Life Eternal And Internal
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
2 Corinthians 9:15 NIV
Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness. Consciously or unconsciously, his inner being longs for both. There are times when man actually cries for them, even though in his restlessness, confusion, loneliness, fear, and pressures he may not know what he is crying for.
God heard the first cry for help, that cry for forgiveness, and answered it at Calvary. God sent His only Son into the world to die for our sins, so that we might be forgiven. This is a gift for us—God’s gift of salvation. This gift is a permanent legacy for everyone who truly admits he has “fallen short” and sinned. It is for everyone who reaches out and accepts God’s gift by receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Paul calls it God’s “indescribable” gift.
But God also heard our second cry, that cry for goodness, and answered it at Pentecost. God does not want us to come to Christ by faith, and then lead a life of defeat, discouragement, and dissension. Rather, He wants to “fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power; in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you” (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12 NASB).
To the great gift of forgiveness God adds also the great gift of the Holy Spirit. He is the source of power who meets our need to escape from the miserable weakness that grips us. He gives us the power to be truly good.
If we are to live a life of sanity in our modern world, if we wish to be men and women who can live victoriously, we need this two-sided gift God has offered us: first, the work of the Son of God for us; second, the work of the Spirit of God in us. In this way God has answered mankind’s two great cries: the cry for forgiveness and the cry for goodness.
As a friend of mine has said, “I need Jesus Christ for my eternal life, and the Holy Spirit of God for my internal life.” He might have added, “. . . so I can live my external life to the fullest.”
Our Father and our God, You are so much a part of me that I can’t identify where I end and You begin. I am nothing without You, Lord. You are in me, around me, and through me. I am Yours, and You are mine. Thank You for being with me forever. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).