Dear Lord,
Even though we talk everyday, it feels different to talk to you in the presence of everyone. People feel you and I should have letters between us, and though we do it shocks them to find you reached beyond leagues of thrones to be in me, with me, Emmanuel… They don’t believe it.

They see me fall, bleed, sweat, and sometimes get angry, lie, steal, fornicate with someone else’s wife, kill, destroy stuff, criticise or get drunk. And they say, ‘God can’t love him, he’s a monster.’ I believe them. I am a monster.

The Wages of sin is death…someone had to die.

But you looked at me and loved me. You recalled the spirit I took to be created by your Word, and you decided you wouldn’t let go. You took your Word, your power, and made it human, a sacrifice, in my place. You took me home, The Adopted.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must [so it is necessary that] the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross], In order that everyone who believes in Him [who cleaves to Him, trusts Him, and relies on Him] may not perish, but have eternal life and [actually] live forever!
For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

I am the First and the Last,

And the Ever-living One [I am living in the eternity of the eternities]. I died, but see, I am alive forevermore; and I possess the keys of death and Hades (the realm of the dead).

Death, poor Death, didn’t know what it bargained for. You can’t hold God captive!? He had captured God’s heir, who like his father is more than a Conqueror. So the Word, the given Son, took Death’s authority and returned, legally to his Father, now Our Father, my Father.

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound].

For the wages which sin pays is death, but the [bountiful] free gift of God is eternal life through (in union with) Jesus Christ our Lord.

Even though we talk everyday, I am just beginning to grasp your high standards and the fact that I am growing, by your influence, to keep to them. I see me growing in you everyday.

My earthly ancestors made promises to demons;  your Son’s blood, the Blood of God, was payment enough. When I sometimes get angry, lie, steal, fornicate with someone else’s wife, kill, destroy stuff, criticise or get drunk, you say, ‘Stop, don’t do that.’ And your loving rebuke gives me power to change, to be Holy, like you, Father.

For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure [correction] for discipline; God is dealing with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not [thus] train and correct and discipline?

People don’t believe you’d love a monster like me. I smile, I don’t blame them. I am a monster, a new creature, yours.

Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Father.