{"id":21364,"date":"2017-04-23T00:10:31","date_gmt":"2017-04-23T07:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=10615"},"modified":"2017-04-23T00:10:31","modified_gmt":"2017-04-23T07:10:31","slug":"april-23-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/04\/23\/april-23-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"April 23, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"backgrounder: transparent url('http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/wp-content\/uploads\/April-different.jpg'); backgrounder-size: 600px 300px; left top repeat 0 100% width: 600px; margin: 10px auto; padding: 10px 80px 10px 85px; width: 90%,;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>\u201cFear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.\u201d<\/em> Ecclesiastes 12:13<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Wisdom From God<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Part 2<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In order to meet the challenge in today\u2019s Scripture that Solomon lays before us, we must first ask ourselves, \u201cAm I reconciled to God?\u201d It is an absolute that God wants relationship with us. He created us to both glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. But, God is holy and man is not. He is morally untainted and we are not. Since He cannot unite with sin, each of us must somehow be rendered pure in order to have relationship with Him. But how can we be cleansed and purified?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Jesus has accomplished this for us. Christ said of Himself in John 14:6,<em> \u201cI am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.\u201d<\/em> Jesus sacrificed His sinless life as atonement for the iniquity of those desiring reconciliation with God. A scandalous trade: His righteousness for our sinfulness! Here is the most sacred equation of grace: undeserved merit and favor!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">When Jesus voluntarily submitted to His torturous death on a Roman cross, His shed blood atoned for our sin. It was as if He lay down a cross-shaped bridge to span the chasm of our sin to give us access to the Father. Paul spoke of this transaction in Colossians when he said, <em>\u201cAnd although you were at one time estranged, alienated, and hostile-minded toward Him, yet Christ has now reconciled you to God in His physical body through death in order to present you before the Father holy and blameless and beyond reproach.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Some thirty years ago, compelled by the Holy Spirit, I personally made that crossing to reconciliation and relationship with the Father. It was with shaky feet, a pounding heart, and imperfect resolve that I ventured across that bridge to begin relationship with our triune God. And it was the wisest choice of my life!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Jesus covered the shameful rags of my unrighteousness with a dearly-bought, luminous robe of purity. No longer was I an enemy of God, but now His own beloved child! Jesus called me \u201cfriend\u201d and I began my life journey along the Way of one who follows Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The world has its beloved fantasy story called \u201cCinderella,\u201d but the Christian\u2019s superior reality is betrothal to the Prince of Peace for all eternity!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Would you like to know God and the wisdom He gives? Do you want to align your heart and life with pleasing Him? Have you realized that a relationship with Jesus should be the most important and urgent concern in your life? Have you asked the Lamb of God to be the Lord of your life?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cDear Jesus, it is Your desire to redeem us all. Open the eyes of our hearts to Your beauty and loving kindness. Draw us into adoption as your dearly loved children. Cause us to ask ourselves, \u201cWhat am I counting on for salvation?\u201d Is it all I can do in the flesh?\u00a0 Or, is it what Jesus has done and offers as grace? In our flesh, we can never pay the price of our sin. Help us choose You, Jesus, and thereby choose life united to You, the Price of Peace! Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cFear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.\u201d Ecclesiastes 12:13 Wisdom From God Part <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/04\/23\/april-23-2017\/\"> [&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5yA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}