Today's Passage - Ephesians 1:6-8

River of Life Christian Church ︳www.rolcc.net/english Ephesians 1:6-8   "...to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."   Salvation and all the grace that God has prepared for human beings can only be passed down to us through Jesus Christ.  The Bible says that "salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."  We can only enjoy all the abundant grace prepared by God through Jesus Christ.   The meaning of name Jesus is "He will save all His people from sin."  We grieve over all the wars between nations in the world and conflicts between people, but if we think about all these problems, don't they all originate directly or indirectly from sin?  Chinese people don't like to hear the word "sin", because we can only associate "sin" with major crimes.  But if we think carefully, does sin have to be an action?  The origin is sin is actually our self-centeredness.  Self-centeredness will lead us into sin and trespasses without us even realizing it.  The biggest weakness in human nature is that we don't know the ugliness of our own nature, thus we don't feel that we need salvation from God.  On top of it, we have an even greater weakness, which is the fact that we don't have the ability to overcome sin.   Paul understood the weakness of human nature profoundly, that's why he said that "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing."  He was not just describing his own experience, but also the problem that you and I, as human beings, encounter.  Paul, however, gave us a way out - Thank God, because through our Lord Jesus Christ we can overcome sin!  God sent Jesus to the world to die on the cross for you and me, and then resurrected from death because He never sinned, and thus all the authority of sin on us has been broken.   Because of the bondage of sin, we led a self-centered life before and did not have the freedom to live without sinning.  Now, because of Jesus Christ, we can be free from the bondage of sin, and seek freedom and satisfaction in the spirit in His love and graced.  We were pulled downward by the power of sin before, but now with our life in Christ we can overcome that power, and we can be led upward into God's abundant grace.  Hallelujah!                                                                                 Pray with Pastor Tong           Lord, I thank you that our trespasses can be forgiven by you because of salvation of Jesus Christ.  We confess that we have sinned and fell short of your expectation before, so we ask that the Lord's precious blood cleanse us and cover us again so that we may be delivered from the bondage of sin.  Let our spirit and soul be delivered and freed so that we will receive joy and peace.  I thank you and I pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen!