You Have a Great Christ

“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13 ESV)

 

One of the most beautiful assurances of the Gospel is that through Jesus Christ, God takes us exactly as we are, but He doesn’t leave us as we are.

 

God our Father is constantly at work in us, and as Philippians 2 tells us, we are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because He is at work in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Just one chapter earlier, Paul declares his certainty “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ”.
Our faith rises as we draw near again and again to the word of God and come in faith, believing He will work through that word to shape us, change us, remake us so that we are conformed more and more to Christ. It is that living and powerful and active Word, the word that never grows old or fails to accomplish its purpose – that is the word which is at work.

 

And so we walk forward in hope and we come to warm our hearts at the fire of God’s word. We will never need Christ less, and the more we come to Him, the more we will desire Him, and the more we will know our need. And when we fail to come to Christ, or when we lack the desire or the will to come, we only need to cry out to Him.

 

As our friend Becky Pliego has said, “Don’t pray for more willpower to be consistent in your devotional life. Pray for more hunger and thirst of God. He will answer you!”

“He satisfies the longing soul,
    and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” (Psalm 107:9 ESV)

Charles Spurgeon said once, “I have a great need for Christ: I have a great Christ for my need.”

You have a great Christ, sister. Come to Him.

 

This first appeared as a devotional on the Women Encouraged podcast which you can listen to on iTunes. The shownotes and information are available on the Women Encouraged website here.