Listen: Choir: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music3/mus_4242.mp3
or
Band: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music2/mus_3616.mp3 ]


Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Not the labours of my hands
Can fulfil thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress,
Helpless, look to thee for grace,
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyes shall close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
Author: Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-78)
The Salvation Army Song Book: Song Number: 302

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