Throne of Grace
We’ve all messed up.
We’ve all done things, seen things, and said things we regret. We’ve all sinned—ignoring God’s commands and rebelling against His ways. And we know it, too. This is because God gave us the ability to discern right from wrong. His Word reveals His righteousness and magnifies our lack and need for Him.
The bad news is our sin separates us from a holy God.
But the good news is Jesus has already bridged the gap.
Our Savior, Jesus Christ, lived the perfect life we couldn’t and died the brutal death we should’ve—becoming the final and ultimate sacrifice. He’s paid our debt, cleared our names, and defeated death itself by rising back to life. And now, as the author of Hebrews suggests, we have an open invitation into His presence…
Don’t Lose Heart
As we start getting older, our bodies begin to change.
Muscles might ache. Hair might gradually turn gray. Vision and hearing might eventually get less sharp. And we, or someone we love, might even struggle with significant or devastating health challenges.
The apostle Paul once offered some ageless wisdom to the believers in Corinth, Greece, which can still be helpful for us today:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV
Paul knew what it was like to face hard things; he’d been beaten, shipwrecked, snake bitten, and imprisoned.
Earlier in the letter, he’d said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)
The ripple effects of sin’s existence in the world might frustrate us physically, but it ...