Spoiled, But Hopefully Not Rotten

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. Romans 3:23-25

My eleven year old son is home-schooled.  It was a decision Steve and I made a few years ago and I love it.  I love teaching my son.  I love eliminating homework from our lives, opening up the evenings for fun activities.  I love being able to go on vacation whenever we want and not having to worry about his school schedule.  

One of the drawbacks is balancing his workload and mine.  I feel like I’m constantly moving throughout the day. Between lessons, I’m doing laundry, sweeping the floor, helping my husband with a few church things, making lunch, making beds… the lists is endless.  Evan noticed all that I was doing one day and said, “Man, I’m spoiled”.  I have to admit it felt nice to have him notice.

Have you noticed how spoiled we are with God?

As I was looking up what “Grace Alone” means I came across this excerpt from Christianity.com,

“We can only stand before God by his grace as he mercifully attributes to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ and attributes to him the consequences of our sins. Jesus’ life of perfect righteousness is counted as ours, and our records of sin and failure were counted to Jesus when he died on the cross.”

Our records of sin and failure were counted to Jesus when he died on the cross. I can’t even imagine a love that would do that for me.  I am so grateful for God’s grace.  I’ve heard before that “Mercy” can be defined as not getting what we deserve and “Grace”, getting what we don’t deserve.

We did not deserve to have Jesus perfect life of righteousness counted as ours, but that’s what God will see when meet him in Heaven.  He will see a perfect sinless child because of the sacrifice of Christ.  It’s what he sees now, when we approach his throne in prayer.  And he is able to see us sinless because of our faith in Christ, which is also a gift given by our Heavenly Father.

Just as Evan saw all I do for him, I sure hope we can see all God has done for us.

Read the entire scripture here Romans 3: 20-28

Living with Arms Locked in Unity

What a contrast we, as Americans, observed about the nature of man. Over the past couple of weeks, we witnessed actions of hate and bigotry on August 12th. August 25th, when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, unity, love, and concern for one another surfaced. Though most of us were complete strangers we watched, prayed, and then acted.

Romans 3:22-23 (MSG) 
The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. 

Strangers jumped into action in stunning ways. Memories of the shouts and acts of hate only two weeks before changed, as the observer watches a nation rally to support and rescue those caught in the devastation of a powerful storm. 

People rallied to help their brothers and sisters. We loved strangers - those we declared so different from us. We cared, we grieved, we rejoiced when we saw the response of people sacrificially love all hurting people.

Romans 3:23-24 (MSG) 
Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

Oh, what joy it would be if from this day forward we lived and loved as we did this past week. No prejudice, no judgment, no differences to set us a odds with one another. Compassion and the desire to make a difference can help us stand, forever locked arm-in-arm.

Romans 3:21-29

Inherited Traits

[Read the text for the day in Romans 3:21-31.]

Just between you and me, I could never understand how smart people could be arrogant about their IQs. First, it adds not a whit to a person's value. Moreover, intelligence is completely an inherited trait, and we have nothing to do with the genes that were given to us. We could say the same thing about looks: how can one be haughty about his or her natural appearance? We had nothing to do with the DNA passed on to us at conception. If anything, boasting about beauty or bragging over brains betrays a paucity of understanding.

You know what? The same can be said of righteousness. Only God is righteous by nature, and we share in this trait solely through inheritance. For when we are born from above by the Spirit of Christ, we receive righteousness not as though attained through our merit, but passed along through God’s grace. We enter into the presence of the Holy God because Christ, His Son, lives now in us.

So Paul rhetorically asks, “Where, then is boasting?” Hastening to reply, he answers, “It is excluded.” There is no basis for it. How can there be? If anything, we are humbled at receiving as a gift something we could not generate ourselves.

This is a good thing to know and embrace, for it aligns us with truth and frees us from pre-occupation with self. Made completely righteous in Christ, we are no longer burdened by an impossible task, but free instead to love God and to serve Him. And we celebrate forever this precious gift: righteousness, a right standing before God because of Christ, the righteous One in whom we live, even as He lives in us.

By the way, if you don’t mind me saying so, how wise of you to trust in Christ! His righteousness looks good on you.