God of support, pour out Your strength on this dear reader in the needs of today; in Christ Jesus I pray, amen.
You could probably not begin to list all the "clubs" you have been in since year one. If you were nursed by your mother, you were a part of that "club." If you learned to ride a bike with training wheels, that was another "club." If you had to walk to school, yep, club. While I may be stretching the notion of club, you're seeing the point; if we dig deep enough there is something that connects us all at one point or another. To be honest, we've connected in many ways during our lifetime.
Paul gives a description of those who have received Jesus Christ as being "the righteous." That becomes a label of identity and it also is found in other places in God's Word as showing the character of God and the high standard for living that we also share if we are led by the Lord. Paul says all who have received the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior are righteous, we've been given that special relationship with God that the Law does not provide. I shared some of the "dos and don'ts" of my childhood yesterday and I had a great fear of my Dad and my "breaking" those rules. I'll never forget when I stopped worrying about rules and stepped right into full acceptance of who I was in that relationship with him. I still respect him deeply and love him very much, and I know the same is true on his part towards me. So it is with God but multiply it by infinity. Through Jesus and His sacrifice, we have moved into acceptance (righteousness) when we deserve something less. This portion of study in Romans today includes the verse so many of us know by heart and experience, 3:23, " since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". This is the club! Knowing we deserve nothing, God gives us everything! What a club.
The entire passage for today is Romans 3:21-31: But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
The key is the verse that follows, justification by faith, God's gift. This means we need only believe to begin our journey with Christ. Nothing we could ever do or pray gets us that being made right before God, it's a free gift. Costly yes, because it cost Jesus' life for you and me, but given, out of love, freely to us. Regardless of the sin we may have committed yesterday, if today we approach God asking for forgiveness and show a repentant heart, we are forgiven and the sin is forgotten. We reach the point of justification, some would call it, being born again or from above; and immediately the journey begins. Because of our new and right relationship with God we "show" the world what God can do. This "showing" is also known as our "fruit" or "works" and come as the result of having been made right with God. It is nothing we could have come up with ourselves, it is the product of God living in us.
PRAYER: Loving God, make me right with you. I leave the sins of my yesterday in Your hands. I repent of what I said, thought, or did. I ask for a new start. May it be a wonderful start of a wonderful, new life, lived in You, guided by You, and blessed by You. I ask this in Jesus' precious name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
