Thursday 24 Jan 2019

January 24: Romans 3:19-26

Key Verse: Romans 3:21
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

Devotion:
When we do come to believe the Word of God, we quickly find out a terrible truth; that we are all guilty before God! As bad as that does sound, there is always hope, and for us that hope is a certainty when we believe who Jesus is and what He did for us. No matter how hard we try to work our way to heaven, we will never get there by our own strengths. No matter how much we try to lift ourselves up, the only place we will lift ourselves up is in man’s eyes. God continues to see right through the things we build up and knows the truth. He is Just and cannot accept lies...

But God already knew we would need a Saviour because He knew we could not find our own way to heaven. He knew we would get it all wrong and that gave Him the ultimate opportunity to show us just how much He does love us. He was able (and willing) to allow His only Son to come to earth and die in our stead. We are the ones who are guilty before Him. We are the ones who deserve the punishment for being guilty. And yet He allowed Jesus Christ to come to earth and take on our sin debt. Jesus did not do anything wrong, so He did not deserve to die. But He gave His own life on that cross so we could live through Him!

We know God is just. We can look back on the whole history of earth and find out that each time He has promised something, He has carried out those promises. In this case, He has promised us we will not have to pay for our own sin debt so long as we truly believe Jesus took on our sin on the cross and paid for our sins once and for all! That promise will be carried out, just as all others have. This is why we can be sure Jesus Christ is our Saviour and He alone can save us from our guilt before God.

Believe on Him and bring your sins before Him. Even when we are sure that He knows us, we still need to bring our sins before Him to stay in a truthful relationship with Him and Him alone.

Points to Ponder:
Do you feel guilty when you do things wrong?

Are you bringing your issues to Christ?