Gracious God, You gave Your Son into the hands of sinful men who killed Him. Forgive us when we reject Your unfailing love, and grant us the fullness of Your salvation; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Do you know one of those old couples who “share a brain?” You know the sort. Maybe you are one of those people. Maybe you are a widow or widower grieving the loss of your other half. If, so, I pray for you. Such couples complete each other’s sentences. You can hardly imagine them without the other. I remember more than one couple in my ministry whose surviving member did not long survive the death of the spouse. As I look at those couples and their beautiful relationships, I wonder if they, in their 50th year of marriage, have a sense of being more married today than they were on the day of their wedding.
Of course, as far as the IRS or the government is concerned, being married is a yes or a no question. You cannot be more married or less married. But the law cannot really see some very important things, like love and the intertwining of two lives into a single life. It is blind to that.
We pray today that God grants us the fullness of His salvation. Is salvation something you can have more or less of? Not really, not in one sense. On the day of your baptism, you were fully and completely saved by God. His love has been given to you. You have God’s favor. But on the other hand, like any relationship, this relationship with God can and does grow. Am I more saved today than on the day that I was baptized? Am I more of a Christian? Yes! Thanks and praise be to God. His persistent forgiveness and love for me are like the waters that shape the landscape one droplet at a time. God is shaping me into his person, and we are growing closer to one another. There are many stony places in a human heart which require a great deal of God’s loving erosion to make them fit for heaven. Will God have to break out the drill and insert some dynamite to blast it away? I am a work in progress. The fullness of salvation is something I look forward to. Pray for it today.