Week 43: Thanks Be to God

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The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:56-57 (ESV)

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We call God our Deliverer. There is a lot of precedent for this in all of Scripture, in both Old and New Testaments. The temptation is, however, to think of the deliverance of God as a one-and-done deal. God delivers us from danger or from sin once, and then His job is done until we need Him again.

Thank God that this is not so! Our salvation and deliverance is constant and ever-growing! Of course, there are both instant and progressive aspects to our deliverance. We are declared victors in Christ once, and also constantly. We are declared just before God in Christ once, and also constantly. We are declared children of God once, and we live that out constantly in richer and deeper ways. Thanks be to God!

This is a marvelous truth as well as a humbling one. We are not simply free to live as we please because we have been saved once and instantly. Surely we are saved, but we continue to live our dependence on God through Christ. Christ alone sets us free and gives us victory, and that does not mean we can depart from Him once that declaration is complete. Instead, we are supposed to live constantly in dependence on Him.

Thanks be to God who delivers us! He constantly saves and purifies us, so that we may become more and more like Him. He constantly declares us free from the sin that once controlled us. He constantly delivers us from sin and death. Christ, Christ alone, sets us free!