Rev. Richard L. Shaw Ph.D, Pastor

We who were made in God’s image have defaced and blurred that image with our inherited fallen nature and our own sins. We were born with some inherent sense of the Creator. Yet we were separated from Him. Only God Himself—the one against whom we sinned—only He could bring the remedy, the way back to Him. “Marvelous grace of our loving God—grace that exceeds our sin and guilt—yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured—there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.”  So the one who could justly have punished us, leaving us to our sins and the eternal disintegration of the self, instead said, “Come home, come home, you who are weary, come home.”  All is forgiven through Jesus’ blood if you will but receive it in Him.  The true image of God has come to us, entered our midst, came into a cruel world of sin and death and hostility, bears God’s wrath and judgment against us sinners.  Here is God made Man—in order to die!  So He could take our punishment and restore the image of God in us, no longer blurred and defaced, but becoming more and more like Christ as we yield daily to Him.  Here is a truth too wonderful and too horrible.  Too wonderful that God would come to us and take away our sins and sorrows upon Himself and too horrible that many of us would reject such incredible, wonderful love, and continue in our own way.  But God’s loving call still goes out—“Look to me and be saved!”