April 1

You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against Me—against your helper. — Hos 13:9 BSB

God is all-wise and doesn’t act hastily. Just as the plan of salvation was created by His infinite wisdom, every step of that plan’s execution is guided by the same boundless wisdom. As Paul says, "He lavished on us all wisdom and understanding" (Ephesians 1:8). In His dealings with His people, God doesn't give them all the blessings He's prepared for them right away.

For example, He has forgiven their sins, but He doesn’t immediately give them full awareness of this blessing when He first calls them by His grace. First, He teaches them their need for forgiveness. He prepares their heart to receive it properly. It's a significant gift, and He needs to show them its value. They're saved from wrath, eternal suffering, and His intense displeasure with sin. They must be shown, and deeply feel, both what they’ve been saved from and what they’ve been saved to. Just as an oak tree doesn’t grow to its full height in a single day but requires years of sunshine and storms, strong winds, and tempests to develop a deep root system and a strong, towering trunk, so God's children need months and years of trials and temptations to grow deep roots and rise strong.

Before a soul can understand salvation, it must deeply and personally learn the nature of sin and its own stained and polluted condition. It is proud and must be humbled; careless and must be awakened; full of life and must be put to death; full of itself and must be emptied; feeling whole and must be broken; clothed in self-righteousness and must be stripped. By nature, it's self-seeking, buried in worldliness, blind and ignorant, presumptuous, arrogant, and filled with enmity, hating anything heavenly or spiritual. Sin, in all its forms, is its natural state. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard its spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23). To make a person the opposite of what they naturally are—to make them love God instead of hate Him, fear Him instead of mock Him, obey Him instead of rebel against Him, and tremble at His majesty instead of defiantly challenging Him—requires the implantation of a new nature by the hand of God Himself.