October 22

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. — Jer 29:13 BSB

After the Lord quickens our souls, we often go on for a while, stumbling in the dark, not knowing about Jesus. We think the way to life is through keeping God's commandments, obeying the law, cleansing ourselves from sin, reforming our lives, and striving for holiness in every thought, word, and action. We stumble forward blindly, never making any real progress. But when the Lord lets us exhaust ourselves trying to find the door, and we sink deeper into guilt and ruin, realizing that all our efforts have only made things worse, then the Spirit of God opens our understanding and reveals Jesus to our souls. This is the turning point—the first glimmer of hope in the valley of Achor.

Once the soul sees that there is a Jesus and feels a measure of the power of His resurrection, it never looks anywhere else for pardon, justification, and salvation. When the Spirit of God begins to impress upon the conscience that there is a Savior, that He is the only Mediator, and that the Son of God took on human nature and now sits at the right hand of the Father, it is like the first light of dawn, the first beam of hope. And upon that bright spot, the shipwrecked soul fixes its eyes, waiting for the Sun of righteousness to rise with healing in His wings. It is a great moment in a person’s spiritual journey when they turn wholly and solely to the Lord, renouncing all self-righteousness, all forms and ceremonies as a way of salvation. It is a great mercy to turn away from these things, just as a shipwrecked sailor turns away from his sinking ship, looking to the rising sun for some glimmer of hope and a way of escape.