Today's encouragement comes from the words of Paul, as they are found in 2 Corinthians 6:1:
"We then, as workers together with [Christ] also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”How is the grace of God received "in vain”—even potentially by us, sincere Christian churchmen? It is "received in vain" when we forget that all of our righteousness is entirely wrapped up in Jesus alone. The previous verse, (2 Cor. 5:21), had taught us that our righteousness is “alien,” and that it is legally imputed to us in Christ’s atonement of us. But our flesh continually recoils at such marvels, and seeks to regain its perverse "credibility" (even with God).
So, when we cease to look to Jesus only for our redemption, (and we gaze upon ourselves or something else), we receive the grace of God "in vain." Is Christ our righteousness? Then let us look no further.
[Puritan quote of the day: "Christ is never really absent from such as love Him, but He may seem to be so sometimes.” —Thomas Vincent, in, "The True Christian's Love to the Unseen Christ"]
