GOD'S GREATEST INVESTMENT

You are God's greatest investment. In nothing has God invested more than He has invested in you. He brought you into being by placing a part of Himself in you. When our original ancestors decided to allow evil to become a permanent condition of the human experience, He committed to His most costly investment, the creation of perfect forgiveness.

To grasp the magnitude of God's investment (in time, frustration, sorrow, and personal cost), consider the known things required of God. Consider the decision to work patiently with humanity's stubborn free wills. Consider the difficulty of forming the Nation of Israel. Consider Israel's challenges to God's purposes and patience in Israel's wilderness experiences. Consider the disappointments and setbacks God tolerated in Israel's stubborn, hard-hearted rebelliousness generation after generation. Consider the agony of God's distress when Israel's failures necessitated exiles and captivities. But Israel had to exist for God to send Jesus. No Israel, no Jesus, no perfect forgiveness.

The most costly part of God's investment was Jesus. He permitted a part of Himself, the active agent in creation, to become a human part of that creation. He permitted him, as a human, to endure the worst that evil could conspire. He permitted him, in true purity and innocence, to suffer the most agonizing execution a human could experience. He allowed Jesus in death to wear in his body the total sin of humanity. He allowed Jesus fully to experience an evil person's death.

God invested all of this in you. No one wants you to have and enjoy salvation as much as God does. God did not invest all of this to destroy you. He could have destroyed you with no investment.

God's love was determined to save you. Having made this enormous investment, He will not hesitate to do anything needful to make your salvation certain reality. Your salvation is a daily reality and an eternal reality if you do three things. Place your confidence in the atonement of Jesus' death. Place your trust in God's power to resurrect. Learn to love God as He loves you.

Jesus came to save you. The patient, loving God wants no one to perish. If you chose to accept salvation through Jesus and, in love, commit yourself to God's will, you can be certain that God will not neglect His investment. You can be assured that the same love which invested Jesus in your forgiveness will sustain you through forgiveness. In that assurance is the peace that passes all understanding.

David Chadwell

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Bulletin Article, 24 November 1996

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