During yesterday’s devotions I was reminded again how much I love the “But God” verses. Consider Ephesians 2:1-7, for example:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
I had everything against me. I was not “sick,” but “dead” in my sins. I was following the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.” I was a slave to “the passions of my flesh.” I was by nature a “child of wrath.”
I was in an unfathomable predicament.
Ah, but God….
I find that as I meditate on the gap between the severity of my helpless condition and the Lord’s insurmountable grace toward me, and how He so mercifully and sovereignly chose to make me “alive together with Christ,” my love and appreciation for Him deepens. Other “But God” passages include Romans 5:7-8, 1 Corinthians 1:25-29 and Galatians 3:18.
May your ever-widening grasp of this “But God Gap” serve to stir your affections and expand your love for the Lord.
From the BoundlessLine blog.
Copyright 2008, Focus on the Family.
Used by permission.