MONDAY March 4th
Zechariah 4:6
‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts’.
Well, at first when I came to the end of preparing the devotions on the resurrection chapter, I felt like I had come to an anti-climax, thinking what can I spend the next devotions on that can compare in any way with 1 Corinthians 15? Easy, you may think, but not when this chapter is your favourite of all Scripture!
Well, the answer soon came, for as I was preparing ministry for a Sunday morning, I turned to another of what I would call well-known chapters from the pen of Paul, and it is Romans chapter 8 and immediately had my answer.
This chapter fits in well with the theme I have given for 2024, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts’, because Romans 8 mentions the Holy Spirit twenty times (ESV).
I wonder how much of this chapter we can recall, not maybe verse by verse, but quote parts of it because it is so well used and well quoted. In fact, it is a great chapter to follow on from 1 Corinthians 15 with because that chapter talks about the incredible victory that is ours because of the resurrection and this chapter, Romans 8 concludes in reminding us that the victory we know and will yet know is such that absolutely nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now with whatever way you want to think of this, consider it this way, for the whole of eternity, which is, well, forever and ever we will be immersed for want of a better way of putting it in the immeasurable love of God! The love that God showed toward us in sending his one and only Son into this world, the love which his one and only Son demonstrated for us at Calvary, the love that is made known to us and shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
So, from the next devotion we will look through this chapter, but to end today, the words of a song which speak to me the wonder of and the reason why we can have full assurance of the hope that both 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 8 speak of—the wonder of the Cross.
Oh, to see the dawn,
Of the darkest day,
Christ on the road to Calvary,
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then,
Nailed to a cross of wood.
This, the pow’r of the cross,
Christ became sin for us,
Took the blame, bore the wrath,
We stand forgiven at the cross.
Oh, to see the pain,
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin,
Ev’ry bitter thought,
Ev’ry evil deed,
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.
Now the daylight flees,
Now the ground beneath,
Quakes as its Maker bows His head,
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life,
“Finished!” the vict’ry cry.
Oh, to see my name,
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering, I am free,
Death is crushed to death,
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.
This, the pow’r of the cross
Son of God, slain for us
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross
Keith and Krystyn Getty