The Moral Miracle of Redemption

October 6, 2025

By: Dr. Jim Denison

“The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the disposition of self-realization—I am my own god.” – Oswald Chambers

The good news, as he added is this: “The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life.” This happens when we yield to God’s Spirit, allowing him to recreate “the disposition that was in Jesus Christ.”

Here we discover one way God redeems the moral failures that dominate each day’s news: as Chambers notes, God cannot work this miracle of transformation in my life “until I am conscious I need it.” Our Father cannot change our hearts without our hearts’ consent.

This is why the first beatitude is foundational to the Sermon that follows: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). When we honestly recognize our abject spiritual poverty, we abdicate the throne of our hearts and enthrone God as our king.

As a result, we experience the “kingdom of heaven,” that realm where God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Imagine such a life-transforming, grace-infused, love-centered world. Now decide if you will pay the price to experience it personally.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously observed,

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

“A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ.” —Watchman Nee