DAY 2 | Thursday, February 23
God's Benefit Package I remember the first day of my first job at Lockheed in the Human Resources department. For three hours, I sat down with an HR representative to go over my benefits. It was 1989 and I had just graduated from LeTourneau University with an Electrical Engineering degree as an energized and naïve 22 year old. Besides my starting salary (which was 31K a year), there was medical (fully paid with no co-payment), full dental and vision, life insurance and a 401K (where Lockheed matched up to 8% of my salary). Beyond that, there were gym benefits, a sports program on site, access to numerous company cafeterias, discount tickets to local plays and concerts, golf access on Moffett Field’s private course and membership to Lockheed’s credit union. When all was said and done, I must have left Human Resources that day with a stack of papers six inches high. All benefits of my new job as a Lockheed satellite engineer. The planet we all share is full of heartache and suffering, disappointment and disease, injustice and death. We all need help, assistance, intervention. Psalm 103 presents us with a list of benefits that God provides: pardon, wholeness, rescue, affection, fulfillment, rest, affirmation, celebration, adoption, understanding, compassion, intimacy, honor, love, mercy, grace and eternity. I call these “Heaven’s response to Earth’s ailments.” For Lent this year, I thought we would intersect these benefits with the cross of Christ. Forty days of pondering what God afforded us in Jesus Christ. 40 days to consider the depth, breadth and height of God’s love for us. 40 days of thanksgiving and praise to the One who freely shares with us His nature, His focus and His power. 40 days of examining our benefits. 40 days to ponder The Intervention. –ROGER VALCI
I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters. { J.J. Packer }
Observation