Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
GARDEN FULL OF BLESSINGS
During the Lenten season we have the custom of listening to the Passion History which tells about all that God's Son went through to purchase us to be His. As we hear it read our hearts are sorely grieved to think how impossibly weedy our garden of life had become that it required such a degree of suffering for Jesus to clean it up.
But it also gladdens our hearts to hear the story of our Savior's suffering. We know that because those awful weeds of sin, death, hell's fury and Satan's rage grew up and choked the life out of Him, their growing season is over. They have become as dried out stubble blown by the wind. Thanks to the Spirit's work in our hearts -- His leading us to faith in the Crucified -- we are now planted in a brand new garden, the Church, which is perpetually green and where lovely fruits sprout daily for our soul's enjoyment: The peace of forgiveness, the assurance of victory over Satan, power for Christian living, and the joy of knowing that God is our dear Father and we are His dear children. We are happy possessors of all the spiritual blessings Christ came from heaven to win for us.
Therefore I will forever Give glory unto Thee,
O Jesus, loving Savior, For what Thou didst for me.
I'll spend my breath in songs of thanks
For Thy sad cry, Thy sufferings,
Thy wrongs, Thy guiltless death.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 152:4)
