Thursday
The Christian churches today seem to want to overlook the point that if we confess our allegiance to Christ and then claim I can do whatever I want, because Jesus will forgive me, well people that is cheap grace and you are really hurting God and yourself. Have you ever thought about how much your sin hurt Jesus on the cross? If he bore our punishment that day, what part did my willful disobedience play in his suffering? I don’t know about you, but that grieves me to think that I caused Him any pain. So that leads us to striving to live a life that is holy and pleasing to God.
Paul speaks of God’s great kindness and that is soooo true. Let’s not totally beat ourselves up, because God wouldn’t want us to do that either. When we read that “God will judge everyone according to what they have done” we have to remember that when we repent, those sins are forgotten, we won’t be judged by them. But the good things we do, those things God will remember.
Paul is speaking, of course, to the Jewish Christians when he talks about the Law. They understand what is right and wrong based on the Ten Commandments and the Law of Moses, but the Gentiles that are also a part of the early church in Rome, don’t have that same background and so they realize right from wrong because of what is in their heart. We might call it our conscience… it’s an understanding that what I am doing is right or wrong.
There are people that I’m sure you have encountered that don’t seem to have any sense of what is right or wrong, they just do whatever makes them feel good, without any concern for the repercussions of their actions. There is no conviction. But for God’s people, when we do wrong, we know it or it will be revealed to us, by the Holy Spirit, (John 16:12-15) so that we can repent.
Paul also wants the people of Rome to understand that God is not showing any favoritism, whether your background was in the Jewish religion or whether you were born a gentile, a pagan worshiper. God does not say to us one person is better than another because they came from a good Christian home versus a dysfunctional broken home. Where we came from isn’t what God is concerned with, it is where we are going. No one should hold their “goodness” over someone else. Remember what Paul said at the beginning of this chapter? How you judge someone is how you will be judged. If you are arrogant and uncompassionate, is that how you want God judging you?
Grace and Peace
Pastor Kathy