Today’s 333 Devotional: “The Gospel Old Testament Style”

The Gospel Old Testament style is a simple equation: Turn and Live.

Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord says, “‘Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord God. ‘Therefore turn and live!’” (Ezekiel 18:30b-32)

A couple of verses earlier He said, “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:24)

And right before that he said, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23).

Since humanity is constantly in the throes of sin, because no one is righteous and fall short of God’s holy and righteous standards for life (Romans 3:10, 23), God made a way through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, to all who believe.

Thus God’s mercy and grace are on full display. Many, however, have taken the grace of God and used it as a license to sin.

To this thinking the Apostle Paul said, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Romans 6:1-2)

The Apostle Peter said, “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.” (2 Peter 2:21)

The Gospel of Christ is the same, turn and live, through Jesus’s sacrifice.