Your counsels and plans stand forever
We give thanks and praise to you always
From where you sit enthroned in heaven
You look at the inhabitants of the earth
Your eyes are on all those who fear you
O LORD, most High, let your great mercy
Be upon us forever as we hope in you.
— Adapted from the Psalms —
Every Christian should Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice when we consider God’s grace, love, and mercy, and it’s not by meritorious works of righteousness which we have done to deserve salvation.
At the building of Solomon’s Temple, David in his thanksgiving and prayer said: “Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all” (1 Chronicles 29:11).
The incomparable and immeasurable greatness and power of God did a most remarkable thing for us when we were alienated from God and being spiritually dead in our sins. As a result God’s power, He “made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-7).
In the context of Ephesians 2:5-7, Paul writes: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (vv, 4,5). Note: ”great love with which he loved us.”
God’s love is an unconditional love. This means there were no preconditions or pre-requirements to be met for God’s love to be applied. The text says, “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”
The key is “alive together with Christ.” When Christ died, we died with Him. When He was buried, we were buried with Him. When He was raised (made alive), we were made alive together with Him also.
So then, the same power of God that manifested itself in raising Christ from the dead, has also given us resurrection life. The believer is united with Christ in His death and resurrection. The Bible says, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). Therefore, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
“I have been crucified with Christ.
It is no longer I who life;
But Christ who lives in me.
And the life I now live in the flesh
I live by faith in the Son of God,
Who loved me and gave himself for me”
(Galatians 2:20)