If we view God wrongly, we’re going to have wrong beliefs about the reality of sin and the question of our fellowship with God. The gospel will mean little if our concept of God is such that we see no need for what Christ made possible at the cross.

Jesus makes possible our reconciliation with God because he “gave himself as a ransom for all.” In other words, He paid the price for us to be released from our condemnation, dying in our place and thereby atoning for our sins (Romans 3:25,26).

In Christ, we begin to know God, and we have what might be considered a foretaste of eternal life — or a down payment on it (Ephesians 1:14) — but the fullness of that life is something that will be ours only in eternity (Titus 1:2; 1 Peter 1:3,4).

We may “know” that Jesus died for us, but in too many cases, the significance of what we know hasn’t really sunk in. The devil is perfectly content for us to “remember” Christ’s death as long as the true implications of that event never dawn on us.

If the gospel of Christ is true, we’re not in good spiritual health if we’re not in a right relationship with the God who is our Creator — and that requires the actual forgiveness of our sins through obedience to the message of salvation in Christ.

Sin is the rebellion of our will against God’s will. The gospel of Christ proposes to transform us back into people who submit to the will of their Creator. So obviously, there can be no rightful response to God’s grace without obedience (Luke 6:46).

As the God of truth, God requires that our actions truthfully reflect our desire and that our desire be nothing less than conformity — body, soul, and spirit — to the realities of His truth. We must desire God as sincerely as children often do.

Answers to our questions about God can’t always be found by philosophical inquiry. We have to weave our inquiries into our dealings with other human beings. It is in the giving and receiving of love that truth has its best chance to occur to us.

Christ’s love has a “compelling” effect on us, even before we receive the forgiveness of our sins. It is our recognition of His love and our joyous anticipation of gratitude to Him that move us to respond to the gospel in the first place.

As painful as it is to admit our total bankruptcy before God, there is no other way to be receptive to Him. It is only when our vessel has been drained of its last dregs that it is ready to be filled anew. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

In God’s providence, each of us is confronted each day with facts that ought to move us. The whole issue of spiritual growth hangs in the balance as we make the daily decisions that determine our responsiveness, the sensitivity of our hearts.

God gave us hearts with several dimensions, and we were designed to seek Him in all of these. To some extent, is this not wholeheartedness? To give God less than all three — our intellect, emotions, and will — is to be less than a whole person.

Why do we do what we do for God? If no one ever noticed or thanked us, would we be content simply to know that God had been glorified? Too often, what we’re really seeking is some (special) person’s “recognition” that we’re a good individual.

God makes it possible that those who “sow in tears shall reap in joy.” We might wish the harvest were already here, but that time is not yet. For all we know, it may be very near, but for now, the harvest is still in the future. We live in hope!

Our redemption won’t be accomplished if we’re not willing to know God as He truly is, and it’s primarily in the language of the Scriptures that He reveals Himself as He truly is. The only question is: what will we do with this information?

We’ve been forgiven of sins that we didn’t deserve to have forgiven. God has been patient with us, far past the point when justice would have blasted us out of existence. But do we “repay according to the favor shown” to us? Too often, we do not.

We need to be grateful for the hopes, aspirations, and desires that God has planted within our hearts — and we need to be willing for those desires to be fulfilled on His terms. If not, we’re on a path that leads to disappointment in the end.

Any time God is involved, “it ain’t over till it’s over,” and many more good things may turn up than we, or anyone else, could have produced or predicted. The race may look like it’s lost, but still be won — despite our lack of swiftness.