Live in the freedom of Jesus; “He did it all for me!”
This devotion is being sent to you from Blantyre, Malawi, Africa where I am privileged to make a field visit to the Malawi Disability Ministry – a project TLHA & JCM are privileged to partner on with Kingdom Workers and the Lutheran Church of Central Africa
Romans 3:28 “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”
How often when a person dies don’t you hear something said similar to this “He/she was such a good person.”
Such comments try to imply that the person who is now deceased did many good things in their life and that those should certainly count for something.
Contrast such thinking to what God demands us of us Matthew 5:48 “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”. It may be that a person truly was a nice person and that they did good things for people in their lifetime, but when we are standing before God at the end of our life, he is going to ask us one simple question “Were you perfect your entire life?”. That is a very intimidating question and we all know what we have to answer. We can’t stutter or stammer and try to say “But, God I did a lot of nice things for people in my life time”. We have to honestly answer “No, I have been far from perfect.”.
But before we despair, look at our Bible verse for this week which gives us the answer we need when we stand before God. Instead of trying to present our own supposed “good deeds”, by faith in Jesus as our Savior we can point to him and say “He did it all for me!”.
That is the only thing we can say and what a joy and relief it is to be able to say that. Instead of lying awake at night trying to figure out what good we need to do to make up for the not so good things we know we’ve done; instead of letting our conscience be tormented by what we know are our shortcomings and failures, we can lean totally on Jesus.
That is what Paul meant when he was led by God to write the words of our Bible verse for this week: “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”. By faith in Jesus we can live peace-filled lives knowing that we don’t have to try to justify ourselves by what we do. Jesus did it all by his death on the cross to pay for our sins and by his resurrection from the dead to assure us that when we die we will rise and go to heaven with him.
Perhaps today or tomorrow you will hear people talking about the Reformation. Back in the mid 1500’s the Church had basically lost the teaching that you are saved by grace because of what Jesus did for you. The Reformation is where Martin Luther rediscovered the wonderful things our Bible verse and devotion for this week focus on. Martin Luther read our verse for this week and came to realize that what he had been told about having to do good things to make up for the evil he has done was not true. That in a nutshell is what the Reformation is all about.
Rejoice that Jesus did it all for you! Cling to the freedom he gives you through faith in him! And, most of all, live in that freedom each day and don’t let the devil or anyone else rob you of the joy and peace you have in Jesus!