The political world is full of noisy debate today following the choice of the out-going President to give his son a full and sweeping pardon, reaching back for a decade, for crimes for which he was facing sentencing later this month. The pardon power of the President is one area in which his authority is much like that of a king. It cannot be challenged!
I, too, am a person who has been pardoned! There were no crimes in my life, but there is sin – choices that alienate me from my Heavenly Father and put me in the way of judgment. I am not unique in that. The Scripture says that "all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard." (Romans 3:23, NLT) It is mistaken to think that only some great moral failure or murder is of concern to God. He sees selfishness, pride, love of things other than Himself as ‘sin.’ The inescapable fact is that we all fail.
The result is spiritual death! "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23, NLT)
We do not like to talk much about sin these days, do we? Oh, yes, we may admit that we make ‘mistakes.’ We love to excuse our choices by pointing to victimization, addiction, or poor parenting as the cause. We are influenced by those things and more, but the fact remains that God has given us the ability to choose our course. We need to know that our finger-pointing and blaming will end when "each of us will give a personal account to God." (Romans 14:12, NLT)
Is there hope? There is but it is not found in self-improvement, resolving to do better, or personal piety. The stark truth is that no amount of ‘trying’ can change the basic fact of our sinful guilt before a holy God. How I love the words of the second chapter of Ephesians that invite us to a new life, one prepared by God’s unconditional and undeserved pardon.
Even if they are familiar, let these inspired words fill up
your mind today. "Once you were dead, doomed forever because of your
many sins. … But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much,
that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he
raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s special favor that you have
been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are
seated with him in the heavenly realms—all because we are one with Christ
Jesus.
And so, God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his
favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ
Jesus. God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can’t take
credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good
things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s
masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good
things he planned for us long ago." (Ephesians 2:4-10, NLT)
The truth is that we are more than pardoned!
WE are justified, our sins forgiven then erased because of the grace of God and
the love of Jesus who died to save us and rose from the dead to lead us to new
life.
As you begin this new week, thank God for His love.
Refuse to live with guilt or shame or fear. Instead, receive the gift.
The word from the Word is a powerful truth to live by- “With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful
dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer
have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of
life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing
you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. " (Romans 8:1-2, The
Message)
NO more sin, no more death. I am a child of God. Are you?
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