the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Bowen's Daily Meditations
"Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive." - Psalms 86:6.
God’s commandment is good. The law of his will designates the only path in which it is good for men to walk. It cannot be that God’s choice should be otherwise than best. But man has broken God’s law, and discarded God’s choice. He has left the path that infinite goodness appointed to him. The question now arises. How can it be good in God to forgive man for abandoning that path? Is it becoming to let man obtain such a stupendous victory, and proceeding by a forbidden path, possess himself of the very good that God placed at the terminus of the path of obedience? Is the arrogance of man gross enough to aspire to such a success as this, and threw such contempt as this upon the law of God?
What then? must man suffer? Why not, rather than that man should enter heaven with a torn law of God for his banner? The welfare of the entire universe hangs by the adamantine chain of God’s authority; let this be shattered, and chaos is come again.
What otherwise could never have been, has been brought about by the incarnation, obedience, and death of the Son of God. God is now good even when he forgives. All his perfections rejoice over the accepted sinner.
God is ready to forgive. Let us act upon this unimpeachable truth. Have we not too often approached God as though it would require an immense deal of persuasion to induce him to forgive us? If Christ be there, there is no reason why we should not expect to obtain it most promptly and profusely; for there is something more accomplished by our forgiveness than the mere mitigation of our inward torment; there is the honor bestowed upon Christ. This translates the matter to the very court of heaven, and invests it with more than arch-angel dignity. God is ever ready to honor his Son; he is therefore ever ready to forgive those who have a true faith in Christ.
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