Today as part of my devotional time I’ve finished the book Freedom Starts Today for the second time. Day 90 of the devotions addresses God’s sole purpose for sending Christ to be our Savior and Lord. The author demonstrates this by drawing a Cross. Above the cross write Given For. Below the cross write Forgiven. For the first time I see that Christ was given-for us to be for-given.

Tonight I am teaching the Celebrate Recovery lesson called Powerless. The lesson ties to Principle One in our recovery which states: “Realize I’m not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable.” The verse supporting the principle is Matthew 5:3, “Happy are those who are spiritually poor.” I looked up spiritually poor this morning during my devotional time to see what the experts said about it. It said, “To be poor in spirit is to recognize your utter spiritual bankruptcy before God.” There is nothing I can do from my own spirit/drive/efforts for I will fail on my own.

Tying today’s lesson in the book stated in the first paragraph to the lesson on Powerless is amazing. Christ was given to us by God to forgive what I cannot do on my own–be sinless. By accepting Christ into my life God sees Christ’s work on the Cross for me rather than seeing my sin and my powerless efforts to be sinless. This is what Christ was given for–so you and I could be FORGIVEN! What GRACE this is!