Friday morning I spent some extra time in bed. I am usually up each morning between 4:30 and 5:30, but that morning 6:30 shown on the clock when I finally rolled out of bed. It was one of those mornings when I realized at waking that I had no pain, so, I just stayed still and enjoyed that for about an hour. I knew as soon as I started to move something would start to hurt.
As I laid there, a song we had sung in church the previous Sunday was winding through my mind. It is a song that I love, but one that I do not think is immensely popular – well, maybe it was years ago before I first heard it. It is titled, “Receive,” written by Nicole Binion.
The part of the song that kept repeating that morning was the chorus, “LORD, I receive your love, here in this moment. Your mercy flows like rain, on my heart dry and broken I receive Your love today. It’s hard to believe but all I must do is receive. Sweet mystery, sweet mystery, all I must do is receive.”
The Scriptures brim with the wonderful things we receive from our Father in Heaven. There are things like inheritance, and love, and salvation, and compassion, and mercy. In fact, one of my favorite Scriptures of all time contains that little word “receive.”
1 Peter 2:9-10: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” [HCSB]
Once we had nothing. Now we have everything in Christ Jesus our LORD. Once we were nothing. Now we are a chosen, royal, holy people who belong to Him. Once we existed in darkness, now we live in His marvelous light. And we did nothing to earn these things, nothing to deserve these things, we simply received them by faith in the Son of God.
Sweet mystery, sweet mystery, all I must do is receive!
