With a mere spoken word, the universe came into existence. The concept itself is hard to imagine. A word created everything. The trees, the rocks, the birds, the people, and even the infinite stars surrounding us. God Himself came to earth in the form of a man by being born to a virgin. That sounds like the type of absurd thing that would only be spoken of by a crazy man. Jesus Christ commanded a storm to stop – and it listened. He made lame men walk, blind men see, and lepers clean. As if those things weren’t amazing enough, in His final recorded miracle, the God-man Jesus rose from the dead. He was brutally beaten and then crucified, and buried in a tomb. He was not “mostly dead”, He was dead. But yet three days later He stood in victory over death. What a miracle. But still, it’s not the greatest miracle. There is one miracle that stands far above all the rest: that God can look upon me and call me a son.
The forgiveness of God is the greatest miracle. C.S. Lewis once said that everyone likes the idea of forgiveness, until they have something to forgive. We all know how hard forgiveness is. When we’ve been wronged, how could we possibly forget what’s been done to us? When someone has said something hateful to us, the thought seems to always linger in our mind. Betrayal from a friend still feels like a stab in the back. In fact, something in us may even say that the right thing to do is to withhold forgiveness. After all, they did something wrong. This is justice. We often forget, however, that we too deserve justice. Yet God is gracious to withhold it from us.

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“The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” – Tim Keller

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Who am I, that God is mindful of me (Ps. 8:4)? Me, a sinner. A criminal. A disgusting wretch. My life has been one mistake after another. Many of my efforts have gone into belittling God’s name and spitting on the cross. Every time I lie, I lie to the Lord of the Truth. Every time I fix my eyes on the evil pleasures of this world, I turn my back on the God who has never turned His back on me. Every time I’ve lashed out in anger, I’ve spit in the face of the God who has always been patient with me. Every time I’ve lusted, I’ve given God the middle finger as I cried out “To pursue this wickedness is better than to pursue You!” Every time I smile at the downfall of another, I soak in the destruction of the image of God. Here I sit, a despicable, gross, decrepit, broken, ugly, wicked shell of a man. Yet here I sit, holy, spotless, and blameless before my God. More than that, I sit here as a Son. I have not only been declared innocent of all my crimes, but I have been adopted by the very one against whom my crimes were committed. I am loved by a God who knows the worst parts of who I am. How is this possible? Every despicable thought. Every evil desire. Every greedy wish. All the thoughts I hide within the deepest, darkest crevices of my soul. God knows them. And yet when I stand before Him, He lifts up my head as He pours out His grace and His mercy upon me (Eph. 1:7-8).

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“Think about the kinds of kids the Lord accepts: every sinner that He made into a son starts out as a rebellious, disobedient, selfish, indignant brat. Not only did we not deserve our adoption, we fought kicking and screaming! Yet we will never be disowned; our status as God’s kids can never change. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord because His love for us is nothing less than the love of adoption. The Father let you murder His only begotten Son in order to adopt you as His son or daughter through faith in Christ. Because of what Jesus has done, you can be God’s beloved child. And you can be confident that since you do not deserve His love in the first place, He will never remove it based on your performance. You did not earn adoption but received it as a gift without any reference to your own goodness, so you can be sure that He will not take it away when you fail Him now. Nothing can separate you from the adoptive love of God that is in Christ Jesus.” – R.W. Glenn

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What a sight it would be to see God part the waters of the Red Sea. Sometimes I wonder how delicious the wine Jesus made from water must have tasted. Or the bread and loaves He used to feed the five thousand. When I look up at the sky, I consider what it must have been like to watch the galaxies come into existence. But yet, I have seen and experienced and even greater miracle: the profound love of God. The real greatest miracle has taken place in my heart, as God looked upon this wretch and said “He is Mine.”