As Each Day Passes By

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware of how sinful I am and how I am deeply loved by my Savior. Every day is an opportunity to attest to how broken I am. There are things that I ought to do that I do not do. There are things that I do that I ought not to do. Every day, I fail my Savior, so every day, I gaze upon what He did on behalf of me on the tree. He suffered and died for my sins to free me from its penalty. He lived for me to clothe me with the righteousness that I desperately need. I receive this wonderful gift of salvation by turning away from sin and trusting in Christ. By grace, I turn away from my sins and continually trust in Him every day because I need to be desperately reminded of who Christ is and what He has done.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware of how I need Him. Apart from Him, I am a hopeless sinner headed to eternal damnation. Because of what He did, I am rescued from my misery and I am now ushered to joy through His presence in me. I stood condemned but through Him, I stand righteous. Because of Him alone and not in anything owing to me.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware that I could never be sufficient. I will always be dependent on grace. Thoughts that make me want to rely on myself and make me want to be confident in myself should be put to death because God alone is my source of strength and confidence. He supplies every grace that I need. I should be happy knowing that I have a dependable Father and He will leave always take care of me.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware of how sin so easily creeps into my heart; that sin is so deceitful that is why I should be vigilant. I am at war every day. I am a soldier and God has blessed me with armor and a weapon to stand still and resist the enemy. There is no time to be lax because the enemy is like a lion always seeking someone to devour.

As each day passes by, I become increasingly aware that God is the giver of every good thing and that I should live in gratitude to Him. I will always be a receiver of His wonderful gifts. I have nothing to boast about because I receive the things that I have because He is merciful, loving, and gracious.

As each day passes by, I become smaller and smaller and God becomes bigger and bigger. And that is how the ways things should be because every thing revolves around God’s glory and not on me. He alone should receive the spotlight and I should happily point people to Him because in Him is true life that lasts for eternity.

The Multifaceted Grace of God

The grace of our God is just awe-strikingly amazing. As each second pass us by, as we progress daily with our walk in the Lord, we experience more of the breathtaking profundity of the multifaceted grace of God in our lives. The grace of God comes to us in all shapes and forms.

The multifaceted grace of God is more shiningly brilliant than all the radiance of all the luminaries combined – the sun, the moon, the stars, and other form of beautiful luminaries. Nothing can outshine the multifaceted grace of God in our lives.

The multifaceted grace of God is more strikingly graphic than all various shades of all the beautiful colors combined. Grace is more vivid than the fullest display of all the shades and nuances of available creative colors. Nothing can out color the multifaceted grace of God in our lives.

The multifaceted grace of God is more soothingly harmonious than all the magnificent tones, tempos, and notes of all the musical instruments combined and used by all the most brilliant musicians of our time. Grace is perfectly tuned to every areas of our lives. Nothing can out sing the multifaceted grace of God in our lives.

The grace of God comes in all its shining brilliance, in all its creative colors, and in all its magnificent melodies in our lives. The multifaceted grace of God is tailored-fit to address all the circumstances we could be in – foolishness, weakness, sinfulness, damnation, self-absorption, hunger, thirst, depression, instability, insufficiency, anxiety, neediness, and so many more.

Let us praise our awesome God for His multifaceted grace!

Praise God for His saving grace that saves us from eternal damnation and ushers us into eternal satisfaction the moment we genuinely repent and trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (John 3:16)

Praise God for His sanctifying grace that sanctifies us every second of our lives until we see Christ in all His glory. This is only possible through the Holy Spirit our Almighty Sanctifier that partners with us as we do our best in working out our sanctification because it is God who is at work in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:12-13)

Praise God for His securing grace that assures us that He who began a good work in us is faithful to finish what He started. (Phil. 1:6) Praise God that we are forever secured because nothing and no one can take us away from the all-powerful grip of the loving hand of our heavenly Father. (John 10:29) Therefore, we are deeply convinced with absolutely certainty that nothing and no one can separate us from the securing loving grace of God because we are in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38-39)

Praise God for His strengthening grace that steadily strengthens us through Christ who gives us strength. (Phil. 4:13) Praise God that even though we are left alone, Jesus Christ will stand with us and strengthen us. (2 Tim. 4:17) He will make sure that we won’t fall away because Jesus Christ is also reigning with the Father and He is praying for us moment by moment. Praise God that the Holy Spirit within us, despite of our weakness, supplies us strength, even at tough times, when we are at loss for words. (Rom. 8:26)

Praise God for His solidifying grace that causes us to be deeply rooted in the written Word and the incarnate Word as each second of our lives passes by. We are confident that when His word is our delight, and as the Holy Spirit makes us treasure His word more and more in our lives, we become very sturdy trees that bear fruit. Strong winds could never drive us away from Christ our solid Ground because we are deeply rooted in the word of Christ. (Ps. 1:3-4)

Praise God for His shepherding grace that leads us into green pastures, still waters, and paths of righteousness for His namesake. (Psalm 23:1-3) Bears, lions, wolves, other fearsome predators, and all forms of evil that risk the life of the sheep will never be feared because Christ our gracious Shepherd is with us to protect us even at the cost of His precious life. (Psalm 23:4) Praise God that our Lord Jesus Christ is also our good Shepherd who willingly laid down His life in behalf of His sheep. (John 10:15)

Praise God for His sovereign grace that assures us that all kinds of things will be used for His eternal glory (Rom. 11:36) and our eternal good (Rom. 8:28) The pain, the accidents, the sickness, the sorrows, the mourning, the losses, and all kinds of bad things are under the wise control of our loving Father. God, in His providence, works in all events of history, all choices of humanity, all natural occurrences, and every littlest details of our lives to bring about His sovereign gracious purposes for the ultimate glory of His name, and, by that, our utmost joy and deepest satisfaction.

Praise God for His satisfying grace that gives unending satisfaction to our souls. Our souls are made to be satisfied in Jesus. Nothing and no one else will bring true and lasting satisfaction. He is the Bread of life that rids us of our eternal hunger and He is the living Water that quenches our eternal thirst. (John 6:35) Christ alone can satisfy our insatiable souls. And it’s amazing that all the blessings we experience in our lives lead us to deeper satisfaction of the Blesser.

Praise God for His sufficient grace that gives us all we need. (2 Cor. 12:9) He gives us strength when we admit our weakness before Him. He gives us wisdom when we admit that we are fools apart from Him. God addresses our anxiety by proving that He is faithful to provide us the food and clothing we need because we are more precious than the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. (Matt. 6:25-33) He gives us forgiveness of sins and righteousness when we admit that we would be crushed under the wrath of God because we are so sinful that we could never save ourselves and that He alone could save us through His death, life, and resurrection. Praise God that He has already prepared for us, from all eternity, everything that we need in all types of circumstances because God is our Sufficiency. (2 Cor. 3:5)

Praise God for His substantial grace that overflows in all aspects of our lives because He has blessed us with every spiritual blessings in Christ. (Eph. 1:3) He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21)

The multifaceted grace of God goes on and on and on. Never ending. Never exhausted. Overflowing. Unstoppable. Words are insufficient to fully contain and fully express the inexhaustible grace of God that is why we have eternity to experience it in all its fullness. If we have truly experienced the multifaceted grace of God in our lives, it would really take our breath away and put us on bended knees with heartfelt gratitude and praise-filled adoration all the days of our lives. Let us continually bask in the profound depth of the multifaceted grace of God in our lives until we see Grace face to face.

Praise God for His glorious multifaceted grace, the end goal of all things, which He has blessed us in Christ! (Eph. 1:6)

Devo (5): By grace alone

Scripture reading:  ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Observation: We are saved by grace alone through faith alone. Grace means unmerited favor. It means we don’t deserve such a great salvation but we still received it from God. It means in spite of the sins that we have done, God has been gracious in saving us from the wrath of God when Jesus bore our sins on His body on the cross and paid for its penalty on our behalf. We received this gift of salvation through faith alone. Faith is the means or the medium upon which the gift of salvation is given to us. Imagine the plane that you are riding crashed. It is burning. If you stay on the plane, you will die. But there is a parachute, if you trust that the parachute could save you. You will jump out of the plane and use the parachute. Same is true with salvation. If we trust that Jesus will save us from the burning anger of God because of our sins then we would turn away from our sins and receive Him as our Lord and Savior; clinging to Him alone as our Parachute that could give us safe landing from hell to heaven.

This gift of salvation is not earned by doing good. If we go to heaven as a result of works, heaven will be full of boastful people who would proclaim that they are in heaven because they donated big money at church, attended church every sunday, prayed everyday, helped the poor, did good things and so on. God won’t get the glory if that would be the case. The purpose of all things is to glorify God including salvation. Salvation gives glory to God because it is owing to His grace alone that we are saved. The only thing that we contributed to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary.

Good works flowed from the reality that we are created in Christ. We have a new heart and a new nature because of the Holy Spirit’s regenerating work when we heard and received the gospel of Jesus. Good works are just a result of our salvation. Good works are in prepared in advance for those who would trust in Christ. It’s like a road that God has prepared for us when we entered the gate of Jesus. It’s the fruit of our faith. It’s the evidence that our faith is true. Remember the thief on the cross, he didn’t do anything but only trusted in Jesus. And Jesus told him that “Today, you will be with in paradise.”

Application: Everything is a gift from God especially salvation. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the relationships we enjoy are graces and gifts of God. So we should be people who are thankful and joyful with the good things we receive and experience in life. May we be gracious and kind to others as well because God has been gracious and kind to us. And may we bear fruit as we seek to walk in step by the Spirit in response to the wonderful fact we are already saved. May we not use grace as an excuse to sin but a reason to serve God more.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for your gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Thank you Jesus for dying for our sins to pay for our punishment in our behalf. Thank you Jesus for living a perfect life for our righteousness in our behalf. We are not free from guilt and perfect in Your sight because of what Jesus did. May we be people full of thanksgiving. And as a response, result, and consequence of the reality that we are already saved, may we bear fruit. May we shine as lights in this dark world. May we reflect Jesus to others and share them the wonderful news about Jesus. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.

Justification

I just want to share my reflection on Romans 3:21 to 26. I chose these verses for my reflection today because it highlights what Christ has done to us for us to be in the right with God. I think this is really important because our standing before God determines whether we will spend eternity with Him or not. So, I think one of the biggest questions in life is: “Am I just before God?”

As I’ve said being just before God is to be with Him eternally. To be otherwise, is to be not with Him eternally. If an unjust person will be with God then that person will just pollute and destroy the beauty and majesty of heaven.

That’s why I think the more interesting question is: “How can I be just before God” or “How can I be made in the right before God?” To begin with, we cannot answer whether or not we are just before God if we don’t know how God will declare us as just or righteous.

This is the main reason why I chose Romans 3:21 to 26 because of its relevance in answering the how question. Kindly refer to the passage below.

^“But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; ²⁵ whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶ for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.“

Foremost, I think it’s best to know our condition apart from the saving grace of God. That is, left to ourselves, what is our standing before God? That’s why Paul starts this verse with the word “but” because the verses that precede Rom. 3:21 indicate the bad news that is brought about by our sin problem.

It’s stated in the preceding verse that we’re all under sin (Rom. 3:10). That is, in and of ourselves, we’re sinners. Our hearts are “more deceitful than all else and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9) and “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
(Gen. 6:5).

We’re sinners at the core of our being. We need a heart change. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” (Matt. 15:19) It’s really bad news. Is it not? And there’s nothing we can do with it because our actions are directed by our sin nature. We’re held in the bondage of sin.

Left to ourselves, we’re sinners at the core. Our heart is wicked so everything that comes or flows out of it  – thoughts, emotions, and will – is also naturally evil. We have this sin nature that determines our desires and our desires determine our actions.

We do what we want to do. Sadly, the things that we want to do run contrary to the things that God wants us to do. That is, the desires of our sin nature do not correspond to the things of God. That’s why we don’t do what is pleasing to God because the things that we are pleased to do are not pleasing to God.

Left to ourselves, we’re sinners before God. Our verdict is that we’re all guilty. We deserve to be punished. So, if we’re thinking that the answer to the how question of being just is our good works then all of us are hopeless in attaining a righteous standing before God.

And not only that, the standard upon which God will measure us to declare us as righteous or just is His commandments. If we are to assess ourselves base on the 10 commandments then we’re all guilty of breaking it.

In and of ourselves, we’re sinners. If God is to judge all of our thoughts, words, and deeds then we’d be all guilty. We’re hopeless.

That’s why the only means that could save us from the impending wrath of God because we violated His commandments is Someone outside of us. The good news is that God has provided a way. God is gracious to give us something that is undeserved and is never required of Him. Yet, He gave it anyway, out of His love for His people.

Romans 3:21 says that there’s this righteousness that comes from God apart from the law. It’s apart from the law because the purpose of the law is not for us to be made right before God but for us to know that we have violated the commandments of God (Rom. 3:20). The purpose of the law is to condemn us as guilty before God (Rom. 3:19).

The law points us to our need of a righteousness that is not our own. And this righteousness are “witnessed by the Law and the Prophets” (Rom. 3:20). The “Law and the Prophets” is a euphemism for the Old Testament. So, the Old Testament also points us to this righteousness.

In verse 22 of Romans 3, it is stated that this righteousness of God is transferred to our account through faith in Jesus Christ. The reason why it is by faith is because it doesn’t make any sense if it is by works “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) Faith means trust. Faith is also God’s work within us. That’s why it’s stated in Eph. 2:8 that faith is the “gift of God”. It means that we trust in what Christ did on the cross for us.

In verse 24 of Romans 3, it is stated that we are justified as a gift by his grace. The word justify has two meanings. It could mean: to made in the right or to show that you’re in the right. In a legal perspective, it could mean that one is declared righteous or one is shown to be righteous. The former is a verdict while the latter is a confirmation of what already is. In this verse, former meaning is used. Thus, we are declared to be righteous by the Judge – God. This declaration is a gift – unearned or undeserved. It is not paid for. Grace simply means that we receive or have something that we do not deserve. It means that we did not contribute something to God in order to attain this justification. In this case, that something that we don’t deserve is the declaration of God that we’re righteous in His sight. The verse further states that this declaration is achieved by the redemptive work of Christ.  Redemption means to set free or to deliver someone or something from bondage or captivity. Since, we’re all under sin. We’re good as slaves of sin for we do the things that our sin nature wants to do. We do what our master (sin) wants us to do. The consequence of being held under the bondage of sin is death. That is to be eternally separated from God. That’s why it’s stated in Romans 6:23 that the “wages of sin is death.” Punishment in hell is something that we deserve from God but in His grace, God justifies the ungodly through faith in Christ.

In verse 25 of Romans 3, it is stated that God displayed Christ publicly as a propitiation or propitiatory sacrifice in His blood. God poured out His wrath upon Christ before all the universe but Christ’s blood satisfied the wrath of God. Also, God put forward Christ as an atoning sacrifice for our sins to demonstrate that He is righteous. He passed over sins previously committed prior to the cross of Christ. God’s forbearance might cause people to think: “Is God really a just God? Why is He not punishing sin?” Thus, He demonstrated that He still is just, righteous, and holy at the proper time wherein He poured out the full weight of His wrath against sin on His Son Jesus Christ.

In verse 26 of Romans 3, it states that God passed over their sins to demonstrate His righteousness. The purpose of God why He allowed sin to be left unpunished by the full extent of His wrath is for His Son to be the object of His wrath because it’s only Jesus who completely absorb God’s wrath. So, we  can say that the reason why God overlooked sins previously committed before the cross of Christ is because it’s the plan of God to prove His righteousness by pouring His wrath on Jesus Christ on behalf of us.

God treated Christ as though He treated us.

God punished Christ as though He punished us.

And He’s just in doing so for Christ took the sins of His people.

God sent His Son – Jesus so that He’d still be just. That is He didn’t leave sin unpunished but He poured His wrath on His Son when Christ bear the sins of His people in His body. He’s not only just but He is also the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ. How can God justify the ungodly? God declared as righteous the sinner who has faith in Christ because through faith in Christ the righteousness of God was transferred to the account of the ungodly who trusts in Christ.

At the cross, there’s a double transfer that happened. The sins of God’s people are transferred or laid upon Christ. Thereby, causing God to be pleased in crushing Christ by the full extent of God’s wrath. Christ propitiated God’s wrath. Christ took away from us the anger of God by His blood. He satisfied God’s anger by His atoning sacrifice. This is the first part of the transfer.

If there’s just only one part of the transfer then Jesus would’ve gone out to the cross and died in behalf of us for our sins to save us from the wrath of God. Why did He not do it? That’s because it’s the life of Christ that causes us to be righteous before God. Jesus did not only die in behalf of us for our sins to save us from the wrath of God. He also lived a life of perfect obedience to God. He kept the law perfectly and did not break anyone of it. He never had an impure thought, never said any false accusation and slandered anyone, and never did anything wrong in the eyes of God. He met the perfect standard of God. He’s the only One who measured up to the standard of God. This makes Him a sufficient substitute for us. Not only that – Jesus earned what we could never earn – perfect righteousness. And this is the righteousness that God transfers in the account of the ungodly through faith. That is, faith is the instrument upon which we receive the righteousness of Christ. That’s why God justifies the ungodly. God sees that the ungodly are clothed in the robe of perfect righteousness of Jesus. That’s why God declares them righteous. That’s why God justifies them.

If you’ve never come to Christ by faith. Come to Him. He’ll never cast you away. He’ll give you rest – eternal rest.

Soli Deo Gloria.