Fri.-Sabbath, 1/3-5/14 Devotion

Wahoo--we get to go to church on Sunday! In order to help get us all ready, here is the incomparably magnificent Thomas Watson, from his outstanding book, entitled, "A Body of Divinity":

" 'I would [like to] be in covenant with God, but I have been a great sin-ner, and I fear God will not admit me into covenant.'

"If you see your sins, and loathe yourself for them, God will take you into covenant. 'You have wearied Me with your iniquities; I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions,’ (Isa. 43:24-25). As the sea covers great rocks, so God's covenant mercy covers great sins. Some of the Jews that crucified Christ had their sins washed away in His blood.

" 'But I am not worthy that God should admit me into covenant.'

"It never came into God's thoughts to make a New Covenant upon terms of worthiness. If God should show mercy to none but such as are worthy, then must He show mercy to none. But it is God's design in the New Covenant to advance the riches of grace, to love us freely; and when we have no worthiness of our own, to accept us through Christ’s worthiness. Therefore let not unworthiness discourage you; it is not unworthiness that excludes any from the covenant, but unwill-ingness."