April 11 – LD 15, Day 3: God’s Everlasting Favor

Psalm 32:1 - “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”

Are you aware of the sins you committed yesterday? How about this morning and today? It is easy for us to minimize and think lightly of sin. But then, we are brought to Calvary. We see just how serious our sins are, and we see the wonderful mercy of God in forgiving us all our sins.

At other times some of those sins cause us a lot of grief. We start to think that God is punishing us. It can be hard at times to forgive ourselves of things that we’ve done, often because of the devastating consequences of our actions. Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice have the result, according to the catechism, of “redeeming our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and obtain for us the favor of God, righteousness and eternal life.”

God’s favor is His opening of our eyes to see how precious Jesus is, and that He is our Savior. Righteousness is being right in God’s eyes. We are freed from all the guilt and punishment of sin. Eternal life is the crown on the work of Jesus. We are given entrance into the gates of heaven! “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise.” God makes us rejoice in Him Who wept for us. God makes it such that we are able to live our lives with joy and thanksgiving.

We have many earthly problems, but we are free from sin and eternal punishment. May we, as God’s redeemed, never be overly anxious about the suffering of this present time seeing we have been redeemed from such great distress and death!