Good morning, and a most blessed Thursday to you.

I want to share with you from Oswald Chambers’ devotional My Utmost for His Highest. There was a reading on October 7 that was absolutely stunning, and I want to share some of his thoughts with you because, as you know, anytime I come across something that seems very profound, I always want to share it with you.

So I’m going to read an excerpt from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.

He writes:

“Sin is a fundamental relationship. It is not wrongdoing but wrong being.”

Isn’t that interesting? Just think about that sentence alone: Sin is not wrongdoing, but wrong being.

How often do we talk about how sin is of the heart? Sin begins inside and works its way out. And here he is saying that it’s not simply about what we do; it’s about who we are.

That really hones in on the ultimate issue.

He continues:

“The Christian faith bases everything on the extreme self-centered nature of sin. Other faiths deal with sins. The Bible alone deals with sin.”

How incredible is that?

Other faiths deal with sins. They focus on the outward actions—whether you’re doing right or wrong according to their standards. Even the cults of Christianity can become focused on the sins and never get to the heart of the matter, which is sin itself.

It is sin that the Bible deals with.

Chambers continues:

“The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin. And it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the Gospel that the message of the Gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power. The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took on Himself the heredity of sin that no man can even touch.”

And then he says:

“God made His own Son to be sin, that He might make the sinner into a saint.”

That is absolutely incredible.

As soon as I read that yesterday, I was thinking about the weightiness of the fact that we are called to preach the Gospel. We are called to preach God’s Word. And God’s Word is not all about the doings. It is about the heart—the essence of who we are.

How many verses can we go to that deal with the heart?

Jesus tells us that it’s not what goes into our mouths that makes us unclean, but what comes out of our mouths.

Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Psalm 139 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.”

It is a matter of being. It is a matter of who we are.

And praise the Lord that, as Galatians says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

What a glorious, glorious truth that we have—that we get to share, that we get to hold so dearly in our hearts—that Christ Himself was made to be sin so that we, those who are born sinners, those who are born in sin, are reborn into righteousness. We are reborn as saints.

And certainly, we struggle. We struggle with sin.

But what a glorious Word: Christ dealt with sin.

He didn’t just deal with our sins. He dealt with our sin.

And in Him, we are alive. In Him, we are righteous. In Him, we are free.

What a glorious, glorious Word!

I hope that you have the opportunity to share this beautiful Word with someone else. I know that God will put people into your path where you can share the Gospel—and the extremeness of it: that we are born sinners, but that Christ has set us free by His blood, through His mercy and His grace.

I know it’s scary. I know it’s scary sharing it with other people.

But I also know that you have been called as a disciple, as a missionary, to proclaim the Good News.

And what is better news than being forgiven and loved in Christ—and Christ alone?

So go forth. Share the Word. And share with me who you get to share the Word with, because I know—I know—you’re going to get the opportunity.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Lord,

We thank You so much for today. We thank You that You entered into humanity, not only to take on our sins, but indeed to take on our sin. And You have been triumphant over sin itself.

Lord, thank You so much for calling us to live in the victory that is Yours alone, yet that You give to us freely out of Your grace, mercy, and love for us.

Lord, place this Word upon our lips. Whoever enters into our pathway that we get to share this news with, Lord, we ask that You would be preparing their hearts even today—that they would hear the Good News, that they would believe the Good News, and that they would turn to You to live in the glorious righteousness that only You can give us.

Lord, bless us, keep us, and hold us together always in Your grace.

This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

I am so excited to get to worship with you this coming Sunday.

Until then, happy missioning, and God bless!

Pastor Malinak