This is the revelation that is shaping my life today- everyone is set right so they can live life.
Romans 5:9-11 MSG
[9-11] Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!
Observation
“Now that,” past tense. Everyone has been set right with God by means of Jesus’ sacrificial death. So what does that now mean? “There is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.” Hear how amazing that is! You and I, everyone, are never outside of perfect rightness, perfect right relationship with God, in any way.
This pronouncement of great life-changing news is all over God’s word, but we always try and add a “hang on there,” of disqualification or qualification into Gods’ good news. We want to take good news and tame it a bit. Make it sound more like the way we understand things operate. ‘Surely if I go on sinning I will be rejected?’ ‘You have to behave in the right way if you are to continue to have right relationship.’ ‘You can’t go around killing people and be right with God.’ Well, NO, NO, NO, stop messing with the good news. You can go round doing anything and be right with God, you can keep your sin and be right with God, you can not be well behaved and be right with God. Because rightness is totally, fully, forever based in nothing of you, “by means of this (Jesus) sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice,” you are right forever in all weather.
Now that you have got your rightness settled in God’s truth, expect transformative life to flow into your life. If God made us right when we were at our worst, how much greater life will be released in us now that we are at our best, living from the intimacy of His presence. “Just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!” You see behavioural modification is not a requirement in any way for being right with God, but it opens the way to expand and deepen your life in the and through the presence of God. Rightness enables transformed living but does not require it.
Application
I will live forever in intimate friendship with God based on Jesus’ sacrificial death, and I will live in great expectation of a deeply transformed life through his resurrected presence. I will not sit in the chair of judgment over myself, nor let anyone else judge me, and declare “unworthy of rightness” over me ever, never, no matter what my life does. This freedom is the foundation of love and love is the foundation of my transformation. To lose the freedom of rightness is to lose love and to lose love I will never enter into the presence of healing and transformation
Response
Thank you that you so incredibly rescue me. When I had nothing to trade, offer, or bring, you just paid the bill, clothed me, and called me to the feast of life. I now live accepted, loved and in a position to live a deepening and expanding life. I am blessed!
Meditation
Meditation truth – I am never at odds with God.
Consider:
How often is this truth of rightness distorted in your life when you ‘fail’?
What needs to be healed in your story so you can live in the fullness of this never-ending intimacy with God?
JOURNEY DEEPER