Positive Power of God’s Promises!

 

READ Romans 5–8

How can I put these two thousand plus words into a coherent expression of the deep joy they produce in my heart? Every time I read them, I’m filled with gratitude at the wonder of God’s gracious gift of Jesus and what He has done. This passage begins:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1–2)

If that were not enough, it tells how Jesus gives hope because He reveals how suffering produces endurance, character, and hope — because His love is poured into that mix. He died for me before I was born, before I sinned, justified me, saved me from God’s wrath. I “rejoice in God through my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom I have now received reconciliation.”

The passage reminds me how one act of disobedience in Eden led to condemnation for all, but one act of righteousness by Jesus Christ leads to justification and life for all. “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:18–19) Such a great wonder that God did this for sinners!

But there is more. I died with Jesus. This means that because I have “been united with him in a death like his, I shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” This is not a someday promise that death will have no dominion over me, but that sin no longer has dominion over me, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Chapter 7 describes the battle with sin that can be won because of Jesus. I struggle against sin that tries to hang on to me like a leech or is a taskmaster. Before salvation, I could not resist and often could not recognize it. But now my loving Savior has opened my eyes to the spiritual realities of sin’s danger and sin’s defeat — and He gives me victory as well as forgiveness!

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1–4)

This is a great wonder of the Gospel. It is not merely a religion of belief in the event of Jesus, but power over sin because Jesus changes lives. It is a black or white reality depending on a relationship not on rules . . .

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:9–11)

The change is in: my assurance — the Spirit bears witness that I belong to Him; and in any suffering I might experience — the Spirit reveals God’s good purpose for it; and in my praying — I don’t know how to pray but He intercedes for me.

What then shall I say to these things? If God is for me, who can be against me? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for me, how will he not also with him graciously give me all things? Who shall bring any charge against me? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for me. Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? The Bible says, “For His sake I may be killed; regarded as a sheep to be slaughtered” but in all these things I am more than a conqueror through him who loved me. I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, (even my foolish self) will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–39, personalized)

I live in the certainty of the promises of God, a certainty that persists and puts peace in my heart. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

 

Jesus changes history

READ Romans 1–4

What makes a driver cruise past a speed limit sign at a rate twice the number on that sign? Do they excuse it? “I will miss my appointment” or “I didn’t notice the sign”? What makes a person rob a store or dupe seniors out of their life savings? How do they excuse it?

Romans 1 makes this startling statement:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:18–23)

Reading again that line: “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

God says everyone knows He is eternal, powerful, heavenly. It is made clear since creation and in the things created. Yet much of the human race now proclaims there is no God. He is dead, or if He does exist, He is weak. Many think His creation evolved over millions of years, not made by God but it just happened. These verses are mocked. What erased that plain understanding given by God to everyone?

The following verses describe the consequences. Seeing clearly did not produce honor to God or thankfulness. Instead, humanity turned from what they could see and made up a different scenario, one that allowed them to decide what their god should be like instead of what He’d shown them about Himself. The Bible call this “going our own way” and names it sin.

Drivers know the speed limit. Thieves know they have no right to take what belongs to others. But the doing of such things eventually blinds them and changes their thinking. God explains it:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1:24–27)

Since humanity already denied what God had shown them, what were His options? He could reveal more truth about Himself but that had already been rejected. So He gave humanity up to their own rule, which became a slippery slope. Sadly, some people stop reading here, condemn those who have gone to the ends as described above and make that one of the “worst” sins. This is a mistake . . .

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:28–32)

Sexual sin isn’t the only sin. Note the list. All of us have done at least some of it. I may not have murdered anyone literally, but in thought. I may not be described as ruthless, but I have gossiped. In the mind of God, sin is sin and sin is the result of saying NO to what He reveals about Himself.

Grace is God giving a second chance. It was costly for Him, but free for us, another revelation. “Yes, you rejected Me, but here I am again, this time in human form to reveal My love and that I want you to be with Me forever. That is a gift. You only need to admit you have sinned, admit the obvious. I will take you back, reveal myself to you. Just say YES to Jesus, YES to forgiveness, and I will grant you forgiveness, power over sin and eternal life.”

And for those who do this, trusting the promise of God and believing, He changes everything, even drops the name “sinner” and gives us the righteousness of Christ. How utterly incredible!