Today's encouragement comes from Paul's Holy Spirit-inspired words of Ephesians 1:5:
"Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, ac-cording to the good pleasure of His will."Have we ever heartily (like Paul) thanked God for the gracious Biblical doc-trines of predestination and election? Without this sovereign work of God no one would ever be saved; and we would all be forever bound to sin, death, damnation, and hell. Those who exalt human "free will" over the powerful gospel of Christ despise God, and His grace.
Let us recognize this humbling truth: that unless the Lord had first come to us, in His mercy—there is no way, ever, that we would have come to Him in Christ.
[Puritan quote of the day: "The church is a distinct race that originally came from God. Other men are of the earth—they are of earthly derivation, the posterity of men—but the church is the posterity of God.” —Jonathan Ed-wards, in his sermon, "Christians a Chosen Generation"]
