Note from Jesus
Dear Beloved,
Today’s verses are full of deeply significant words, but they are not hard to understand. Read them and let them fall into your welcoming heart as the assurance of the Father’s love for you, My sacrifice for you, and the Holy Spirit’s presence in you!
Since Adam, all humans have lived under the cloud of inevitable death (Romans 5:12-19). Death is the handmaiden of sin. As sin’s toxic effect has permeated each generation of people and left its lethal residue, death has held every mortal in its vice-grip of futility and pain. Human rebellion against the Father brought this inescapable toxic cloud of sin and death. There is no human way to escape, so you need Me as Savior, Liberator, Redeemer, and Reconciler.
What you received from the Father through your faith in Me is glorious. Paul’s opening words in the verses below emphasize this gift of grace and reconciliation with the Father, a gift that I have brought to you:
Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King.
Who you are now after being saved by grace is a far cry from who you were without Me. Paul’s words in today’s verses were written to the believers in Rome. However, the attributes Paul described are the true spiritual condition of all people before their reconciliation to the Father. Look carefully at the phrases and words recorded below — you can find them listed here and also in the bold text in the verses that follow. These phrases and words illustrate who you would be without your reconciliation to the Father through Me:
- Far from God.
- Powerless.
- Weak.
- Wasting… in sin.
- Enemies.
This list is certainly not a glorious set of attributes. Nevertheless, regardless of how good anyone has tried to be or how far any person may have fallen, these terms depict the condition of each person who does not take advantage of My sacrifice to be reconciled to the Father.
As Paul wrote, in spite of the fact that you and everyone else were “far from God” and “in sin,” I lovingly came to earth to pay the high price to redeem you. My sacrificial death was needed to pay that ransom price. Paul shared these words to remind you that the Father’s grace is not only sufficient for you but that His grace can also reach you no matter where you are!
Look at the cost I paid to save you. Think about the love that led Me to pay the ultimate price to redeem you — whether your estrangement from the Father was because you were enslaved by the power of Satan or by your guilt or because you cannot live up to the righteousness of the Father. Notice the price I willingly paid to reconcile you from your isolation from the Father. The cost was lovingly paid, but it was exorbitantly high. The text that is underlined in the verses below and copied here describes the price that was paid and what was accomplished by My sacrifice. These are truths that Paul wrote about what I accomplished and now offer to you:
- The Anointed One [Jesus Christ] died for all, for us.
- The blood of Jesus has made us right with God.
- We will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath.
- His [God’s] Son reconciled us by laying down His life
- We [will] be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life.
- We stand now reconciled and at peace with God.
Paul makes clear that I reestablished all that Adam had ruined by sin. I did it because of the Father’s love and My love. I did it at great cost; I did it for people who did not deserve it. Because I did it, you can now be declared righteous or right with God, liberated from sin, reconciled to God, and brought into a new and eternal life that death cannot end.
Verses to Live
All the proper sounding religious language in the following verses explains what I purchased for you in My incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. But to put it in the language you use every day, the essence is simple and clear: I loved you too much to lose you, so I paid the ultimate price to reclaim you and bring you home to our Father. You are the Father’s beloved and precious child. I AM your older brother in a family that will be reunited to celebrate glory together because of the Father’s radical grace. (As you read these verses, remember the words in bold describe your condition without My sacrifice and the underlining highlights the price I paid in that sacrifice for you and the eternal benefits for you.)
Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love.
When the time was right, [Jesus] the Anointed One died for all of us who were far from God, powerless, and weak. Now it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it’s possible that someone may give up his life for one who is truly good. But think about this: while we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed His powerful love to us in a tangible display — the Anointed One [Jesus Christ] died for us. As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath in the future. If we were [enemies] in the heat of combat with God when His Son reconciled us by laying down His life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life? In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That’s why we celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed.
(Romans 5:1-11)So here is the result: as one man’s sin [Adam’s sin] brought about condemnation and punishment for all people, so one man’s act of faithfulness [Jesus’ faithfulness] makes all of us right with God and brings us to new life. Just as through one man’s defiant disobedience every one of us were made sinners, so through the willing obedience of the one man many of us will be made right.
(Romans 5:18-19)
Response in Prayer
Father, Your grace is truly amazing. Your love is breathtaking. Dear Father and my precious Lord Jesus, I cannot thank You enough for the cost You paid to redeem me from sin and death. You cleanse me of all unrighteousness, You lovingly bring me back into the family of Your grace, and You give me the assurance of life with You and with all who have loved You through the ages. Thank You! Holy Spirit, please empower me and use me to share the news of this grace with others. Empower me to practice Your kingdom grace with those still in bondage to the ways of sin and death. I pray this because of the redeeming work of Jesus and in His powerful name. Amen.
‘A Year with Jesus’ is written by Phil Ware.
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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Voice™. © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.