Afternoon Thoughts:

Wearing the Creator's Wardrobe On August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines flight 255 crashed after taking off... The lone survivor was four-year-old Cecelia from Tempe, Arizona. Rescuers found her in such good condition that they wondered if she'd actually been on the flight. Perhaps she was riding in one of the cars into which the airplane crashed. But, no, her name was on the manifest... Initial reports from the scene indicate that, as the plane was falling, her mother, Paula Cichan, unbuckled her own seat belt, got down on her knees in front of her daughter, and wrapped her arms and body around the girl. She separated her from the force of the fall ... and the daughter survived. God did the same for us. He wrapped himself around us and felt the full force of the fall. He took the unrelaxed punishment of the guilty. He died, not like a sinner, but as a sinner — in our place... His sacrifice is a sufficient one. Our merits don't enhance it. Our stumbles don't diminish it. The sacrifice of Christ is a total and unceasing and accomplished work. "It is finished," Jesus announced (John 19:30)... "Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete" [ Colossians 3:9-11 MSG]. Don't mess with the old clothes any longer. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" ( Psalm 103:12)... -God's Story, Your Story: When His Becomes Yours, by Max Lucado