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OUT IN THE OPEN

God has not hidden what He has done to redeem humanity.
He offers us the only way of true repentance, faith, forgiveness of sin and a new life that is unending. Truth is, though, He never forces repentance, faith, forgiveness and a new life on anyone. He desires a relationship, not the programmed responses of humanoid AI.
His love for us has exposed the utter ruin of humanity because of our rebellion and sin. He doesn’t want us to be deceived into thinking that at the end of our lives here on earth we will all get a “participation trophy”. We have all personalized and internalized our rebellion against God. Humanity’s rebellion against God can be shocking horror or the civilized folly or relying on our broken moral compass to bring ourselves back into a state of wholeness. We want to be the ground of truth. We want our emotions enshrined and worshipped by all. The root problem is that humanity is spiritually dead and separated from Life, Himself. Both pride and horror are perverse and dead-ended. What is dead can never hope to ameliorate its condition, it cannot save itself from its deadness.
God has shown His love for us all out in the open for all to see. There was no mistaking what was happening on that Roman cross when Jesus Christ hung there dying. Psalm 22, written 800 years before Rome invented crucifixion, describes in detail what was happening on Good Friday. Hands and feet being pierced, bones out of joint, dehydration, gentile soldiers (called “dogs” by the Jews of Jesus’ day) surrounding Him and casting lots for His clothes; people wagging their heads ridiculing Him. It was all foretold. Isaiah 52:13- 53:12 clearly describes what Jesus Christ was doing for humanity on the cross. “God made Him Who knew no sin, to become sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God through Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
On Good Friday, God showed all of creation His justice in fully pouring out the fully deserved punishment of humanity on His undeserving Son that He could offer His mercy, grace, forgiveness and eternal life to all who would believe His love, turn from the deception of self-consumed pride and be restored to Him is intimacy and hope. All of us had gone horribly astray like lost sheep and the Father laid on Jesus Christ, the Son, the iniquity of us all.
It's all out in the open. Pull your head out of the sand of the devil’s deception and look upon the salvation and reclamation of your life.



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