Skip to main content

 In Romans 5:1-5, St. Paul states the astounding:

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

To have peace, shalom, with God means that you are invincible. There is nothing in your life, past, present or future that can separate you from the Love of God in Jesus Christ. Your life can be, and is being transformed by the Power of Jesus’ resurrection now work within you. Sealed by the Holy Spirit, you are eternally secure. God’s love for you is never at risk. His compassion never wanes.

Paul states that we have direct “access into this grace in which we now stand.” That means that the grace you need for today is to simply be received from God. You already stand IN IT. It’s as if you were living knee-deep in gold coins and any financial concern you might encounter would be instantly swallowed up by what you have direct access to. God’s grace is more than “knee-deep” to the follower of Jesus Christ; it is eternal, without limit, ever-present, with your name already imprinted on it. Those nail prints in Jesus’ hands have your name on them!

That grace we NOW live in gives us hope, not wistful thinking, that our lives will be changed, healed, delivered, restored  and transformed by Him to share in the glory of God, and even now to reflect that glory.

That peace with God, that eternal grace you have direct access to right now, even enables you to walk through all manner of human suffering and persevere. It is what He has already done; it’s not your striving that effects what God has promised. The Holy Spirit enables you to persevere. He forges in you the character of Jesus and the hope that flows from that will never be extinguished. Why not? Because God’s pure, eternal, absolute and almighty Love is being moment by moment poured out into your heart, like an artesian spring by the Holy Spirit.

Amazing truth! Amazing grace!



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

 HIS POWER...HIS PROMISE Helping people walk in the Spirit the devotional below is seminal! The devotion below is today from Oswald Chambers. I makes me think of some I have known that have assumed that the Lord doesn’t want them empowered by the Holy Spirit or that He won’t manifest Himself in them because they have reasoned otherwise. Given ministry opportunities to have the Holy Spirit confirm the Word of God with demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power, they rely on how they feel, their experience thus far and not on the reality that the will of God in mission and ministry is either done in the Holy Spirit’s Power or not at all. Our capacity to do what Jesus does has nothing to do with our imagined capacity, but upon the indwelling power of God through is. Now to Him who is able to do far above and beyond what we could ever imagine or think, by His power at work in us now, to Him be glory…   Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus told the parable of the bags of gold as a warning ...
 HE IS RISEN! IT IS FINISHED! After the Israelites had passed through the Red Sea by God opening the way for them to be saved, the whole of Pharoah's army, his horsemen and chariots pursued God's people into the opened way. Once they were all in, the waters flowed back into their place with suddenness and fury. Not one of the enemies survived. All perished in those waters. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, all that sin contained, the full measure of the rebellion of mankind for all time, all the wickedness that was ever in human hearts were absorbed into the Lamb of God as He died our death, received our just judgement from God for all time, taking all that sin and death contained. In Him, sin and death died once and for all. They were overwhelmed, covered and drowned in the sea of His precious blood, poured out for the sin of the whole world. Not one enemy remained alive, all were stripped of their power to hold us in slavery to sin any longer. All their weapons were confis...
 CONVICTION When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He doesn't ask us to make it right. We can never add to what Jesus Christ has already done on the cross to deal with the totality of our sin. The Holy Spirit asks us to accept the truth, turn from sin and turn to the Lord. Then He will make it right. Remember Who our faith depends on from start to finish, that salvation is of the Lord alone. Laying aside every hindering weight and the sin that so easily trips us up (different for everyone), we are to run the race He has given us to run with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Jesus. He is the One upon Whom our faith depends on from start to finish. He will never run out of eyesight any more that a good shepherd would go ahead of the sheep he was leading where they couldn't see to follow. Hebrews 12:1-2 "Surrounded then as we are by a great cloud of witness to the life of faith, let us strip off everything that hinders us, as well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us r...