Simply put, Jesus is endlessly astounding! I absolutely love David Mathis’ quote on this: “God, keep me warm to your grace. Help me to be endlessly astounded that in Jesus you’ve shown such amazing favor to such an undeserving rebel as me.”1
Before I came to Christ, I was a hopelessly lost rebel, that chose to totally ignore that God even existed. Even though I believed I was an atheist, I now realize that all of mankind knows in their hearts that there must be a God who created our infinitely awesome universe. Scripture tells us that when we look at creation we must conclude that their has to be an all-powerful Creator who created the stars, planets, plants, animals, and yes, you and me. In fact, we are told in (Romans 1:20) that man is without excuse for denying that God exists, for we read: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” So, what I basically did was to suppress the truth that I knew in my heart about the existence of God.
So, what really astounds me about Jesus, is why He would choose to open my blind eyes and expose me to the truth about Himself, when I wouldn’t give Him the time of day! After all, I was a sinner, who even mocked those (at least in my heart) who were foolish enough to believe that God created everything. But, as I learned later, not only did God open my blind eyes to see the truth of who He is, He also did the unthinkable, He willing died to be a sin substitute for me a vile rebel sinner! This transaction is truly mind-boggling! Imagine a perfect and holy God, who never sinned, took my lifetime of sins upon His body, and imputed His perfect righteousness to me. What amazing love, what an astounding plan of salvation.
My friends, I was blind and dead in my sins and trespasses, yet Jesus chose to die for me, that I could be, in a sense, resurrected from death to life now, and even more astounding to eternal life! God’s dilemma was humanly speaking unsolvable. How could an infinitely holy God allow me, an infinitely sinful human to enter the kingdom of heaven? You see, His holiness demanded payment for sin, and as a result I was hopelessly lost and unable to pay the price for my sins and as a result was destined for eternal separation from God. Yet, His astounding love offered me pardon, making it possible for me to reverse my eternal death sentence to one, where my passport would be re-stamped to heaven bound!
My choice was to go on sinning and face eternal damnation or accept God’s unfathomable free pardon and invite Jesus into my heart. But this was humanly speaking impossible since I was dead in my sins and trespasses. But praise God, Jesus literally opened my blind eyes, and resurrected me from being dead in sin to see clearly that by accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior the great dilemma could be solved. Jesus did everything! My role was just to acknowledge Jesus as God, repent of my sins, and accept Him into my heart by faith – and the moment I did this on October 12, 1981, I became a new creation, a child of God, and wonderfully delivered into the light!
What an astounding journey – from sinner to saint, from bondage to free, from rebel to royalty, from darkness to light, and from eternal damnation to eternal life!