The Glocal Church

Click on the last link under my blog roll titled “The Revelation Song” by “GateWay Worship” and then read Revelation Chapters 4 and 5.  Allow God to bless you as you stand in amazement of Him and worship Him and His Son, the Lamb that was slain so that you and I could have an intimate relationship with the Living God!

Among all of the goings-on in all of our lives this past week, I think we all, at least for a moment, sat quietly and remembered where we were that mid morning, Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On that bright Tuesday morning, the landscape of our world changed forever…and those events brought America to its knees. However, if you are a Christ follower, although your temporary and worldly landscape had changed, your eternal landscape is stronger than ever.

Below are the lyrics to a song by “Day of Fire” called “Cornerstone.” Read the lyrics as well as the biblical texts from Isaiah, Psalms, and Matthew below, and if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior…Give Him praise for sustaining and strengthening you, in all of life’s chaos and unrest!

All of the ground is sinking sand
A doubting maze of desert land
Where darkness rules the heart of man
Til’ the sun shines light on him

Lord of all,
Show you’re strong
All my needs they fall

Be a cornerstone
Be a cornerstone
Be a rock, higher than I
Be my fortress wall
Be a foundation for all,
My cornerstone

The building’s swaying in the wind
The towers crumble down again
This certainly will be the end
Of them not built on him

Lord of all
Show your strong
All my needs they fall

You
You are the builder of my heart
You
Held me together from the start

 Isaiah prophesied about the coming Messiah, the “Chief Cornerstone.” He recorded the following in Isaiah 28:16: “Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘Look! I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem. It is firm, a tested and precious cornerstone that is safe to build on. Whoever believes need never run away again.’”

Also the Psalm writer wrote the following in Psalm 118:22: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  This is also recorded in Matthew’s Gospel in Matthew 21:42.

So, I leave you with one question to ponder….”What provides the foundation of your life, and on what or whom do you continually use  to build  your life ?”

“But now righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe….for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice… (to) those who have faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:21-26

Paul makes a big shift in verse 21…He shifts from the revelation of God’s wrath, which he identified in chapter one, to here in chapter three, where he focuses on God’s righteousness…and the righteousness which He provides us…. Our righteousness, as we know, is as filthy rags….So God does not transform us into a Righteous people but He declares us righteous through faith in Jesus.

There are two key actions outlined in this text that provide clarity to the righteousness bestowed to us by God. Building on verses 21-25, Paul provides further clarity in verse 26 on God the Father’s justice, through Christ’s sacrificial atonement. He does so in two specific ways.

First, He gave His Son– God takes sin so seriously, that since we are incapable of freeing ourselves, He sent His Son who knew no sin, to become sin. Then through Christ’s resurrection, God the Father Exonerated His Son and defeated death itself.

Second, through Christ’s act of freeing us from the bondage of sin, He has given us a brand new outlook on life….A new landscape, if you will…In which all things have been made new by Christ’s atonement, which provided the means to free us from sin’s indictment, and for God to declare us Just.

We can best demonstrate our gratitude to God for the righteousness which He so wonderfully bestowed upon us, through Jesus’ sacrifice, by modeling Paul’s exhortation in Galatians 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus….The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”