The Door To Destitution

I was at a Men’s Prayer Breakfast about 11 years ago and the speaker asked all of us to come up with one word to describe Jesus. The word that immediately came to mind for me was Redeemer. For me to love Jesus with all my heart, mind, and soul I need to always remember that He is my Redeemer.

I should always have an attitude of gratitude when it comes to Christ. imagine someone coming to you and telling you that they want to write you a check that will make you debt free. No car payment, no mortgage, no medical bills, no outlandish credit card balances. Totally debt free. No doubt that person would be at least very appreciated by you if not esteemed.

We should esteem Jesus above all; the world tells you to esteem yourself. That is a lie from the pit of hell (I shall be writing a short book on that very soon). Jesus voluntarily paid our sin debt, a debt we could never pay no matter the amount of time allotted. Jesus became the ultimate and final sin offering for those who will accept Him:

    “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.” (Isaiah 53:10)

We can become the righteousness of God because of the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross; all we have to do is believe. One of the verses I use when sharing the gospel is Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” That verse by itself is bad news. But it is bracketed by five verses full of good news:

    “But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:21-26)

We could camp out on those six verses for quite some time, but I want to pay close attention to verse 24 – “…being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…” This takes me back to my description of Christ, Redeemer. I came to the point in my life that I knew no matter how good I thought I was, I would never be good enough to enter into heaven. How did I come to know that? Through God’s Word and having faith enough to believe I needed Christ. Romans 10 says “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (verse 17).

For redemption to come, I must come to the end of myself. Writing on Romans 3:24, Oswald Chambers puts it this way:

    We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there Our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves, we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit.

Are you doing without? You may think money is your biggest need right now. Perhaps your health is ailing you and you think if only I could be healthy again. Those are real needs but they are only temporal. Even if you are physically hungry, that too will pass away, but spiritual hunger will never pass away without Christ.

Are you redeemed? Let me ask the question that is answered by the Big Daddy Weave video I shared with you a couple of days ago. Are you redeemed?

Have you got to the point that your self-sufficiency has ran out and you realize that you are spiritually destitute? Random House Dictionary defines destitute as “deprived of, devoid of, or lacking.”

If you were to die today, would you face God devoid of righteousness? If you were to do so, your eternal fate was sealed at your death. Actually, it may have been done so long before when you hardened your heart for the last time.

Do not let that be you!

Are you redeemed? Do you know the One and Only Redeemer Jesus Christ? Have you placed your faith in Him?

Do so today.

Answer once and for all the most important question you’ll ever answer while on earth…

Are you redeemed?

Have you walked through the door to destitution?

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2013 David Jeffers

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