Reflection for Blessed Good Friday

Lent Day 38: The Book of James

God says, by faith you are already saved from an eternity without Me. You are justified before Me by faith in My Son, not by living well.

As My child, you will inherit a place in the kingdom, a seat at My table, a dance card for the party. That's My gift to you. It's guaranteed.

When you were justified before Me by faith and guaranteed heaven as My gift, My Spirit made you alive to Me with the life of My Son. He regenerated you. He gave you a new heart, a new and potentially consuming desire to love Me and others at any cost to yourself.

Justification makes you My child.

Regeneration provides the power to live like My child.

And because justification is always accompanied by regeneration, every justified person's way of relating will evidence the presence of divine life though that evidence may be visible only to Me.

When your faith leads to a consuming desire to love Me and others at any cost, when your faith is accompanied by a consistent pattern of good works, your life in this world will not be wasted, and your life in the next world will be uniquely blessed.


(from 66 Love Letters: A Conversation with God that Invites You into His Story by Dr. Larry Crabb, ©2009.)