January 5

Give strong drink to one who is perishing, and wine to the bitter in soul. — Prov 31:6 BSB

King Lemuel’s wise mother gave her son gracious counsel with these words. When we begin to feel the misery brought on by sin and are on the verge of despair with heavy hearts, that’s when the pure wine of gospel grace becomes truly suitable to our lost condition. As God’s holiness and justice are made known to our conscience and we feel the depth of Adam’s fall, we look beyond ourselves for a salvation we cannot find in our fallen nature or in our deeply corrupt and unbelieving hearts.

When by living faith we get a glimpse of the Son of God as our Mediator between God and men, when we see by faith the blood of the cross and the full and complete atonement He made for sin as the Lamb of God, we wholeheartedly embrace Him as the one “who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). We see and feel that salvation is found in Him alone (Acts 4:12). And as this salvation is revealed as worthy of God and perfectly suited to us, answering all the demands of God’s holy law and glorifying it far beyond anything we could ever achieve, we embrace it as our justifying righteousness and the covering robe that shields us from the consuming fire of God's holiness (Hebrews 12:29).