Propitiation

Hello CCH Family / Welcome to another...

When I was a kid / played LL baseball

I was decent, but never the hitter/wanted to be

Throughout the years / coaches would often

tell me the same thing to help me with hitting

Keep your eye on the ball (repeat)

And of course my underdeveloped mind thought for sure I knew what they were saying

Of course I'm gonna keep me eye on the ball!

How else would you hit it?

I'm not going up there with my eyes closed!

But w/ that vague direction (keep you eye on...)

I only had limited success.

It wasn't until later in life that I actually

discovered what they were trying to tell me all those years.

And I remember feeling let down

I remember thinking why didn't someone grab

young me by the shoulders and clearly explain

what they meant instead of throwing out a

vague suggestion.

Hey Kenny, this is what we mean

From the time the pitcher releases the ball until the time that ball makes contact with your bat, you can't take your eyes off the ball

If you want to be a successful hitter, you have

to watch the ball hit the bat

Now THAT makes sense to me and I think it

would've made sense to young me as well

I believe with the clarification, I would've seen more success at the plate.

So what does this have to do w/ a devotional

you may be asking at this point?

As Christians we hear and use vague Christian

words, terminology, and phrases with the

assumption that the person we are talking to understands what we actually mean

Maybe we ourselves are seasoned saints and havent internalized some of the amazing truths

that took place the second we believed.

The second we were saved.

Maybe no one has grabbed us by the shoulders

and said, THIS is what the bible is saying.

Just like young me would've benefitted greatly

from someone coming alongside me and

clearly articulating the key to hitting a baseball,

early in my walk I would've benefitted greatly

from having a better understanding of some of

the foundational truths of the gospel.

These are wonderful truths that are not solely

big picture items, but truths that can greatly

affect our day to day, sometimes hour to hour, or even minute to minutes lives.

There are some big fancy words in the bible and they are some heavy hitters, pun intended.

I'm sure we've all heard them, but do we truly

understand what they mean?

Have they moved from vague Christian concepts to the truth that we gird our wastes

w/ as we are putting on the whole armor of God

to stand against the whiles of the devil

My goal over the next few devotionals

God willing....is to grab

some of my brothers and sisters by the shoulders and say listen to these wonderful

truths that transpired the moment you believed

And if you internalize them I guarantee they will affect your daily walk

You will have less of those long walks back to

the dugout after striking out.

So without further ado after the longest

introduction in devotional history, I would like

to get to our first big fancy word...And what a better place to start than / heart of the gospel.

Propitiation - First I will use a scenario to give us

a more relatable idea of what a propitiation is

Imagine a husband makes the age old mistake

of answering that age old question of...

Does this dress make me look large?

At this point the husband is in the doghouse and will probably be sleeping on the couch.

He has incurred the wrath of his wife because

of a wrongdoing in her eyes regardless of his..

justifications. Now he in no way wants to spend another night on that couch so he goes out and

buys flowers, candy, takes out the trash and

mows the front yard.

She comes home to this pleasant surprise and all of her anger, disapproval, resentment, and wrath have all disappeared.

The husband is no longer in the doghouse and has found favor in her eyes.

Now, what was the propitiation in this scenario?

The flowers, candy, and acts of service.

They satisfied her anger, disapproval, resentment and wrath and changed her thoughts towards him to forgiveness and love.

Rom 3:23

Rom 6:23a

Rom 2:5 NLT

Now our problem is there are not enough

For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

5 But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself.

23 For the wages of sin is death,

flowers, candy, and acts of service we can

muster up in an entire lifetime to shift God from wrath to forgiveness and approval.

It's actually insulting to even think we can.

Imagine standing in front of a judge and you are guitly of a heinous crime and saying, "Yeah but judge think about all the good things I have done."

That won't help you in a courtroom and it...

won't help you with the Judge of judges either

1 John 4:10

1 John 2:2

Heb 2:17 ESV

Who is our Propitiation?

No flowers or candy

It was the Son of God who stood in our place

and paid the penalty we could not pay

and because of THIS, we are no longer targets

17 Therefore he had

to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and

faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

of God's wrath.

Those crosshairs were lined up directly on us and God doesn't miss.

Jesus rescued us from God's wrath.

On the cross God shifted the crosshairs to Jesus and poured out the wrath you and I deserve on Him.

Any disapproval hostility or anger towards

your sins (past, present, and future) has been

absorbed by Jesus.

Now when He looks at you, He sees the

righteousness of Christ

His feelings toward you are always love and grace, not anger, disappointment and disapproval.

Church family I want you to remember that the next time you stumble.

The next time you strike out

The next time you start to beat yourself up because you went back to that same sin once again.

When the shame and guilt kick in to the point you don't even want to pray.

When you don't want to ask for forgiveness for that same thing yet again.

Remember how He views you

You're not in the doghouse.

You will not be sleeping on the couch.

If you are it's because you have placed yourself there.

The blood of Jesus Christ covered it all.

He calls us sons, daughters, kings, priests, saints, and friends

And this is all because of the price Jesus paid on that cross and nothing else

Our Propitiation... Thank you for your time..