Gracious Father, we cry out with praise today. Miraculous is the only word to describe your redeeming work in our lives through Christ Jesus our Lord. We were born into this world consumed in misery and hopeless despair. We found ourselves in a state of depravity with hearts recklessly chasing fulfillment through sinful motives, principles, affections, and actions. We, and the fallen world around us, desperately seek intimacy, identity, and influence in people, places, possessions, power, persuasions, politics, and ethnicity—all of which lead to an empty and often combative results.
All this misery and destruction is because sin came into the world through one man (Adam), and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Yes! We are sinners and have fallen desperately short of your glory. We are all objects of your justified wrath.
Oh Father! We needed a life-saving miracle. If only there was a miraculous way to be raised from our spiritually dead state, awakened to our disastrous trajectory, forgiven of our sin, set free from our propensity to sin and the stench of death, enabled to abide in your loving presence, and reflect your glory.
Praise to Your Glorious Name! That is what you did. We were born again. Because of your loving mercy, we were convicted of our sin, confessed our sin, and invited Christ into our life as Savior and Lord and were miraculously born again and able experience the kingdom of God.
We shout aloud! We are born again! Through Christ’s sacrificial work alone we are alive! Truly alive!
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Unbelievably, we were chosen in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us and adopted us as sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In Christ we have been redeemed through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.
Because of God’s mercy, we now live as his beloved children, having received power to become the children of God! Lord Jesus, you untether us from the mad and exhausting chase to find intimacy, identity, and influence in this fallen world. You are our true source of gratification. Lead us to fully grasp the riches of our inheritance in Christ for your glory. Now that’s something to shout about!
In Christ,
Blessings!
Ephesians 2:3
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Romans 5:12
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Romans 5:19
19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
John 3:3
Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Ephesians 1:3-8a
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. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us.
1 Peter 1:23
for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.
Titus 3:5
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,