God's Design - A Personal Reflection

This reflection draws on an excerpt from "A Gospel Narrative" in Milton Vincent's book A Gospel Primer for Christians. In light of what you have heard from Matt Chandler's teaching, take a moment to read and reflect on God's glory, your sin, and your need for redemption through Jesus.

The Glory of God

1 My God is immense beyond imagination. He measured the entire universe with merely the span of His hand. 2 He is unimaginably awesome in all of His perfections, absolutely righteous, holy, and just in all of His ways. 3 He has also been unbelievably good and merciful to me as the Creator and Sustainer of my life. 4 Every breath, every heartbeat, every function of every organ in my body is a gift from Him. 5 Every legitimate pleasure I experience is a gift from His loving hand to me. 6 All that I am and all that I have I owe to Him and to His goodness. 7 My life in every way is, and will continue to be, utterly dependent upon Him in whom I live and move and have my being. 8 This wonderful God is the most supremely worthy Object of admiration, honor, and delight in all of the universe; 9 And He has created me with the intention that I might glorify Him by finding my soul's delight in Him and by living in joyful obedience to Him in all of my ways.

My Sin Against God

10 Yet I could not have failed this great God more miserably than I have. 11 Instead of giving thanks to Him and humbly submitting to His rule over my life, I have rebelled against Him and have actually sought to exalt myself above Him. 12 Going my own way and living according to my own wisdom, I have broken countless times either the letter or the spirit of every one of God's Ten Commandments. 13 Thinking myself to be wise, I have shown myself to be a fool; and because of my arrogance, God has every right to damn me to the everlasting experience of His terrifying wrath in the Lake of Fire. 14 So as for myself, apart from Christ I am bound by the guilt of my sins and also bound by the power of sin, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. 15 Apart from Christ, I am also utterly deserving of and destined for eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire, completely unable to save myself or even to make one iota of a contribution to my own salvation.

(Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God's Love, Focus Publishing, 2008, pp. 60-61.)