Daily Devotion, October 12, 2022

 

Devotion:

Read Romans 5:5-8 (NRSVUE)

Deserve. Merit. Earn. These words can hold a great deal of weight. There are timeless truths around these words as humans measure their own and others’ worth. The Apostle Paul understood this.

Paul wrote this profound letter to the Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome a little over 2000 years ago. Paul concludes verse 6 with, “Christ died for the ungodly.” The word, “ungodly” caught my attention.

In our times of many people group labels, and so much division…it might come too easily for us to ascribe this word “ungodly” to people we have set apart from us as “those people” who are undeserved and unmerited.

BUT, setting the “ungodly” apart is the very thinking that Paul is turning around here in these verses! Paul goes on to emphasize in verse 7, “Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person----though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.” He then includes himself and his readers into this understanding of who are “the ungodly” in verse 8. “But God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

This is the overwhelming gift of God’s grace!!! “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Verse 10 goes on to say, “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”

Out of love, Christ sacrificed everything so that we could be reconciled to God, whether we deserved it, merited it or earned it. In fact, Paul’s point is that none of us had ever deserved it, merited it or earned it.

So, Christ’s teachings and his example call us to “love and pray for our enemies, to be willing to walk the second mile, to turn the other cheek, to help the sick, to give to others and to serve others.” Out of depths of gratitude and love for Christ’s sacrifice for us, we need to follow in his ways.

Personal Worship Option:

Gracious God, please forgive us when we forget that Christ died for us all while we were yet sinners. Help us to see the people of the world with love the way that you do. Amen.