Dear Friends,
Have you ever felt, “That’s it! I did something so terrible that I am beyond hope. God can never forgive me after that!” If you have felt or feel that way or are seeking to help someone who says such things, today’s devotional and good old Martin Luther has some help for you. God bless you.

Because of Calvary,
John Janney

• I Timothy 1:15 (ESV)

  15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

“‘But,’ says one, ‘I feel myself to be condemned, lost, and ruined. That is the reason that thou art to believe. God means thee to be saved. Martin Luther used to argue from contradictions and apparent impossibilities. He says, ‘I will cut thine head off with thine, own sword, O Satan! Thou sayest I am condemned; but I tell thee, for that very reason, I shall be saved. Christ came to clothe some; he could not have come to clothe those who were already clothed, he must have come to clothe the naked. I am such an one; then he came to clothe me. Jesus, came to wash some; he could not have come to wash those who did not need it, but to wash the filthy. I am filthy, therefore he came to wash me. Christ came to forgive the sinful, to cleanse those who have many iniquities; I am such an one; I claim, therefore; to be one of those, for whom his mission was undertaken, and that he came purposely and expressly to save me.’” [Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit XLVII, (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1901), p. 512]