Sunday Reading: Romans 4:1-3, Romans 4:23-25
Key Verse: Romans 4:3
3 For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness."
Devotion:
It may seem to many that the Old Testament is a book that was written for the people that lived before Christ and that the New Testament was written for those of us afterward. But, in truth, the whole bible was written for all. They may not have had the New Testament back in the days of Abraham, but they certainly had the same truth that we have nowadays; it’s just that we now have hindsight because we have the knowledge of what Christ did for us on the cross to look back on too. God has not changed the law from being one way before Christ and another way after Christ; we are the ones who seem to want to read something new into God’s Word.
God has always required faith in Him. Adam and Eve were required to have faith in following what God had said. They may well have been able to walk with Him in the Garden of Eden, but when it came to their time alone, they had to believe what God had told them and trust in that. Yet they, like us, chose to take a different path at that time! Abraham was not justified because of all the work that he did; he was justified by the fact that he believed in God. Each one of the great rulers and prophets have shown us that we have to believe in God before He will consider us. That does not mean that He does not love us before we believe, far from it. Why else would He have sent His Son to die for a sinful world if He did not first love us?
Our bibles are here for us to learn the truth and to know that God is real and that through our belief in Him, we will be justified. Our bibles are here so that we can know the law and learn that we have made mistakes. Through those mistakes we can learn about how much God loves us. When we know that we can see just how He is on control of everything and that gives us the wherewithal to believe in Him. With that belief comes trust and with that our faith in Him is built up. That is when we can see how precious a gift Christ gave to us on the cross and that will strengthen our faith even more. We are justified through our faith, through our belief, just as everyone before us. God does not change!
Points to Ponder:
What does it take for you to believe in something?
What will it take for God’s Word to sink in?
