Devotion:
For an audio version of this devotion, click here.
Read Romans 5:6-11.
Tomorrow in our worship services, we will focus on a climactic passage about God’s love for us in chapter eight of this letter. Today, we stop off in chapter five, where another key verse tells us about this divine love. Verse 8 is our focus today: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul is emphasizing in this part of the letter that we as humans did not do anything to earn God’s favor. Before Jesus came, humanity (that’s you and me and everybody else) was still in a broken relationship with God. The laws and commandments of the Old Testament had done much to help with that relationship, but we were always coming up short in following them. We could not restore the relationship on our own. Only God could do that.
And God did. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have been given forgiveness and new life - eternal life, that starts now and goes forever. And it all comes to us as a gift from this God who loves each and every one of us, just because that is what God does.
I see in this truth about God both great news and a great challenge. I have already covered the great news: God loves you and there is nothing you can do to change that. The great challenge? Growing in this love so that we can, in some small measure, represent this God. Any of us can love those who love us. And most of us learn how to love our family and friends (and maybe a few others) who act in ways that we do not like. But to represent this God by learning to love anybody and everybody? I am not there yet. I just know that is the direction in which I am going because I know that is where Jesus Christ is leading me. Please pray for me and I will pray for you, as we seek to follow Jesus.
Personal Worship Option:
One of my favorite hymns is “Lord, Whose Love Through Humble Service,” written by Albert Bayly in 1961. Here is one verse of it that fits for our focus today:
As we worship, grant us vision, till your love’s revealing light
in its height and depth and greatness dawns upon our quickened sight,
making known the needs and burdens your compassion bids us bear,
stirring us to tireless striving your abundant life to share.
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