Made Right

Friday, March 3, 2023

We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.  And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.  For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.  He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.  For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.  People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.  Romans 3:22-26

In many dramas you will hear a character resolutely say:  I’m going to make things right.  He or she lied, or stole something, or in some way offended another person.  The statement is the desire to undo the wrong…to make it right again!  This is the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the making right of all the wrong that’s ever been done, via the cross. 

I am aware that there are still five weeks left until Good Friday, but that is part of Lent…looking ahead to the Good News of forgiveness, being made right with God.  And making things right begins and ends with God’s love.  Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome puts a bow on this concept.  He explains the cross and God’s heart in nine sentences, 158 words…modern preachers could learn that lesson.  Ouch!

It's amazing to entertain that God’s longsuffering put-up with sins in ancient times, looking forward to the forgiveness He would make possible on the cross.  That should alert us to how gracious God is, because that means he was also looking forward to our days in the 21^st century.   He knew we would need forgiveness to be made right with Him.  In fact, you were on God’s mind before Day #1 of creation.

Some years the anticipation of Lent just about overwhelms me.  I want to rush to Good Friday, get the suffering, pain, and blood in the past, and sit, vigil-like by the empty tomb until the Easter dawn, so I can shout with the angels.  But with these thoughts of God’s forgiveness worked-out for time past, present, and future, there is a calmness to my joy, knowing that I have been made right with He who knows me best, and loves me most.

For You Today 

There is, and has been, only one caveat to being made right with God, and that is the leap of faith to believe Jesus died so you could be forgiven; he took the punishment for your sins.  Paul said it clearly in his letter to the Roman believers:

God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.   Romans 3:26

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Blush  and  Lenten Walk - Part 6      

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Images without citation are personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

God, Who is Fair and Just

Friday, March 6, 2020

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.                         Romans 3:22-26

In something of an attempt to present a different kind of sermon I once asked a church member to present a paper she’d written which holds the opposite view that Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans, namely that God is unfair and a liar.  The sermon’s main intent was to teach people who were going through very difficult times, and were experiencing a shaking of their faith, how to begin to trust God again.  Two things about this paper, it was my bride, Elizabeth, who wrote the paper in 1988, and it was a college assignment, not a reflection of her relationship with God.  It was simply entitled An Unfair and Lying God.

The paper was a really good argument for the unbelief you see today in people who are whistling in the dark, trying to get past the possibility that there really is a God and they might be in trouble.  The sermon became one of my all-time favorites, because during that Sunday morning worship I saw lights come on in the faces of people I knew and loved.  The place was alive with recognition of that awe of God’s holiness and righteousness; He is a just and fair God!

The Apostle Paul did not think that at one point in his life when he was still going by the name Saul.  In fact, to think God could forgive people that were departing from his orthodox Judaism to worship a sinner who’d been put on a cross, well that was just too much!  So, Paul went on a rampage, dragging those sinful believers in Jesus into the courts for judgment and death.  And then, at the height of that rampage, Paul met Jesus on the Road to Damascus, and everything changed; Saul had a heart change, because the light stopped him dead in his tracks.  He had an eternity change, because the Christ of that light forgave Saul, who would later call himself the chief of all sinners:

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.  1 Timothy 1:15

And Saul had a name change; God changed his name and destination to Paul, Apostles to the Gentiles, church planter, writer of a third of the New Testament, and martyr for the very Kingdom of God he’d once persecuted.

For You Today

There’s nothing truthful or fair in the heavenlies about the way sin treats you.  But God, in His infinite goodness and grace always tells the truth and is ever exceedingly fair and just!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For more posts on Romans 3 and the whole idea of the fairness of God’s judgment and grace see these older posts The Face of Rebellion and A Light Shines in My Heart