ACCEPTANCE THROUGH CHRIST

For anyone to enjoy settled peace as long as he is occupied with himself, he must cease from self and harken to God’s Word, and rest, without a single question, on its pure, precious and everlasting record. God’s Word never changes. I change; my frame, my feelings, my experience, my circumstances change continually, but God’s Word is the same yesterday and today and forever.

It is a grand and essential point for the soul to apprehend that Christ is the only definition of the believer’s place before God. This gives immense power, liberty and blessing. “As he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). This is something perfectly wonderful!

Let us ponder it; let us think of a poor wretched, guilty slave of sin, a bondslave of Satan, a votary of the world, exposed to an eternal hell—such an one taken up by sovereign grace, delivered completely from the grasp of Satan, the dominion of sin, the power of this present evil—pardoned, washed, justified, brought nigh to God, accepted in Christ and perfectly and forever identified with him so that the Holy Ghost can say, “As Christ is, so is he in this world!”

All this seems too good to be true. And most assuredly, it is too good for us to get. But blessed be the God of all grace and blessed be the Christ of God, it is not too good for him to give. God gives like himself. He will be God, in spite of our unworthiness and Satan’s opposition. He will act in a way worthy of himself and worthy of the Son of his love.

Excerpted from the writings of J.B. Stoney used in David Wilkerson’s personal devotions